Thursday, September 17, 2026
Government must do more to help people onto the housing ladder
This article in the Guardian therefore, is not just timely, but illustrates what can be done when politicians think outside the box.
The paper reports on the outcome of a government review, which concluded that George Osborne’s scheme to reduce costs for first-time buyers represented “very high value for money”.
They say that an official audit of the help-to-buy programme has calculated it provided £25bn of social value to the UK in the last financial year, despite criticisms it was overly expensive and only served to inflate house prices:
The findings will boost the case of those, including the housing minister Matthew Pennycook, who have been pushing behind the scenes for Labour to create its own version in a bid to boost home ownership among young voters.
Sources say Pennycook and the former housing secretary Steve Reed advocated strongly for such a move but were ultimately overridden by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who wanted to focus more on boosting housing supply.
The report found: “The help-to-buy scheme supported expanded home ownership, particularly in already affordable areas.
“For some people, it helped them on to the housing ladder sooner or enabled them to buy when they might not otherwise have been able to afford to do so.
“For others, it supported people to skip a rung on the housing ladder and buy a larger or more expensive home. On this basis, the help-to-buy scheme delivered its core aim of supporting home ownership.”
The report did not take into account the effect on house prices, but it does rebut a central Treasury argument that it was an expensive way to boost home ownership and expand the supply of new houses.
It added that more than 387,000 people bought their own home through the scheme, more than 328,000 of whom were first-time buyers. Nearly half of customers said they could not have bought a home without the scheme.
The focus on new housebuilding is absolutely right, but there is a danger that housing policy will become a one-trick pony, while the delay in getting the properties built will leave the housing crisis unchanged for some time to come.
Instead, a new scheme focused on those who would not otherwise be able to afford to buy a home, especially where the housing market has recently cooled, could have an immediate impact. It would complement the current programme of house building and help a lot of people.
