The Government's housing target may be too high, economists have suggested, after new ONS figures projected fewer new households than previously thought.

Last year's Budget set out plans to build 300,000 new homes a year, which Chancellor Philip Hammond said would help younger people get onto the property ladder.

The Office for National Statistics revised down its previous estimate, made in 2014, which suggested that 210,000 new households would be formed per year in England, to 159,000 per year.

Joanna Harkrader, of the ONS's centre for ageing and demography, said the change "reflects lower projections of the population – notably assumptions around future births, how long we’ll live and migration – and more up-to-date figures about living arrangements, such as living with parents or cohabiting."

Ian Mulheirn, director of consulting at Oxford Economics, and a former economist at the Treasury, said the figures showed "hysterical" discussions around housing shortages had been "misplaced".

He said Government projections had been "way over the top, and the actual rate of household formation has been much lower".

"If we'd been predicting household need correctly, over the last 20 years, then we probably wouldn't have this story about not having built enough homes.

"We still need many tens of thousands of homes to be built every year, but it's nowhere near the 250,000 or 300,000 that the Chancellor has identified."