The influential report criticises short term thinking by successive Governments and sets out a series of measures to deliver a strategic approach to housing.

The housing commission’s report recommends the current target of 100,000 new homes on publicly owned land must be doubled.

It also calls for measures to tackle house builder land banking calling for developers to be forced to start work within three years of acquiring planning permission.

Also it wants to see the creation of an independent committee to advise politicians from all parties on housing supply, and a new body bringing together private-sector and academic research on housing.

“Governments must increase the scale of their ambitions to match the scale of the challenges,” it said.

There had been a “near disappearance of government-funded research on housing since 2010”, the Rics study added.