Rishi Sunak threatens National Service refusal penalties

Rishi Sunak threatened to revoke young people’s driving licenses and ‘access to finance’ as possible sanctions for refusing national service.

Rishi Sunak – who said it would be ‘politicising the armed forces during an election campaign’ to respond to criticism of his policy – suggested a Conservative government would look at models ‘existing around Europe’ to decide the details.

Mr Sunak said: ‘We will have a set of sanctions and incentives and we will look at the models that are existing around Europe to get the appropriate mix of those.

‘There’s a range of different options that exist. There’s all sorts of things that people do across Europe, whether that’s looking at driving licenses, all the access to finance all sorts of other things the right thing to do.’

The Prime Minister insisted the military route was optional, despite the proposed national service scheme being compulsory.

Rishi Sunak (pictured) suggested a Conservative government would look at models ‘existing around Europe’ to decide the details

The Prime Minister insisted the military route was optional, despite the proposed national service scheme being compulsory (file image) 

When asked about what sanctions people could face for not taking part, Mr Sunak pointed to ‘access to finance’ among other examples (file image) 

Lord West of Spithead, a former chief of the naval staff and Labour peer, is reported to have called the national service policy ‘bonkers’ (file image) 

When asked about what sanctions people could face for not taking part, Mr Sunak pointed to ‘access to finance’ among other examples.

Asked if this meant taking away people’s bank cards, he laughed, and said: ‘There’s lot of different models around Europe.’

On Wednesday Mr Sunak said his two daughters were ‘excited’ about the prospect of national service.

But Lord West of Spithead, a former chief of the naval staff and Labour peer, is reported to have called the policy ‘bonkers’.