Speeches

Steve Rotheram – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve Rotheram on 2015-12-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of trends in the number of young people who own their own home since 2010.

Brandon Lewis

The Government is committed to increasing the number of first time buyers. Action taken in support of this Includes:

– extending the Right to Buy – which has supported council tenants into home ownership for decades – to housing association tenants. This will give another 1.3 million families the chance to purchase a home at right to buy level discounts;

– Help to Buy schemes, targeting those wanting to get onto the housing ladder with 80% of sales going to first time buyers, which have so far enabled over 130,000 families to purchase a home;

– launching, on 1 December 2015, the Help to Buy: ISA which will help first-time buyers save for their first deposit. The Government will top up savings by 25%, up to a maximum top-up of £3,000; and

– a £2.3 billion fund to deliver 200,000 Starter Homes by 2020, to be exclusively offered to first time buyers under 40 at a 20% discount on market value.

Information on housing tenure and the age of the household reference person in England, based on data from DCLG’s English Housing Survey, can be found (in Annex Table 1.4) at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/469214/2013-14_Section_1_Households_tables_and_figures_FINAL.xlsx