Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of Sweden's decision to reinstate civic duty for 18-year-olds, including training in emergency services and the maintenance of vital infrastructure, and of the similar model in Norway; and what consideration they have given, if any, to introducing a comparable model in the UK.

Resilience is a top priority for this government. Ministers and officials regularly engage with International partners to learn from and share good practice in relation to resilience. There are no current plans to replicate Sweden’s model of civic duty.

The UK already has many reservist programmes: these include programmes for the armed forces, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Mountain Rescue, Retained Firefighters, Coastguard volunteers, NHS volunteers and special constables.

The Government has set out its ambition for a whole of society approach to resilience in the Resilience Framework. The Deputy Prime Minister’s first annual statement to Parliament on resilience offered more detail on plans to build on the community spirit in our country and the willingness of individuals to volunteer in a crisis by developing an index of volunteering opportunities.

To support the broader training offer the Government has committed to the development of a UK Resilience Academy that will provide a full suite of learning and training opportunities for the whole of society.