DAVID CAMERON proposed a voluntary “National Service” scheme for school-leavers yesterday as his battle for the Conservative leadership with David Davis entered the final week.

The front-runner is to hold talks with community groups, the Armed Forces and teacher unions about a programme that would bring young people together for a few months to do some form of service and help to prepare them for the responsibilities of adult life.

The aim would be to enable them to meet people from different backgrounds and to learn about life in different communities. Mr Davis, meanwhile, seized on a report that Gordon Brown is to keep future public spending rises below the rate of growth as a vindication of his economic plans, which he has said would create scope for big cuts in taxation.

Mr Davis said that his proposals would release £38 billion a year, equivalent to £1,200 per family, into lower taxes after four years of Conservative government.

In a rare dig at his rival he said that Mr Cameron had said only that he wanted to share the proceeds of economic growth between higher spending and lower taxes, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies had described as meaningless.

Announcing his national school-leaver programme, Mr Cameron said: “Those voices who are warning us about the dangers of ghettoisation in our country and a disintegrating sense of national cohesion are absolutely right. We need to bring people together and bring Britain together. The best way of bringing people together is to enable them to do things together.

“I am always struck when asking anyone of my father’s generation who did National Service by the fact that they tend to reply in a similar way. It was something we all did together — irrespective of who we were, where we lived, where we came from or what god we worshipped.”

Mr Cameron said that university was the closest equivalent, with each campus a melting pot mixing together all the elements of the country. But more could be done. “I want us to debate what form this new national movement could take.

“We should involve young people in the creation of the movement, to make sure it is relevant and inspiring and not a dull, worthy creation. Above all we should view it as something for every young person in our country, an essential part of growing up to be a British citizen.”

Mr Cameron’s front-runner status was underlined by a £200,000 bet on him being named leader next Tuesday, said by bookmakers William Hill to be the largest political wager ever taken. At odds of just 1-25 on, the mystery punter stands to win only £8,000 if he is proved right.

Times Recommends

• An officer and a gentle woman
• Dame Helen Mirren is worthy of the Epidaurus
• Foods that can help to prevent swine flu