John Prescott has unveiled new plans to help first time buyers into home ownership.

The deputy prime minister was speaking on the opening day of the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

The announcement was the first in what is expected to be a series of key election manifesto policy commitments to be made during the week.

Under the scheme, publicly owned surplus land will be set aside for house building at affordable prices.

It will also be reserved for young people making their first moves onto the property ladder, many of whom have been priced out of the housing market in recent years.

Prescott pointed to statistics showing that the average cost of a new home in London has now risen to £218,000, three times higher than it was when Labour came to power in 1997.

He also expressed concern over studies showing the number of first time buyers fell by 27 per cent last year and criticised the cost of home-building in England.

"It's been a gravy train for some - and it's got to stop. We must get these costs down," he said.

But the thrust of his announcement concerned the availability of land in high demand areas.

Prescott proposed that Whitehall departments, public agencies and councils reserve any unneeded land, rather than sell it off to the highest bidder as is currently taking place.

"We own the land but we don't use it as efficiently as we should," he said.

"I'm announcing a new scheme that puts surplus public land to better use.

"When we assemble sites for development, we will make sure that some of the land is set aside for first time buyers at prices they could not otherwise afford.

"We own the land. We don't sell it off. We keep it in trust, but lease it for new housing. So the first time buyer pays the cost of building the house, not the full cost of the land.

"That's a new and exciting future for housing. A future which identifies Labour as the party of home ownership and public housing."

Housing minister Keith Hill added that 10,000 new homes would be built under the scheme with a targeted cost of just £60,000 for each.

While he acknowledged that more work would be required on the fine print, he insisted the plans were built on "solid foundations".

But he recognised that "long term issues of cost and supply will have to be dealt with".