House price slump 'containable' says Brown

The slump in the housing market is "containable", despite the sharpest monthly fall in prices since the crash of the 1990s, Gordon Brown said today.

Figures from Britain's biggest lender Halifax showed the average cost of a home dropped by 2.5 per cent in March, the biggest fall since September 1992 and the second largest drop ever.

However the Prime Minister said in a BBC interview: "We've seen house prices rise by about 180 per cent over the last 10 years and they have risen by about 18 per cent over the last three years, so a 2.5 per cent fall is something that is containable."

Mr Brown said the Government was now looking at further measures to help homebuyers.

"We will keep looking to see what we can do to be on the side of homeowners and homebuyers and also of course businesses seeking funds for investment," he said.

"We will be meeting the Council of Mortgage Lenders, as a Government, in the next few days and we will be discussing the kind of arrangements that we can make to help existing homebuyers and to help more people become homebuyers."