黑洞社区

By David Blackman in Manchester

Senior Conservatives and built environment figures have criticised the extension of the Help to Buy programme proposed by prime minister Theresa May.

Against a backdrop of concerns in Tory circles that housing gripes fuelled Labour鈥檚 better than expected performance at June鈥檚 general election, May announced at this week鈥檚 Conservative Party conference in Manchester that the scheme will receive an extra 拢10bn to help more people buy homes by 2021.

Under the programme, first-time buyers can secure up to a fifth of the cost of buying a new home with a government loan as long as they can put down 5%.

The move will help an estimated 13,000 additional homebuyers over the next few years, doubling the number of people who had used the scheme to buy their own home since Help to Buy was introduced by former chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne in 2013.

But the government鈥檚 move was slammed by former London mayoral candidate Steve Norris at a fringe meeting during the conference.

While insisting that he supported home ownership in principle, he said: 鈥淚t is simply economically illiterate: if you just increase demand without increasing supply, prices will rise.

鈥淚t helps a few people who might have had to settle for something smaller or saved for a couple of years to get a deposit at a huge cost.

It makes just as much sense to put that 拢10bn of extra money into shared ownership

David Montague, L&Q

鈥淚 am really horrified we are proposing to add another 拢10bn of public spending into this economically illiterate proposition.鈥�

Norris鈥� concerns were echoed by Conservative MP Bob Blackman, who represents the London suburban constituency of Harrow East. 鈥淗elp to Buy is brilliant and enables people to buy but it鈥檚 inflated prices,鈥� he said.

鈥淲e want to ensure young people get on the housing ladder but we have to put restrictions on the cost of properties that are provided. It鈥檚 no good if we just increase the price of houses that people buy.鈥�

David Montague, chief executive of housing association L&Q, said at a separate fringe meeting that Help to Buy had not been as popular in London as in other parts of the country, with just 9,000 of the 135,000 loans advanced to purchasers in the capital.

He said that would-be home owners in the capital were more likely to benefit from extra funding for shared ownership.

鈥淚f it makes sense for 拢10bn to go into Help to Buy, it makes just as much sense to put that money into shared ownership.鈥�

Hew Edgar, policy manager at the RICS, told the conference鈥檚 built environment reception that there were 鈥渕any avenues and other tenures鈥� to support housebuilding.

He added: 鈥淗elp to Buy is a demand solution and supply is the problem.鈥�

But the extension of Help to Buy was backed by David Thomas, group chief executive of Barratt Developments. 鈥淎bsent Help to Buy, UK housing supply would drop dramatically: housing numbers went up very, very sharply after its introduction in 2013.鈥