UUP candidate rejects Tory 'national service' plans saying Army has more diversity groups than tanks

The retired Army colonel was responding to a proposal by the Conservatives to introduce a national service scheme for young people which would involve a choice between military or non-military options.

Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme, Mr Collins said: “I feel sorry for that cohort of 18 year olds at the moment that people who've been through COVID. They've lost education through that. And increasingly people go into tunnelled worlds with their handheld devices and introducing people to the open world and making them good neighbours would be a good thing. But this particular plant I think is a is a policy out of desperation”.

Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker publicly criticised the way the policy had been "sprung" on Tory candidates. He suggested had it been a government policy rather than a Tory proposal, he would have had a say because of the particular sensitives around military service in Northern Ireland.

“The government that knows that their field. It is fascinating that they did not consult the Northern Ireland office. From what Steve Baker says it is fascinating that the Northern Ireland Office Minister is saying that in normal circumstances, if this had been a plan by a government, he would have been contacted and has been dreamed up by political advisors”, the North Down candidate said.

Asked by presenter Chris Buckler if the scheme is something that Northern Ireland should have been consulted about, the retired colonel said “Of course, because Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, and if the minister wasn't consulted, it is another indication that this was a policy thought up on the run, tossed out there to try and patch a hole in a government that's lost the confidence of the country and actually has lost the confidence of many of its own MPs who are rushing like rats off a sinking ship. They're struggling at the moment and this is a sign of desperation in my view”.

He said that because of the Ukraine war – the British military was already depleted. “The British Ministry of Defence has more diversity groups than it has working challenger to tanks, fixing some of the tanks and getting them back in there. That's a higher priority. There's many, many other things that need to be done. If you get conscript recruits you get them for a year, they're not very much used to because we need a long term sustained professional army”.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood told the BBC the Tory proposals are “offensive”.

The Foyle MP said: “this is a Tory government who doesn't understand what [young people are] going through. And now they're going to say ‘by the way, I know you've used up your Saturday to try to pay for your education to try to get you through the week. We're going to take that away from you, or we're going to put you in a community group’. By the way that same very community group, we stripped their funding for to pay for you to be a volunteer. It's utter nonsense”.