Draft Legislative Programme: Housing
ePolitix.com Stakeholders comment on the housing measures announced in the prime minister's draft Queen's speech.
Stakeholder response: National House Building Council
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NHBC, the UK's leading standard setting and home warranty provider for new homes, welcomes the proposals in the draft Queen's speech to establish a fund to help social tenants rent or first time buyers purchase newly built homes.
NHBC's chief executive Imtiaz Farookhi said: "The industry is facing many major challenges including targets to deliver more homes and to a higher environmental standard. In the third quarter of last year NHBC's First Time Buyer Index reported the most difficult conditions for first time buyers to enter the market since the Index was launched 28 years ago.
"We therefore welcome the additional support for first time buyers which will help ease some of the current market pressures and look forward to further details. NHBC will use its unique position working closely with industry, government and consumers to help meet the housing challenges ahead."
Stakeholder response: Council of Mortgage Lenders
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A spokesperson said: "The CML welcomed today’s announcement in the government’s draft legislative agenda of plans to provide more help for first-time buyers, in particular the widening of access to shared equity schemes. In future, all first-time buyers with an income of less than £60,000 will have the opportunity to apply to buy a share of their home.
"Other measures announced in the legislative programme that will be welcome to lenders and their customers include: An initiative to enable the Housing Corporation to allocate up to £200 million to buy new properties on the open market, to be made available either for first-time buyers to purchase through the Homebuy scheme or for social renting. Although this will have only a relatively modest impact on the housing market, it has the potential to widen the first-time buyer shared equity scheme.
"Proposals to give the Bank of England greater flexibility to respond to credit market conditions by allowing short-term non-disclosure of liquidity assistance. Lenders believe the Bank should be able to respond flexibly to changing conditions in credit markets.
"The CML also welcomed the separate announcement today of a market study of the sale-and-leaseback sector by the Office of Fair Trading. Lenders favour regulation of sale-and-leaseback to deliver fairer and more consistent treatment of home-owners who may be considering this option as a means of dealing with mortgage payment problems.
Michael Coogan, director general, said: "The government’s announcement on shared equity means that its approach is now more logical, providing help based on the income rather than the occupation of buyers. It will remove an anomaly by which providing help for one group of less well-paid workers makes access to home-ownership more difficult for others earning similar salaries but working in different jobs.
"The OFT market study in sale-and-leaseback is also welcome, and we hope it will be completed by September, as promised, and acted upon quickly. The reality is that sale-and-leaseback companies are already targeting home-owners in difficulty. The quicker we have effective regulation of the sector to provide protection for consumers, the better the safety net for borrowers in financial difficulty will be."
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