Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of people with a Help to Buy ISA will be potentially impacted by the caps placed on that scheme.

The Help to Buy: ISA scheme aims to help those struggling to save enough to get onto the housing ladder. As first-time buyers typically buy smaller (and therefore cheaper) first properties, the property price cap of £250,000 for those properties outside London (£450,000 within London) under the scheme therefore allows the Government to target support at the people the scheme is intended to help at this lower end of the market. The latest statistics show that since the scheme was launched in 2015, 460,567 property completions have been supported through the scheme with a mean property value of £175,680, compared to an average first-time buyer house price of £230,593.

However, where prospective first-time buyers wish to buy a higher value property outside London, they have the option to transfer their savings to a Lifetime ISA (LISA) to benefit from the scheme’s higher property price cap of £450,000, or if they wish to withdraw their savings from their Help to Buy: ISA, they can do so without incurring any penalties.

In addition to the Help to Buy: ISA and LISA, the Government has introduced a number of measures to support homeownership and help as many prospective homeowners as possible to meet their individual needs, including the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme, mortgage guarantee scheme, Shared Ownership schemes, and the First Home scheme.

Each scheme has its own eligibility criteria and more information on each scheme can be found on the Own Your Home (HM Government) website: https://www.ownyourhome.gov.uk/