Ministers will fail to meet their target of building 1.5 million homes over the Parliament without investing in affordable housing, according to a report.

The Resolution Foundation think-tank said mandatory local authority housing targets and the new formula for fixing targets should enable faster development if the Government ‘holds its nerve against local opposition'.

But it said the reforms were ‘not sufficient' to meet the Government's housebuilding target, largely because of an over-reliance on the private sector to deliver homes.

The think-tank, which focuses on the living standards of those on low to middle incomes, also warned plans to prioritise housebuilding on brownfield land and use low-quality Green Belt for development would provide only enough land for a million extra homes.

Researcher Camron Aref-Adib said: ‘If the Government wants to build the 1.5 million more homes that Britain needs, there's no alternative to direct intervention via greater public investment in affordable housing.

‘That's the only way Britain has built at scale in the past and it's crucial to delivering in the future too.'