THE government’s housing minister has told parents they should skip a generation and leave their property and savings to their grandchildren instead of their children.

Speaking at a fringe event taking place as part of the Conservative Party Conference Gavin Barwell, who is the MP for Croydon Central, said skipping a generation would help younger people to get onto the property ladder.

He said his own grandmother had left her £700,000 home to her grandchildren instead of to him and his brother.

As reported in Guardian newspaper, he told the event: “Generally in life we all like to think that our children are going to be better off than us. In terms of new technology and life expectancy they are going to be. But at the moment, as things stand, they are less likely to own their own home and we need to do something about that.”

He went on to say however, that he did not want to live in a country where you could only get onto the property ladder if you had a wealthy grandparent.

Mr Barwell’s suggestion has been rejected by Downing Street. Theresa May’s deputy spokesman told the Guardian it was not acceptable for the government to intervene in how people chose to distribute their wealth after their death.

He added that Mr Barwell had been speaking in a personal capacity at the event.

In her speech at the conference the Prime Minister described the UK housing market as dysfunctional and said the "power of government" was needed to repair it.