Ahead of the Conservative Party manifesto launch today (11/6), Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has outlined plans to introduce a new Help to Buy scheme to help first-time buyers if the party wins the upcoming election.
In an interview with the BBC, Sunak said that the new scheme would be largely similar to the previous iteration of the scheme, which ran between 2013 and 2023. The Conservative government announced the closure of the scheme back in October 2018.
The new scheme would see stamp duty abolished for first-time buyers up to a value of £425,000, while also offering an equity loan of up to 20% of the cost of a new build home. The Prime Minister also said that the party would implement 100% tax relief for landlords who sell their properties to tenants.
In the interview, Sunak said that buying a home “has got harder” but that he “wants to make it easier”.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat Party has also released its manifesto including its plans for housebuilding. The party has set a target to build 380,000 a year, with 150,000 of those social homes, if successful at the upcoming election, a commitment which has been in place since 2021. The part also said that it would expand neighbourhood planning across England, build 10 new garden cities and allow councils to buy land for housing at current values rather than projected values.
Paul Rickard, managing director of Pocket Living, said: “While we obviously welcome the commitment to re-introducing a Help to Buy scheme, increasing the stamp duty threshold to £425,000 for first-time buyers and delivering 1.6 million new homes, we were hoping for a suite of bolder and more ambitious policies to tackle the root cause of the housing crisis – the shortage of supply. Our planning system needs urgent intervention and resourcing, especially with regards to streamlining the process for unlocking small brownfield sites. Our SME housebuilders have never been fewer in number than they are today. Our ability to build new homes and the supporting infrastructure has never been under greater strain. The next government, whichever party it is comprised of, needs to work with the industry to urgently address these issues with a serious package of bold, radical and ambitious policies backed by the drive to see them through.”
Mark Booth, co-founder of Hayfield, said: “I don’t think many in the industry expected to see the Conservatives pitch the ‘bold action’ needed to reform the planning system given that this government has presided over the lowest number of planning applications in almost three decades last year. It was no surprise to see proposals of fairly limited scope announced today.
“Unless the Conservatives are willing to reappraise what truly constitutes green belt land, or consider a move away from a discretionary system that hands too much power to NIMBY-minded councils to rules-based one in which projects that meet a specific set of tests get the green light automatically, then it’s hard to see what they could do to turn our failing system around.”
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