For a fraction of the cost of HS2 the government could massively expand the size of the army and increase their level of training in construction/other useful trades electrical etc and enlist their newly paid for skills for the use of the government.
Dependent on the level of training, this could include the using the army to create for example the proposed bridge to northern ireland, the building of the new london airport in river etc. new tunnels and large projects could be done with army resources for a far lower fee than the contractors currently extract.
This increases the viability of mega projects and even things like building nuclear power stations.
Other knock on benefits are that after their time in the army they can use these skills as civilians. Removing the other issues had with training of tradesman.
I concur, this will help those of the Forces to be able to reintegrate back into society even better if they are put to construct at the same time as serve, qualifications and whatnot.
There are many sources that show a lot of people who leave the Forces in their own country, even like the US, that they say “We enlisted, we were broken down, and brought back up as soldiers, but nobody trained us to be civilians” and its a big flaw in the system.
Allow them to further learn, further reintegrate. I know the UK does offer some things for those that leave, but we still hear of the issue over here, so more should be done until nobody ends up saying it.
Why does this rely on expanding the army? While I agree that non-tradesmen in military service, in particular the army, need additional training before leaving, I can see no reason for a massive number of skilled tradesmen/women to be in the army. That would include feeding, clothing and housing them and, presumably, teaching them to fight. A carpenter who can strip, reassemble and use a machine makes as much sense as a worker in McDonalds with a degree in Comparative Art. And they aren’t proving to be very successful. An initiative of apprenticeships with perhaps two years technical college training at the start, with some of the financial loans - albeit, much smaller - taken out by university students would achieve the same thing at much lower cost. However, these courses and options should be open to ex service personnel perhaps in a similar way to the US GI Bill.
This is not an argument for the state never doing anything.
If you’re already spending on having armed forces, then putting them to good use is a good idea. Unless you plan to abolish the army and have national defence done by private contractors.
