Does the Tory Party hate young people? Home Secretary quizzed on LBC

Home Secretary, thank you very much for joining us this morning, obviously, the fourth day of the newspaper campaign, w

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ver is dominated by the idea of ​​national service that you have presented, what problem are you trying to solve exactly well ? One of the things we've seen is I think there's a fragmentation across the country, so many

people

, especially

young

people

, living within their bubble for a better word and we see the implications of that with a kind of crudeness in the national debate and conversations and what we're looking to do is find ways to bring people together, which is why the manda

tory

element is so important because we want to make sure that whether you come from a very wealthy background or a less wealthy family, regardless of your class and race. your religion, your geography, to participate in this kind of shared effort and hopefully this will also spur a generation of people who maintain a lifelong commitment to volunteering, that would be fantastic too, so there is a phenomenon that we have seen increase . uh, and we want to take steps to reverse that.

What is the evidence that this particularly afflicts

young

people? I mean, the rudeness you're talking about affects the entire population. I mean, I do an LBC show. I hear a lot of very rude older people calling. Me, maybe we should extend manda

tory

national service to them. Well, the point is, um, we, we, like I say, we're trying to build a multi-generational habit and we're planning for the future, we have a plan for the future, this is part of it. It is about making bold decisions for the long-term benefit of society as a whole. This is part of it.

I loved my time in the reserve forces and there is obviously a military element to this national service. The military element will be. voluntary, accepting the national service plan will be mandatory, but the military part will be voluntary. I thought the Home Secretary's conservatism was about freedom, it's not really about freedom, there really isn't much freedom to force adults to do something they don't want to do. Conservatism is not and has never been about Le Fair, what it is about is having a plan to confront the challenges that society and conservatives have always made and what we are saying is that, as I say, the element military.

It will be competitive, but people would need to volunteer to do that part, but overall it's about making sure we have a close-knit society that is comfortable in its own skin and maintains the wonderful diversity that makes our country so great. It is to protect what we value and that is right at the heart of Conservative philosophy. How long has the Prime Minister been convinced of the merits of national service? Minister of the Interior. I was looking at Hansard this morning. I can't find a single reference to his words. about national service or conscription in Parliament not once, when, when, when did you talk to him about it, when when did he become convinced of it, so as a

party

we have had a conversation in various forms about this for quite some time , when I was at City Hall back in 2008 we had a project called Time for Action, which was an agreement that was about youth policy in London and supporting voluntary youth groups and uniformed youth groups was part of which we were the

party

that introduced the National Citizens Service.

So this is part of a long process and it was the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor who cut funding for the national citizen service by 2 thirds. So if he thought citizen service for young people was a good idea, why did he cut its funding? so substantially well, one of the things the Prime Minister had to do was make difficult and bold decisions to ensure that the public finances were balanced and, as we have seen during his tenure as Chancellor, he brought in furs to protect livelihoods and lives during covid and took tough measures that have seen our inflation levels now drop from over 11% to normal so you are very aware that the right decisions need to be made at the right time, well maybe it was because it was a failure, I mean, it was deduced that the national citizen service followed an independent investigation and found that the scheme did not systematically meet the government's objectives, delivered good value for money.

Executives were receiving six-figure salaries despite dwindling youth participation, and one former board member said the program was little more. than to cite a holiday camp for mostly middle class kids, why would his plan be better than that? because everyone will be involved. There were some really good ideas underpinning national citizen service, but what really makes this national service plan different and what I think it will be. What's really key is that everyone will be involved and it won't just be for the kids in class. average, it will be for everyone and the rich will mix with the less rich, people of different religions will mix with each other, people of different uh. backgrounds different points of view different policies They will all mix with each other and we will remind ourselves that we have much more in common remind ourselves why this is uh, I have no doubt, uh, you, I have no hesitation in saying that the United Kingdom is the best country in the world. world and we want to preserve it.

