Brown promises five 'eco towns'

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The Chancellor declared that he wanted to go further than Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s in extending home ownership as he signalled that he would use his premiership to launch a major housebuilding programme.

In the first major policy commitment of his campaign, he announced plans for five new "eco towns" with up to 100,000 low carbon or carbon neutral homes powered by locally generated energy from sustainable sources.

Mr Brown will learn soon whether he will face a contested election for the Labour leadership as left-wingers Michael Meacher and John McDonnell meet to see if they can muster enough nominations by MPs for one of them to go forward.

Mr McDonnell insisted that between them they had "more than enough" support for one of them to secure a place on the ballot paper.

"Whoever has got the most nominations then goes through and we urge our supporters to back them," he said.

However the focus remained resolutely on Mr Brown who is still seen as a certainty to take over the reins of power when Mr Blair finally steps down in a little over six weeks time.

In a significant piece of political positioning, the Chancellor stressed his determination to help young couples struggling to get a foot on the property ladder with a major home building programme.

He said that he wanted to expand the rate of housebuilding, currently standing at 185,000 homes-a-year, to 200,000 "as quickly as possible".

"There is a pent up demand. More households are being created than there are places for them," he told BBC1's Sunday AM. "I recognise that there is a challenge of modern society where young people want to buy or rent their own homes a lot earlier than previously. We have got to make it possible for that to happen. It shows that we are the party and the Government on the side of people with aspirations."