Labour accused the coalition yesterday of making Britain's housing crisis worse by creating a waiting list which would take 55 years to clear.

Shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds accused the government of "failing to stand up for the many people struggling to get an affordable home to rent and to buy."

She said the number of "affordable" homes built over the last year had collapsed by 50 per cent to just 2 per cent of the number needed and that the Con-Dems had presided over the lowest level of house building in peacetime since the 1920s.

"Now we learn that the number of affordable homes for aspiring first-time buyers has collapsed by a half," she said.

"At current rates it would take more than half a century to build the homes for those most in need."

Labour plans to build 200,000 new homes a year by 2020.