In that way, that's what we want to preserve and we preserve it by addressing what we've seen unfortunately is this type of fragmentation that has driven social friction and we seek to address that, what if you don't want to do it? You, if you are 18, said I don't want to volunteer. I don't want to join the army. I have other plans. What will happen? So, it will be mandatory. We will see what the appropriate response will be. arrested that no, there is not going to be a criminal sanction for this and then where will the compulsion come from?

So, well, in the same way that, you know, people are forced to be in educational training between 16 and 18 there are many structures where, but it's not then that your parents, your parents will face a sanction if you don't send send your children to school, in this case you will be an adult, so what's wrong with you? It is not a criminal sanction. Also, what we have decided to do is make sure that, as we want this to continue, we don't want this to be a political football match, we are going to bring forward a royal commission that will make sure that The details, those sort of balancing details, They are clearly thought out and depoliticized so this will endure, but this follows the example of several other countries where they have a mix of military but predominantly non-military.

National, will you get paid if you're doing the volunteer part, if you're doing the military part, will you get paid if you're doing the non-military part, you won't, which most young people will be because the military part is quite small. So you're going to have to work for free when you're Al, you're going to have to work for free. The military part will be a one-year commitment. The non-military part will be 25 days over a year, which we normally plan to split into two parts of the day, there may be other structures and again the royal commission.

If you're 18 you can go and join the police, you can become a prison officer, so you're a newly appointed police officer or a prison officer or w

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ver. prison guard, by law you will have to give up a small part of your free time to do this and work for free. Well, I know a lot of police officers, a lot of soldiers, a lot of people who work in public service and who also volunteer their time. volunteer because volunteering means you want to do it, not that you're obligated to do it for free, but Lou, the point we're making is that a really important element of this is that mixing with people outside your traditional society, what is that? ? what

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it have to do with you, Secretary of the Interior, you are a conservative government, you are a conservative, you leave people alone to live their own lives, you talk about the Nan State, which is the last Nanny State, telling the people who they should mix with because I deal with the repercussions of social fragmentation when we have protests on the streets of London where different groups of people are Gaza have lost the habit of talking to each other they have lost the habit of respecting different political views Me I deal with the implications of that and where there is an opportunity to remedy that, of course, it is right that we take that opportunity and if people say they don't want to take this course of action, good choices are about options and The party even now, that would be the alternative governing party, perhaps supported by others, but I don't see that the probable alternative governing party has presented any problems in addressing this fragmentation in society, so we have a plan. and the plan is designed to make sure that we do everything we can to address these fractures and, um, why is it always young people who are at the forefront of your policies?

Home Secretary, I mean, can you understand if you are a young person. You could be forgiven for thinking that the Conservative party

does

n't like me very much. You know, you triple his tuition. You triple, well, let me finish. You triple their tuition fees. You took away their right to go to work and study. Europe unimpeded, did not adequately fund its educational pandemic recovery plan because its prime minister, when he was chancellor, said he did not want to find the money, but now he has found the money to force them to go and do something when they need it.

To be adults on the weekends or to force them to join the army, the conservative party has always been a party that has had a long-term plan for the country. We are investing in young people. We are trying to address some. of the challenges some of the difficulties that young people face. I talk a lot with young people. I've always done my first role in politics was in youth politics at London City Council and when you heard people say when I was in London. I heard people say they didn't mix with kids from the next zip code.

You can do one of two things you can do. Retirees don't do that. The Home Secretary's retirees don't mix with people from the next postcode. That doesn't mean you're forcing them to go and mix with the people you can, you can, you know, if you're asking me questions, I'm just trying to explore the logic of this at

home

, so I'm wondering why it's the young people specifically. On the sharp edge, this is something that we are investing young people in, we do it and that all the time our educational structure is about investing in young people and investing in young people is a smart move and it is a smart move not . only for the here and now, but in the long term because it once again stimulates lifelong habits.

