The Government is aiming to achieve full employment with legislation to help create two million new jobs and three million new apprenticeships.

Under a Full Employment and Welfare Benefits Bill, new duties will require ministers to report every year on job creation and apprenticeships.

Young people will be offered support to gain skills and experience as part of the jobs drive, and there will be a statutory duty to report on how the Government is achieving its objective of having the highest employment rate in the G7 group of countries.

The Bill also sets out plans to freeze most working-age benefits, tax credits and child benefit for two years from 2016-17.

Pensioners and benefits relating to the additional costs of disability would be protected, as well as statutory payments relating to maternity, paternity and adoption pay.

The new legislation would lower the benefit cap so the total amount of benefits a non-working family can receive in a year would be £23,000.

Unemployment has been falling steadily, with private firms creating jobs as posts are cut in the public sector, but all sides of industry continue to voice concern about youth joblessness.

The Coalition Government started a drive to boost apprenticeships, which the new administration is continuing.

Latest figures show that unemployment is 1.8 million, down by 386,000 over the past year, while employment has reached a record high of 31 million.

Chris Jones, chief executive of the City & Guilds Group, said: " The enthusiasm for reaching three million apprenticeships underscores the importance of vocational training for people up and down the country.

"However, numbers don't mean anything unless apprenticeships offer a quality teaching and learning experience for every apprentice. If reaching targets becomes more important than ensuring quality, apprenticeships could lose their credibility and the progress we've made so far will be undone."

Javed Khan, chief executive of Barnardo's, said: " With a deeply unequal labour market leaving young people shouldering triple the unemployment of older workers, plans to sever the benefits of the youngest and most marginalised seem extraordinarily high risk.

"The vulnerable young people that Barnardo's works with say they struggle to get a single job or apprenticeship interview because the entry requirements are too high.

"Government must not just fund 'more of the same' apprenticeships whilst making it financially unviable for youngsters to look for work. This will do little to address these inequalities."