Tories aim to woo first-time buyers with 200,000 cut-price starter homes plan

David Cameron will attempt to win over voters looking to get onto the property ladder with a major general election manifesto commitment on housing.

The prime minister is expected to announce that a Tory government would make 200,000 cut-price starter homes by 2020 for first-time buyers in England.

The current government has promised to make 100,000 affordable homes for under 40s in a bid to counter the UK's housing shortage.

But the Tory leader will pledge to double that amount by giving developers the opportunity to build on brownfield commercial land as well as some tax cuts.

The Conservatives explained that the developers would have to give a 20% discount for young home buyers in return.

"Young people are getting a job, working for years, saving away but still unable to buy - stuck living with their parents, sometimes into their 30s," Cameron will say.

"We want to build a country that rewards those who work hard and do the right thing."

The policy would mean that house prices would be capped at £250,000 ($384,952, €343,926) outside London or £450,000 in the capital.

But Labour leader Ed Miliband will attack the Tories over their "dismal" house building record.

"This government has betrayed working families with a sustained crisis in living standards which, for the first time since the 1920s, will leave people worse off at the end of a parliament than they were at the beginning," he will say.

"But nowhere is his failure more dismal than on housing. Young people and families starting out know the dream of having a home of their own is disappearing into the distance.

"We are building less than half the number of homes we need and young people are being priced out of the market with the average house price now eight times the average wage.

"This Government has achieved nothing but record lows for house building and home ownership - and record highs for working people still living with their parents and young families having to pay rip off charges to rent."

The pledge will come with 65 days to go before the general election in May, with Labour and the Tories neck-and-neck (34% vs 34%) in the latest opinion poll from YouGov for The Sunday Times.