National Service will be compulsory, so it becomes a rite of passage for every 18-year-old, but young people will be given a choice, between:
civic service. The equivalent of one weekend a month (25 days a year) volunteering in the community, alongside work or study, for a year.
Roles could include special constable, NHS responder or RNLI volunteer;
or military service. A year-long full-time placement in the armed forces or cyber defence.
This placement will be competitive and paid, so our armed forces recruit and train the brightest and the best.
It will be backed by funding rising to £2.5 billion in the final year of the Parliament and a new National Service Act.
We believe in giving young people the best possible start to their adult lives and going to university is not the only route to success.
The Conservatives have prioritised apprenticeships after they were neglected under Labour.
Since 2010, we have delivered 5.8 million apprenticeships
and have created apprenticeship routes into 70% of occupations, including through degree apprenticeships.
We passed new laws requiring children to be taught about technical education opportunities, not just university routes,
and have set up 21 Institutes of Technology.
Courses that have excessive drop-out rates or leave students worse off than had they not gone to university will be prevented from recruiting students by the universities regulator.
This will protect students from being missold and the taxpayer from having to pay where the graduate can’t.
And we will work with universities to ensure students get the contact hours they are promised and their exams get marked.
We will deliver the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, giving adults the support they need to train, retrain and upskill flexibly throughout their working lives.
From the 2025 academic year, adults will be able to apply for loans to cover new qualifications.
The world is an increasingly dangerous place so we will take bold action to keep the British people safe and our homeland secure.
Our prosperity depends on our ability to preserve international security.
As our record proves, we will do so by deterring our adversaries
and acting as a force for peace and stability in the world.
We will fully deliver our new pledge for the defence of the nation.
This is the biggest strengthening of our defence since the Cold War, ensuring we remain the largest defence power in Europe.
It will protect our security,
cement our UK leadership in NATO
and create more jobs in the UK.
If all NATO partners spent 2.5% of GDP on defence, our collective spending would increase by over £140 billion.
Therefore, we will launch a campaign to set a new baseline of 2.5% for all NATO allies by 2030.
We have led the world in support of Ukraine against Putin’s aggression, as the first European country to mobilise lethal aid and to send Western tanks and longrange missiles.
Russia’s attempts to destroy Ukraine are an assault on European security.
We have taken action to prevent Iran and its proxies from attacking the UK and its partners.
We have toughened our cyber defences and national security laws to protect the nation from terrorists and hostile state actors.
We have chased dirty money out of the UK with new measures to protect our economic security.
We have ripped out Huawei from key parts of our telecommunications system
and reduced Chinese influence in our critical national infrastructure and sensitive technological sectors.
Due to our post-Brexit freedoms, we have introduced a new independent sanctions regime that we have used to stand up for human rights around the world in countries such as Russia, Belarus and Iran.
We have agreed new trade and security deals across the world including in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Indo-Pacific.
We have delivered major new investment.
The Integrated Review was supported by an additional £24 billion
and the Integrated Review Refresh by an additional £5 billion to invest in stockpiles and our nuclear enterprise.
We have pledged over £12 billion to date on support to Ukraine.
We have created new defence industrial partnerships, including AUKUS to create the world’s most advanced nuclearpowered, conventionally and continually armed, submarines
and the Global Combat Air Programme to create a new fighter jet with Italy and Japan .
We will always stand up for British values and interests and will never be afraid to act when it is necessary.
We have been part of a coalition that protected maritime security from Houthi attacks and helped police the airspace of our partners in the Middle East.
We will adapt to the lessons from the war in Ukraine which showed us it is vital to be able to replenish equipment quickly
and that the acceleration of disruptive technologies is changing the character of warfare.
We will do this in the areas in which we have the most pressing priorities, building on UK expertise.
We will build long-term strategic partnerships with our industrial partners
and invest in high quality British defence industry jobs across the UK.