The Government’s social housing “new deal” fails to commit a “single extra penny” toward constructing new homes needed by more than a million people, leading campaigners have warned.

Housing Secretary James Brokenshire said a Green Paper introduced on Tuesday would help re-balance the relationship between tenants and landlords and ensure social housing can be used as a springboard into home ownership.

But the long-awaited proposals are “full of warm words” and little substance, according to Shelter, while the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said the paper “does little to address the fundamental lack of low-cost rented homes”.

And the Local Government Association (LGA) warned the announcement was “only a small step, compared with the huge and immediate need for more genuinely affordable homes”.

Shelter chief executive Polly Neate said: “The terrible Grenfell tragedy has shone a light on social housing and forced the country to think about the choices we face.

“Today’s Green Paper is full of warm words, but doesn’t commit a single extra penny towards building the social homes needed by the 1.2 million people on the waiting list.”

It comes after Mr Brokenshire admitted there is no new money behind the Government’s flagship £100 million fund to eradicate rough sleeping within the decade.

One social housing proposal is allowing tenants to progress into ownership by purchasing as little as 1% of their property each year, while another is the introduction of “landlord league tables” to hold bad practice to account.

In a separate move, to boost the number of local authority homes, a consultation into how councils spend the money from Right to Buy sales has also been launched.

This sets out proposals aimed at making it easier for councils to replace properties sold under Right to Buy and build more affordable homes.

Judith Blake, the LGA’s housing spokeswoman, said: “This Green Paper is a step towards delivering more social homes but it is only a small step, compared with the huge and immediate need for more genuinely affordable homes.

“The Government must go beyond the limited measures announced so far, scrap the housing borrowing cap, and enable all councils, across the country, to borrow to build once more.

“This would trigger the renaissance in council house-building which will help people to access genuinely affordable housing.”

Shadow housing secretary John Healey attacked the paper as “pitiful”, with nothing that “measures up to the scale of the housing crisis”.

He added: “The number of new social rented homes is at a record low but there is no new money to increase supply, and ministers are still preventing local authorities run by all parties from building the council homes their communities need.”