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Cleverly told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that no-one would be “compelled” to do the military national services, and they they could instead participate in the civil elements.
These could include a range of things: uniform public service such as special constable, on call fire fighter, emergency health responder, environmental protection, he said.
He insisted it was fully funded, and the military elements had been discussed with senior military leaders.
It was “a modern approach” to National Service, he said.
Asked by Trevor Phillips why the election had been called when not all Tory candidates had been selected, home secretary James Cleverly said the selection process will be going on.
Of the timing, he said “economic indicators” were “moving in right direction”.
Tory candidate selection ahead of the general election will happen “very, very quickly,” he insisted, as parties rush to stand candidates in seats across the country.
“There will be lots of places where the selections were just on the verge of happening. I can name a whole load of them… That will happen very very quickly.”
The home secretary said parties “always” have to carry out selections “up until the last minute” and insisted there was “nothing particularly unusual about that”.
Home secretary James Cleverly said 18-year-olds would not be jailed if they refuse to carry out “mandatory” national service under Tory plans.
Asked on Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme whether the consequences of resisting the compulsory scheme could involve a prison term, he said: “No, there’s going to be no criminal sanction. There’s no one going to jail over this.”
He said in other countries with similar schemes there is a “very, very wide scope, take-up, acceptance and enthusiasm for this”.
The Conservatives would want to make sure the programme “fits with different people’s attitudes and aspirations.”
He added: “The broader point about this national service is that we want to build a society where people mix with people outside their own communities, mix with people from different backgrounds, different religions, different income levels.
“And some of it is about utility to the armed service. That’s part of it, but the bulk of this is about helping build a cohesive society where people mix outside their bubble, whether it’s through military service, other uniformed service or non-uniformed.”
He added: “This is about dealing with social fragmentation, too many young people live in a bubble within their own communities.”
Asked if this was a move to attract potential Reform voters, he said: “What we are motivated by is making sure we have a cohesive society.”
Good morning and welcome to our daily politics liveblog.
The headline this morning is that Rishi Sunak has announced that a future Conservative government would bring back mandatory national service.
Under the plan the prime minister said that every 18-year-old would have to spend time in a competitive, full-time military commission or spend one weekend a month volunteering in “civil resilience”.
The Tories said the scheme would be part-funded through a £1bn tax avoidance clampdown and £1.5bn currently spent on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Labour has criticised the idea as another uncosted policy from the Tories, who have already raised the prospect of tax cuts they have yet to fund. “This is another desperate, £2.5bn unfunded commitment from a Tory party which already crashed the economy, sending mortgages rocketing, and now they’re spoiling for more,” said a spokesperson.
In other headlines:
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves accuses the Tories of making £64bn of unfunded spending commitments in a “desperate and reckless” effort to rescue their gaffe-strewn general election campaign. Speaking to the Observer, Reeves said that what appeared to be pledges to slash taxes – including national insurance, income tax and inheritance tax – were reminiscent of Liz Truss’s catastrophic mini-budget and showed the Conservatives had learned nothing from her disastrous time at No 10.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson will be out of the country for most of the election campaign but will help from afar, friends have told the Sunday Telegraph. Johnson, who has ruled out standing as an MP this election, has a series of pre-arranged trips over the coming weeks which he will not be cancelling.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has pledged to tackle the “cultural rot that places protecting the reputation of the NHS above protecting the public” and says that patient care is not good enough. Writing for The Sunday Times, Streeting warns that the NHS is broken and promises “reformation of the national religion”.
The deputy leader of Scottish Labour said she was taking “nothing for granted” after a poll suggested the party is poised for huge gains north of the border at the general election. Jackie Baillie said: “We are moving in the right direction but I always approach elections with respect … We have our candidates out there, knocking on as many doors as they can. We started last year with maybe six target seats and now we have considerably more than that.
John Swinney has said the SNP will stand against the “twin threats” of austerity and privatisation, as his party campaigns on public services. The SNP will seek to focus on investing in the NHS and other public services over the coming week of general election campaigning.