Plans to raise the education or training leaving age have been put at the top of the government's legislative programme.

An Education and Skills Bill was given top billing in the Queen's speech on Tuesday, with ministers committed to increasing the minimum compulsory age to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015.

"My government is committed to raising educational standards and giving everyone the chance to reach their full potential," the Queen told MPs and peers.

"A bill will be introduced to ensure young people stay in education or training until age 18 and to provide new rights to skills training for adults."

The Bill will place duties on young people to participate, parents to ensure that they do so and employers to release them for training.

It will also require local authorities to keep up-to-date registers of all those who should be in school, college or an apprenticeship, and to provide training for those with special educational needs.

Schools secretary Ed Balls has promised a "robust regime" to enforce the law, with on-the-spot fines and anti-social behaviour orders for those failing to comply. However he has made clear that there will be no custodial sentences.

Balls has hailed the move as "the biggest educational reform in the last 50 years".

In other measures, designed to implement the Leitch reforms of further education, the Bill will create a new legal entitlement for adults to free training in basic literacy and numeracy skills.

It could also pave the way for a training levy on business in some sectors of economy, where employers want it and there are skills shortages.

Ministers also promised draft legislation on apprenticeships, to consider what further legal steps might be necessary to regulate and promote the training schemes and guarantee places for all who want them, pending the results of a review due in January next year.

Meanwhile the Sale of Student Loans Bill was also included in the government's legislative agenda.

The Bill will allow ministers to sell £6bn of assets in a move first announced in the Budget earlier this year. However it will have no effect on students' borrowing and repayments.