This is something that I have no doubt about because in the other countries that we have looked at that do this it is very, very popular. Parents in the scheme particularly are very interested in their children being involved in this type of thing. You're making it sound like a negative thing. This is a POS positive and a big positive and I'm actually a little surprised that you and some. others seem to be upset at the idea of ​​investing £2.5bn in this country's future generations. Well, some people might say,

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land security, that 2.5 billion would have been better spent on the pandemic recovery plan, but I just want to move on to yours, what's the question, no, I'm just saying there are a lot of people like part of the political debate that they might well think the money could be better used, but anyway I just want to ask you about yours.

Secretary of the Interior area, which is of course small boats and the border, obviously Rwanda is going to be a big part of this campaign, is Rwanda's plan, will there be flights to Rwanda before the general elections? Well, the Prime Minister has said that the first flights to Rwanda are scheduled for just after the general election, we are still doing the preparatory work for that, we have not paused, that the Labor party has said that they will scrap the plan despite that we have invested in the infrastructure to be able to develop in Rwanda and although we are moving forward with the plan, Rwanda will be part of a series of measures that we are proposing, including the small boat operational command that already exists, is operational and is already carrying out a multi-agency job. and is already renting with European law enforcement agencies, Labour's big plan for migration is, as far as I can understand, to change the name of the organization that General Duncan already commands, doing exactly what they said they would do with your new frontier. command or whatever they call it, then they are suggesting that they are going to do less than what we are doing and we recognize that this is a challenge, it is a challenge that European countries and other countries around the world face and we are not claiming that it is easy, but It is necessary to have a number of elements, including a deterrent element, because people cannot be returned to Syria.

You can't give people back. I got it and I know that's the argument. I just want to clarifythat we don't know for sure. We do not know that there is no country like Rwanda to send them to work, there will inevitably have to be an amnesty. I'm going to ask them about that. I'm going to ask him about that on today's show. Minister of the Interior, Fe, no. I just wanted to clarify and confirm. You don't know, you don't know, you can't guarantee that there will be a flight taking off before general election day, July 4, no, we've said it. there is not going to be one there is not going to be one so there is no chance of that happening what we are what we are saying isWe are working on flights immediately after the general election, the only, the planning, the operations, the operations, we continue working closely with the Rwandans who are the recipient nation and the process that a Labor government would follow. shut down all that work and a Conservative government would make sure those flights take off immediately after the general election and finally, Home Secretary on net migration, obviously we saw numbers this week not as high as last year, but still very, very very high by historical standards, when can we expect there to be another Conservative government, so by then it will have been in office for almost 20 years, at the end of the next Parliament, what kind of numbers do you want them to return to?

What are we talking about? to the hundreds of thousands that were before Brexit, less than the tens of thousands, what kind of number they should be, so it's worth bearing in mind that part of the reason, not all, but part of the reason why The fact that our legal migration numbers have increased significantly is due to the work we have done hosting Ukrainian refugees, that counts against the numbers and the very, very important and generous offer we made to a British Chinese citizen from Hong Kong so they could come to the UK and move. from China because of the oppression they were feeling from the Chinese state, and that's part of the reason why there are other things that have led to higher numbers than we're comfortable with, so immediately after being named I took action and as you said in your introductory question, those numbers are now going down, we have a plan to continue to reduce them, but you must remember that the Labor Party, which is, as I say, the alternative proposition in this election, has voted over 130 times against everyone. our border control measures opposed the changes we made to the Visa regime, which have seen those numbers decrease, and yet in this election they will try to claim that they are a party committed to reducing migration, where none of their actions reinforces that statement and in the elections I think the Labor Party has a duty to be open and honest and there really is a lack of honesty whether in small craft command or border command where they are not honest about the fact that already exists when they claim to be the party that wants to control migration when they voted against every immigration measure we proposed, they are simply not being honest about this incredibly important issue.

No, no one claims it is simple, but we are implementing it. a plan and the Labor party does not have one Home Secretary grateful for your time thank you very much Thank you very much