The prime minister's rural affairs adviser has urged Gordon Brown to scrap plans to reduce the tax on selling a second home.

Dr Stuart Burgess said a reduction in capital gains tax which is due to come into force next month would worsen rural poverty and make property more unaffordable.

In his last Budget as chancellor Brown announced plans to make second-home owners pay just 18 per cent on the sale of their properties instead of the standard 40 per cent rate.

And ahead of next week's Budget, Brown's first as prime minister, Burgess, the government's rural advocate for England and chairman of the Commission for Rural Communities, said that a tax cut for owners of second homes will worsen the housing crisis in the countryside.

"There are over 928,000 rural households living below the official government poverty threshold of £16,492 household income per annum," he said in his annual report on Monday.

"But because rural disadvantage is scattered it is hidden through the averaging of official statistics and a perception of the countryside as affluent and idyllic.

"I urge government to develop policies that better reflect the nature of rural disadvantage, targeting people in need, rather than places."

Over the weekend Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Taylor, who is also reviewing the matter for the government, floated a plan to allow councils to stop homes being sold in popular rural areas to those who already own a house.

"For the rural communities that are affected, this is a massive issue," he said.

"This measure would allow local authorities to say that a property cannot be converted from a full-time home into a second home.

"In some communities, 30 per cent, 40 per cent or 50 per cent of the village is dark most of the year. It raises huge issues for the sustainability of the community."