The Chancellor George Osborne has said that the Help to Buy scheme will be extended until 2020, because “Britain has got to get building.” The scheme was going to run only until 2016.

Mr Osborne announced the extension to the BBC and said that the longer time frame will help build 120,000 new homes.

“This means more homes, this means more aspiration for families, this means economic security and economic resilience”, he said on a BBC show.

Vince Cable has long decried the scheme, and says that the upper price cap for properties that are eligible for the Help to Buy scheme should be dropped from £600,000 to £400,000 to stop the scheme being “high jacked by the rich”, and stopping it from helping the working class and keyworkers whom it was created to help. He described the scheme as “a damp squib”.

Osborne is set to announce the change in this year’s annual budget, alongside an increase to the personal income tax allowance to £10,500.

The extension is reported not to apply to the second Help to Buy phase, the Mortgage Guarantee. Currently, this will end in 2016 as planned.