A BBC Question Time audience member has called for the return of national service amid a row over conscription.
The former RAF serviceman suggested a period of two years and said people would come out trained for jobs.
His contribution came as tonight’s show in Gillingham debated whether the UK should be preparing for another world war.
The audience member said: “I joined the RAF when I was 16 and I just missed conscription but I think we should bring back conscriptions.”
Host Fiona Bruce then asked: “Do you mean national service?”
He went on: “National service, two years. A lot of other countries have only just got rid of it, Spain still has it I believe.
“But you then have trained men, they’ve trained in jobs, they’ve trained to protect the country, you are looking to the future.
“At the moment if you speak to a lot of ex-servicemen they’re all saying the same thing.
“We’re too old to do it now but if we got the call to go back we would all go back.”
It comes after comments made by General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing Chief of the General Staff (CGS), were interpreted as suggesting that conscription could be required in any potential future battle with Russia due to the British Army being too small.
Sir Patrick, in a speech at the International Armoured Vehicles conference in south-west London on Wednesday, said Britain should “train and equip” a “citizen army” to ready the country for a potential land war.
But No 10 ruled out any suggestion that conscription was under consideration, saying there were “no plans” to change the British military’s “proud tradition of being a voluntary force”.
National service was abolished in the UK in 1960 with the last national serviceman discharged in 1963.
