Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department has made of the number of completed house sales involving first-time buyers in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England during each month of the covid-19 outbreak; and what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the level of home ownership among first-time buyers in those areas.

We have taken steps to keep the housing market open during the Covid-19 pandemic and allow people to buy, sell and view properties during periods of national restrictions. This is supported by the temporary cut to Stamp Duty Land Tax for home buyers and underpinned by our guidance for consumers and industry on how the process can operate while minimising the risks presented by the virus.

Over 708,000 households have been helped to purchase a home since Spring 2010 through Government-backed schemes such as Help to Buy: Equity Loan and Right to Buy. New initiatives including First Homes, the new model of Shared Ownership and the £11.5 billion affordable homes programme will bring more affordable housing to those who need it.

Data on the number of first-time buyers using Help to Buy: Equity Loans indicates that, despite a drop in the earlier stages of the pandemic, the number of first-time buyers who bought a home in England in Q4 2020 using a Help to Buy equity loan exceeds the number in Q4 2019, before the pandemic, with 17,348 and 12,262 first-time buyers respectively. A recovery can be seen in the number of first-time buyers in the West Midlands, the Coventry North East constituency and across Coventry. This data is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/help-to-buy-equity-loan-scheme-data-to-31-december-2020.

The English Housing Survey is published annually and reports on housing trends in England, including homeownership rates. Data for 2019-20 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/english-housing-survey. Data for 2020-21 will be published at the end of this year.