National Service Act 1948

National Service Act 1948

Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to consolidate the National Service Acts, 1939 to 1947, and the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act, 1944, so far as that Act applies to persons called up for national service after the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and forty-eight.
Citation	11 & 12 Geo. 6. c. 64
Dates
Royal assent	30 July 1948
Other legislation
Repeals/revokes	National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939 National Service Act 1941 National Service (No. 2) Act 1941 National Service Act 1942 National Service Act 1947 Royal Marines Act 1948
Text of statute as originally enacted

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The National Service Act 1948 (11 & 12 Geo. 6. c. 64) was an Act of Parliament which extended the British conscription of the Second World War long after the war-time need for it had expired, in the form of "National Service". After a bill with the same purpose had been approved in 1947, expected to be implemented 1 January 1949, the Cold War and the Malayan Emergency caused a revised and extended version of the new legislation to be approved in December 1948, only days before the new arrangements came into force.^[1]

The act had much in common with the National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939, which it superseded, but its aim was to continue National Service even at times when the country was not at war. The National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939 had not addressed this issue.

The National Service Act 1948 applied to all healthy young men (women did not have to do National Service) who were not registered as conscientious objectors. It did not affect the exemption from service of registered conscientious objectors, nor the procedure for registration.