Conservatives propose multi-million pound careers service

Shadow Innovation, Universities and Skills Secretary David Willetts also said his party would introduce a database to help apprentices who lose their jobs in the recession and publish the outcomes of graduates from different universities to give potential students more information.

Willetts told delegates at the North of England Education Conference that the recession posed risks for young people not in education, employment or training and for apprentices.

"There are apprentices halfway through their apprenticeships who face the double disaster of losing their job and their training as their employer goes bust," he said.

Willetts said the quality of careers advice had declined since Connexions replaced the Careers Service in 2000, and that not enough apprentices were moving on to higher education.

He proposed a £180m independent all-age service "giving information about the most appropriate mix of A-levels for individual students, rather than the A-levels that would most aid the school's league table standing."

And he said the Conservatives would quadruple the number of apprentices entering higher education through a bursary scheme.