Borrowers hoping that today’s second attempt to rescue British banks will thaw the mortgage market immediately are likely to be disappointed.

Lenders and brokers, while welcoming the Government’s measures, gave warning that it would take time to work through the detail, with many of the proposals not due to be implemented until the spring.

The rescue plan emerges just as estate agents report an upturn in interest in the housing market. Rightmove, the online property database, said today that buyer inquiries in the first two weeks of this year more than doubled compared with the same period in 2008.

However, the tepid response to the Chancellor’s plans suggests that first-time buyers may have to wait some time before good deals re-emerge.

There are no longer any 95 per cent mortgage deals on the market — and without these, first-timers who have been unable to save a deposit cannot get on the housing ladder.

Alistair Darling’s measures to kick-start the home loans market include a scheme to let banks insure their riskiest assets against default with the Government, for a fee. With this insurance in place, banks may be more willing to lend to each other.

He also announced a new £100 billion mortgage guarantee scheme to underwrite new lending, first proposed by Sir James Crosby, the former chief executive of Halifax Bank of Scotland.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), which has been pressing for this measure for some time, said that it should help to restart the mortgage market, although it cautioned that the terms and conditions may still be too strict.

Economists said that even this may not be enough. Vicky Redwood, UK economist at the consultancy Capital Economics, said: “None of these measures get to what may ultimately be the heart of the problem: banks simply do not want to lend with the economy freefalling into recession.

“Admittedly, the Government is toughening up on the commitments banks will need to make in exchange for this support and will negotiate ‘specific and quantified lending commitments ... that will be binding and externally audited’. However, policing these will still be difficult.

“We continue to think that state-decreed lending controls, perhaps via widespread nationalisation, may ultimately be required.”

There was broader support for the announcement that Northern Rock, the nationalised lender, will review its business plan.

Under its original deal with the Government, it encouraged customers to switch to other lenders once their fixed deals expired, in an attempt to pay off its debts more quickly. It will now encourage some of these customers to stay with the bank.

Michael Coogan, the director-general of the CML, said: “This should mean that more of the funding that is available may go towards home purchases rather than remortgaging, which would help to support wider activity in the market.”

However, it remains to be seen whether the lender will be forced to offer a better deal to its thousands of Together customers, who took out mortgages for 95 per cent of their property’s value and are now stuck in negative equity — meaning that they are unable to switch elsewhere.

Melanie Bien, of Savills Private Finance, the mortgage broker, said: “The Government seems to be hoping that Northern Rock will take a more proactive stance, and that may include offering Together borrowers who cannot go elsewhere some decent alternatives.”

Royal Bank of Scotland has also pledged to increase lending by £6 billion across its businesses, in return for the Government’s stake in the bank rising from 58 per cent to nearly 70 per cent.

Mr Coogan said: “At long last, the Government has announced a comprehensive and co-ordinated package of measures sufficiently large in scale to have an impact on improving the flow of new lending.

“As always, the devil will be in the detail and there will be a great deal to work through. It is too soon to assess what impact these interventions may have on lending levels in 2009, but they should be helpful.”

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