A furious row erupted last night after First Minister Alex Salmond delivered a massive snub to the first big election campaign idea from Tory leader David Cameron for a National Citizen Service of teenage volunteers.
Mr Salmond was accused by the Tories of “another example of the SNP putting petty party politics ahead of the interests of the young people of Scotland” after a Scottish Government spokesman said most of what Mr Cameron was proposing is already being done north of the border.
Tory plans to boost the number of youngsters engaging in work in the community won Mr Cameron – due to visit Aberdeen later today – the personal support of Oscar-winning actor Sir Michael Caine at his first set-piece press conference in London.
Mr Cameron announced his proposal to divert £50million from anti-extremism funding to pay for voluntary three-week character-building summer courses for 16-year-olds.
Sir Michael, star of Zulu, Alfie, the original The Italian Job and more recently Harry Brown, praised the plan as a replacement for the compulsory military service he was forced into when he was young, saying he would vote Conservative on May 6 and announced he believed Mr Cameron would be a “great” prime minister.
Mr Salmond did not personally respond to the proposals and left it to a Scottish Government spokesman to explain that everything Mr Cameron wanted his volunteers to do is already being done in Scotland through a host of successful schemes.
The spokesman said: “Young people in Scotland already have the opportunity through a number of channels supported by the Scottish Government to receive recognised awards for volunteering.”
He said the Scottish Government spent £11.5million supporting 32 volunteer centres including backing for the Millennium Volunteer Awards and £1.8million for Volunteer Development Scotland, showing it “is committed to building capacity in the voluntary youth sector to enable all Scotland’s young people to take advantage of the opportunities available to them”.
The brush-off followed Mr Cameron’s promise to treat the Scottish Government with “respect” in a bid to improve relations between London and Scotland if he becomes Prime Minister.
Mr Cameron said he wanted the scheme to replace getting drunk on your 18th birthday as a national “rite of passage” in the UK and for it to become something everyone wanted to do.
Under the proposals, teenagers would get together for team-building activities before helping out in their local community and then devising and putting into operation their own project to help others.
Sir Michael, who grew up in a poor area of south London, said he was speaking out in support as “a representative of all those youngsters that have been forgotten in this country”.
Perth and North Perthshire SNP MP Pete Wishart said: “The Scottish Government is quite right to look very cynically at this Conservative election ploy. Scottish youth have a number of fantastic opportunities for engaging in volunteering without the need to be drafted by David Cameron.
“We have some fantastic volunteer organisations and volunteering has always been a big part of reaching adult-hood in Scotland.”
Queen’s Guide Anne Begg, Labour MP for Aberdeen South, said: “This just shows David Cameron does not really know what is going on in Scotland.”
She said the thousands of pounds which have been raised for charity by pupils at Torry Academy in one of the poorest communities in Aberdeen showed what Scottish teenagers were capable of without Tory intervention.
Tory shadow Scottish secretary David Mundell said: “We are extremely disappointed the SNP government has refused to even consider the National Citizen Service and have rejected it only hours after it has been launched.
“We were hoping to work with the Scottish Government to see it introduced in Scotland. Thousands of Scottish youngsters will now miss out on a real opportunity and our society and our economy will also suffer.
“This is narrow nationalism at its worst. It is another example of the SNP putting petty party politics ahead of the interests of the young people of Scotland.”
Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey Liberal Democrat MP Danny Alexander, said: “The Conservatives are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think they can provide a National Citizen Service on the cheap.
“Once again the Tories have made an enormous spending commitment without the foggiest idea of how they’re going to pay for it.”