Ed Balls MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, responding to comments by former Chancellors on the Help to Buy scheme in today’s Financial Times, said:

“When even former Conservative Chancellors are warning of the risks of rising housing demand not being matched by rising housing supply, it’s time for the current Chancellor to listen.

"With house-building under this government at its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s we urgently need action to boost housing supply - Help to Build alongside a reformed Help to Buy. If not then, as Lord Lamont himself now admits, housing will become even more unaffordable for the young people this scheme was supposed to help.

"George Osborne should allow the Bank of England to immediately review the details of the scheme, including the very high £600,000 ceiling. You can’t tackle the cost-of-living crisis without building more homes, so the government should back Labour’s plans to get at least 200,000 new homes built a year by 2020 - as well as our plans to reform the private rented sector.”

Ends