Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he will extend the Help-to-Buy program for newly built homes until 2020, and announced plans for a garden city outside London to spur Britain’s housing supply.
The U.K. will invest a further 6 billion pounds ($10 billion) in Help to Buy, which allows people to purchase a new-build home worth as much as 600,000 pounds with a 5 percent deposit, creating 120,000 new properties, according to an e-mailed statement from the Treasury.
The initial plan for the new garden city in Ebbsfleet, Kent, southeast of London, includes 15,000 homes. “Britain has got to get building,” Osborne told the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show” today.
“A key part of economic security is the security of being able to afford your own home.”
With three days to go until his March 19 budget, and 14 months before a general election, Osborne is hitting back at opposition Labour claims that his Conservative-led government is benefiting only the richest in society.
Labour has previously criticized the government for not doing enough to spur home building, and called for the Help-to-Buy cap to be lowered.
Labour Pledge
Writing in the Sunday Mirror newspaper, Labour treasury spokesman Ed Balls pledged a Labour government would get 200,000 homes built a year by 2020.
He also reiterated his party’s pledges to freeze energy bills until 2017, introduce a lower 10 percent starting rate of income tax, reverse the tax cut for top earners, and implement a one-time tax on bank bonuses to raise money to help young unemployed people get back into work.
A strengthening economic recovery, credit-boosting measures and a lack of supply have led to surging house prices, particularly in London and the southeast. Almost three-quarters of 33 analysts in a monthly survey by Bloomberg said British property is at risk of overheating.
A report from Acadata last week showed house prices soared the most in almost two years in February, powered by London.
The government will provide as much as 200 million pounds to develop infrastructure and community facilities in the new city near the high-speed rail station at Ebbsfleet, 19 minutes from central London, the Treasury said.
Welwyn Model
The garden city will be built on brownfield land in the first development of its kind in almost 100 years, with developers bearing most of the costs. It will be modeled on previous developments such as Letchworth and Welwyn in Hertfordshire, near the capital.
“If you look at Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City, Milton Keynes, our predecessors had the ambition to build for Britain,” Osborne said.
“Britain has to up its game. Britain has to earn its way in the world. Yes the economy is recovering, but that is not enough. We’ve got to finish the job.”
Balls told the Marr show that a Labour government would also use a bank levy to fund more childcare for working parents, and introduce a mansion tax for properties worth more than 2 million pounds, adding that Osborne was “only ever tough when he is having a go at the weak and the voiceless.”
Osborne also indicated he may not yield to demands from lawmakers in his party to increase the threshold at which people start paying a 40 percent tax rate instead of the basic 20 percent.
Tax Rates
“My priority has been to increase the personal allowance,” Osborne said.
“What that means is, yes you’re taking the low-paid out of tax -- which, by the way, has always been a Conservative ambition -- but we’re also helping those on middle incomes.”
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrat party first proposed the policy, has urged him to add at least 500 pounds to the minimum threshold as a “workers’ bonus” in the budget.
Osborne has used every one of his budgets to raise the income-tax allowance, from 6,475 pounds when the coalition took office in 2010 to 10,000 pounds as of next month. “It helps people watching this program whether they’re earning 20,000 pounds or 50,000 pounds,” he said.
“It is a very effective instrument for making sure that hardworking people keep more of their money.” Osborne also indicated he would use his budget to announce the cap he will impose on overall welfare spending, following his announcement earlier this year that more benefit cuts will be needed after the 2015 election.
bloomberg.com
The U.K. will invest a further 6 billion pounds ($10 billion) in Help to Buy, which allows people to purchase a new-build home worth as much as 600,000 pounds with a 5 percent deposit, creating 120,000 new properties, according to an e-mailed statement from the Treasury.
The initial plan for the new garden city in Ebbsfleet, Kent, southeast of London, includes 15,000 homes. “Britain has got to get building,” Osborne told the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show” today.
“A key part of economic security is the security of being able to afford your own home.”
With three days to go until his March 19 budget, and 14 months before a general election, Osborne is hitting back at opposition Labour claims that his Conservative-led government is benefiting only the richest in society.
Labour has previously criticized the government for not doing enough to spur home building, and called for the Help-to-Buy cap to be lowered.
Labour Pledge
Writing in the Sunday Mirror newspaper, Labour treasury spokesman Ed Balls pledged a Labour government would get 200,000 homes built a year by 2020.
He also reiterated his party’s pledges to freeze energy bills until 2017, introduce a lower 10 percent starting rate of income tax, reverse the tax cut for top earners, and implement a one-time tax on bank bonuses to raise money to help young unemployed people get back into work.
A strengthening economic recovery, credit-boosting measures and a lack of supply have led to surging house prices, particularly in London and the southeast. Almost three-quarters of 33 analysts in a monthly survey by Bloomberg said British property is at risk of overheating.
A report from Acadata last week showed house prices soared the most in almost two years in February, powered by London.
The government will provide as much as 200 million pounds to develop infrastructure and community facilities in the new city near the high-speed rail station at Ebbsfleet, 19 minutes from central London, the Treasury said.
Welwyn Model
The garden city will be built on brownfield land in the first development of its kind in almost 100 years, with developers bearing most of the costs. It will be modeled on previous developments such as Letchworth and Welwyn in Hertfordshire, near the capital.
“If you look at Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City, Milton Keynes, our predecessors had the ambition to build for Britain,” Osborne said.
“Britain has to up its game. Britain has to earn its way in the world. Yes the economy is recovering, but that is not enough. We’ve got to finish the job.”
Balls told the Marr show that a Labour government would also use a bank levy to fund more childcare for working parents, and introduce a mansion tax for properties worth more than 2 million pounds, adding that Osborne was “only ever tough when he is having a go at the weak and the voiceless.”
Osborne also indicated he may not yield to demands from lawmakers in his party to increase the threshold at which people start paying a 40 percent tax rate instead of the basic 20 percent.
Tax Rates
“My priority has been to increase the personal allowance,” Osborne said.
“What that means is, yes you’re taking the low-paid out of tax -- which, by the way, has always been a Conservative ambition -- but we’re also helping those on middle incomes.”
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrat party first proposed the policy, has urged him to add at least 500 pounds to the minimum threshold as a “workers’ bonus” in the budget.
Osborne has used every one of his budgets to raise the income-tax allowance, from 6,475 pounds when the coalition took office in 2010 to 10,000 pounds as of next month. “It helps people watching this program whether they’re earning 20,000 pounds or 50,000 pounds,” he said.
“It is a very effective instrument for making sure that hardworking people keep more of their money.” Osborne also indicated he would use his budget to announce the cap he will impose on overall welfare spending, following his announcement earlier this year that more benefit cuts will be needed after the 2015 election.
bloomberg.com
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