It may be easier to rent homes in the future if a new Government proposal gets approved.

Tenants would be allowed to transfer rental deposits between landlords under the new scheme.

The ‘passporting’ rules would relieve the burden renters face when having to raise deposits for new properties.

At the moment in England and Wales the average deposit is around £1,040, which rises to £1,750 in the capital.

Housing secretary James Brokenshire, who is expected to present the proposal at the Chartered Institute of Housing conference in Manchester today, promised to take his time with the plan.

He said he was interested in trying to figure out ways tenants could use their current deposit to reduce the amount they paid towards their next one rather having to find a large sum of money from somewhere else.

Mr Brokenshire told the Times: ‘Sometimes the barrier to people moving, indeed that sense of mobility of labour across the economy, can be the fact that someone’s got one private rental and they want to move, and the time period between the release of the first deposit, and then the deposit that’s needed on the second property.’

He confirmed he was trying to determine the best way the scheme could be introduced whether it was through the Government or via the market.

Chief executive of Shelter Polly Neate welcomed the announcement, saying it would help ‘hard-pressed renters’.

But head of lettings at estate agent Savills Jane Cronwright-Brown wasn’t as enthusiastic and warned the move could leave new landlords exposed if a previous property owner took money from the deposit for damages.

If this happened then the tenant would have to pay the difference if they fell short of the new deposit.

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