By choosing not to raise the threshold for stamp duty from its present level, Alistair Darling missed an opportunity to help first-time buyers, it has been asserted.

Independent mortgage firm John Charcol stated that in his last Budget as chancellor, Gordon Brown held out no promise of moves to make the current stamp duty land tax "fair, or even less unfair".

Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at John Charcol, stated that Alistair Darling has done little else and simply said that the government will "explore" whether it can reform the stamp duty treatment of the first-time buyers initiative to bring it in line with other shared-ownership products.

"Even if after 'exploring' the stamp duty treatment of initiatives the chancellor actually makes any changes, this will only affect a small proportion of first-time buyers," he stated.

"It is disappointing for first-time buyers that having had ten years to 'explore' things, all the government chooses to do is hold out the carrot of 'jam tomorrow' to a small proportion of [them]," Mr Boulger concluded.

Stamp duty is payable upon the purchase of property or shares and ranges from 1 per cent for properties over £125,001 to four per cent for properties over £500,001.