Attacks on funding for adult education must be reversed to save Britain from a skills shortage, lecturers' union UCU warned yesterday.

More 16 to 24-year-olds lack basic skills compared to other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

England came 22nd for literacy and 21st for numeracy in an OECD study of 24 of its members. Northern Ireland fared only slightly better.