Children as young as 11 should be taught to manage money, calculate rates of interest and balance a budget to prevent levels of debt from worsening, the Conservatives said yesterday.

George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, told an industry conference on debt hosted by the party that action was needed urgently to address spiralling rates of personal indebtedness.

He expressed concern that people were being advised to sign unsuitable individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs) to regulate the repayment of their debts and called for an inquiry into whether some companies were marketing these inappropriately.

The meeting was the third self-styled “debt summit” called by the Tories this year, indicating the priority attached by the party to curbing levels of personal debt. Leading figures from the financial services industry, consumer protection bodies and charities were among those attending.

Mr Osborne said that individuals must take responsibility for their borrowing, but businesses, too, must lend responsibly and act with integrity, while the Government’s role was to promote financial education and regulate proportionately where necessary.

He proposed that financial literacy be taught in schools to children between the ages of 11 and 18. Present government policy of adding this to the GCSE maths curriculum was a step in the right direction but inadequate, he said. “Government could and should be doing much more to promote financial literacy teaching in our schools,” Mr Osborne said.

He admitted that this was an aspiration for the Conservatives in government, rather than a firm commitment, and was careful not to commit extra spending to it, saying that such lessons should be funded from existing resources.

Citizens Advice had agreed to work with the party to achieve such a goal and the expertise of similar bodies, such as Advice UK, a network of free advice centres, and indpendent financial advisers would be needed, he said.

The Conservatives also announced that they had asked the Advertising Standards Authority to investigate whether some companies encouraging people struggling with debts to sign IVAs were in breach of its advertising code. Mr Osborne said: “Like many consumer groups and banks, I am concerned that people may be being encouraged by unscrupulous IVA companies to commit to IVAs, even where this may not be the right course of action.

“And I’m also concerned that companies aren’t always properly informing their customers about the fees they charge for arranging an IVA, or about the adverse effects of IVAs on credit ratings.”

In another potentially controversial move, he proposed a seven-day cooling-off period for shoppers taking out store cards, forcing consumers to wait for a week before making a purchase with such cards to prevent impulse buying worsening debts.

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