Government sets out building plans

The measures would see £8 billion ploughed into creating 180,000 affordable properties over the next three years - many of them on surplus land belonging to the state.

Local authorities will also be encouraged to start building council houses again, while shared ownership schemes will be expanded.

Altogether three million homes should be built by 2020, 60% of them on brownfield land. Restrictions on using the greenbelt will not be relaxed.

However, the Green Paper has already come under fire for failing to rule out further construction on flood plains, amid devastation reaped by the recent extreme weather.

Instead it claims that a "robust planning policy which incorporates the latest climate change predictions" will allow risks to be managed "without preventing development that has significant wider social and economic benefits".

Housing Minister Yvette Cooper told the Commons the government wanted decent homes "for the many, not the few", but there was "no quick fix" to the problem.

She added: "Taken together these proposals represent not just the most significant program of house building for decades, but an ambitious, positive response to the growing challenges that many people face in their day to day lives."

But shadow housing minister Grant Shapps warned that building on flood plains would simply expose householders to future problems of flooding.

"We need to build more homes, but they must stand the test of time and be homes that families will actually want to live in," he said. "I fear that many of these new developments may simply be uninsurable or blighted with exorbitant premiums. Labour aren't building the eco-towns of the 21st century, they're building the sink estates of tomorrow."