Chancellor Darlings housing budget rescue plan

According to all recent reports the chancellor Alastair Darling is expected to give the UK housing industry a £1billion boost in tomorrow's Budget.

Its is wideley expected the report to include:

• A fund for the state to take a stake in housing projects where work has stalled. Government money may also be used to finance infrastructure such as roads

• Financial help where houses have been built but cannot be sold because of falling prices. Sources said this would be through a combination of joint equity schemes and by converting houses intended for the private sector into social housing

• A fund to reverse the trend of 30 years and build thousands of council houses

• Extending stamp duty holiday on properties over £175,000 until the year's end

• Extra cash for the mortgage rescue scheme, amid evidence that rising unemployment is threatening more people with repossession than anticipated last autumn

Sources said the chancellor was making housing a priority despite the poor state of the government's finances, amid signs that the UK was facing a twin crisis of a falling supply of homes and a rapid increase in people failing to keep up with mortgage payments due to unemployment. Tomorrow's announcement will co-incide with grim news from the jobs market.