Communities and Local Government
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
I make my usual declaration of an indirect interest in the entry in the register for my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford).
HomeBuy Direct was a good scheme, and considering that the Minister called it an “expensive flop” I am delighted that the Government have seen fit, albeit somewhat late in the day, to enhance it further and, in many ways, to replicate it. Can he confirm that, as the Financial Times reported, this is nothing more than his admitting that he cannot fix the mortgage market? Has he not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) said, just wasted a vital 10 months, leaving hundreds of thousands of first-time buyers—not tens of thousands, given the sort of scheme we are describing—with no hope under this Government of securing their own homes?
Grant Shapps
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to clear up one thing. It is worth knowing that when I said that the HomeBuy Direct scheme had been an expensive flop, it had been launched 10 months earlier and had helped just five people to secure a home. It is true that the scheme has developed over a period of time and has helped people in between times, but as I said in my previous answer—I appreciate that it was given after she had written her question, but none the less it is useful to connect the two—the previous scheme does not end until 2012. We are in 2011, and we have already announced a new scheme.
[Official Report, 4 April 2011, Vol. 526, c. 730-31.]
Letter of correction from Mr Grant Shapps:
An error has been identified in an oral answer given on 4 April 2011. The correct answer should have been:
Grant Shapps
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to clear up one thing. It is worth knowing that when I said that the HomeBuy Direct scheme had been an expensive flop, there had been only five households assisted nearly eight months after the scheme was announced. It is true that the scheme has developed over a period of time and has helped people in between times, but as I said in my previous answer—I appreciate that it was given after she had written her question, but none the less it is useful to connect the two—the previous scheme does not end until 2012. We are in 2011, and we have already announced a new scheme.