Low-income households and key workers were given help to get on the housing ladder in this week's Budget but little respite was offered to other struggling homebuyers.

Alistair Darling announced more generous rules on shared-equity schemes, which offer key public sector workers, social tenants or those on a council waiting lists the opportunity to part-buy a home. The minimum stake that can be bought on a shared-equity house has been cut from 75 per cent to 50 per cent, enabling more “priority first-time buyers” to get on the housing ladder. The remaining 50 per cent will come from government loans and private equity.

The Chancellor also made announcements on shared-ownership schemes, another initiative aimed at priority first-time buyers. These allow for the purchase of as little as 10 per cent of a home and payment of rent for the balance through a housing association landlord.

Now buyers will not be required to pay stamp duty until they own 80 per cent of a property. Under existing rules, buyers pay stamp duty on whatever percentage of the property they are purchasing.

About £8 billion in funds was allocated to build shared-ownership houses. The Government has found sites for 70,000 new homes this year, in addition to the 40,000 already under construction. As with shared-equity schemes, buyers can purchase more shares, as and when they can afford it, until they own their homes outright.

Little help, however, was offered for other first-time buyers struggling to get on to the housing ladder. A much hoped for revision of stamp duty did not materialise. Richard Farr, of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, says: “Neither of these schemes will help the substantial number of ineligible applicants who are also struggling to purchase a first home.

“The cost of stamp duty for first-time buyers has risen by 82 per cent since 2002. The Government has not increased stamp duty thresholds in line with property prices, and increasingly the duty is becoming a stealth tax.”

Mr Darling reiterated his belief that the mortgage industry needs to offer more long-term fixed-rate home loans, but this received a luke-warm response from experts. Melanie Bien, of Savills Private Finance, the mortgage broker, says: “The Chancellor is determined that first-time buyers should take out long-term fixed-rate mortgages to protect themselves from interest-rate fluctuations. But the reality is that a tiny proportion of borrowers are interested in committing themselves to a fixed rate for ten years or more. Only if long-term fixes are competitively priced and allow borrowers to exit early without having to pay a significant penalty will they really take off.”

Louise Cuming, head of mortgages at Moneysupermarket.com, agrees: “It is sad to see the Chancellor beating the same old drum about 25-year mortgages without having any understanding of our industry. There are already ten 25-year fixed-rate deals on the market - and people just don't want them.”

There were no further announcements made on the quality mark for mortgages, which would allow lenders to predict more safely which loans would be at low risk of default.