A Labour MP has urged the Welsh government and Westminster to agree to bring National Citizen Service to Wales. 

Chris Elmore, MP for Bridgend, was speaking at a fringe event at the Labour Party Conference this week, where he said that the government-funded National Citizen Service scheme for young people, which operates in England, would be “ideal” for Wales. 

Wales had previously rejected funding for the scheme, saying that it already funded other youth volunteering programmes.

It ran a pilot in the autumn of 2014 and a review was published in March 2016. It concluded that while there was support for the scheme there was “overlap” with other schemes but the “majority of respondents felt that there was future potential for an NCS like programme in Wales”. 

Elmore said that Wales lacked a co-ordinated national plan for youth services and that many local councils had been forced to cut funding for youth centres. He said: “Any services that are there are voluntary and are funded through the third sector.” 

He said this meant that meant young people could become “isolated” and that “NCS would be ideal for us”.

“It is for the Welsh government and the UK to work through these issues and work out how they can deliver a service for young people,” he said.