Half of all new build homes should be reserved for Britons to stop foreigners snapping them up, a member of Philip Hammond’s Treasury team says today.

Chris Philp, a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr Hammond, the Chancellor, says in a report for the Centre for Policy Studies that 50 per cent of all new house or flats should go to domestic first time buyers.

The restriction would apply to any development of more than 20 homes and would cut down on house builders marketing entire developments in the UK to foreign buyers.

This would follow other developed economies, such as Switzerland, Australia, Canada and Denmark, in favouring domestic first time buyers who are not UK-tax resident.

Mr Philp said: “The Government has taken huge steps to increase homebuilding from the low of 125,000 a year left behind by Labour to nearly 200,000 today. But more needs to be done.

"We need to place home ownership at the front of the policy agenda and make sure that first time buyers get all the support possible to get onto the housing ladder.”