Scottish housing minister Paul McLennan said Holyrood will scrutinise proposals announced by the Labour government at Westminster to ‘turbocharge’ the market.

The UK government wants to step up house building, including more apartment blocks, and has called for the introduction of brownfield “planning passports” to help bring vacant and under-used sites into more productive use.

Labour issued a statement of intent to stimulate growth “across the UK”, although Holyrood is responsible for housing and planning policy in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has come in for criticism from the industry for failing to meet housebuilding targets, imposing rent controls and for an under-performing planning regime which is blamed for holding back developments.

Mr McLennan defended the government’s record but admitted work was under say to speed up the process.

He said: “The Scottish Government has significantly reformed Scotland’s planning system. We will, however, look at the UK Government proposals once they are set out in detail and it is clarified what they mean in practice.

“We are also working to ensure planning authorities have the capacity and skills to improve consistency and increase confidence and certainty in the planning process.”

Under Westminster’s plans, any proposal that meets high standards for design and quality will be speeded through the planning process with the default decision for planning authorities being “yes”.

The UK government is striving to build 1.5m homes within five years and sources have said the idea was not to build more tower blocks, but more quality multi-dwelling buildings.

Ministers have had held extensive discussions with developers since Labour came to power and are said to be keen to “get on with it”.

Labour wants to see cities “grow out” by releasing more “grey belt” land, but also to “densify” within their existing boundaries with brownfield areas coming first, and grey belt second.