Business welcomed a £1.4bn Tory plan yesterday to create 100,000 more apprenticeships and shake up further education, but warned about the impact of the proposal to finance the initiative by diverting funding from -training.

David Cameron hailed his party's skills green paper as particularly important, saying it was "one of the areas where the social agenda and the economic agenda come together". The Tories asserted there was a correlation between the growth in "Neets" - people not in education, employment or training - and social breakdown, arguing people with a job were more likely to be able to hold down a relationship.