Lisa Nandy, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Civil Society, commenting on the Tory volunteering announcement said:

 “This is a re-announcement from David Cameron that has unravelled before it’s even been made.

“Giving every public servant three extra days off could cost millions of pounds but there’s no sense of how it will be paid for. If just half of public sector workers took this up it would be the time equivalent of around 2,000 nurses, 800 police and almost 3,000 teachers.

“And we’ve been here before. Before the last election David Cameron made promise after promise about volunteering as part of his so-called big idea the ‘Big Society’ - he made this same promise in 2008 when he said he wanted to give public servants time off. Since then this has become just another broken promise with volunteering falling under the Tories.

“The Tories have nothing to offer working people.”