Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of extending the Help to Buy Equity Loan for use on properties other than new build homes.

The Help to Buy Equity Loan has helped over 328,500 households buy a home from its launch in spring 2013 until the end of March 2021. All homes have been new-build, and around 82% of sales have been to first-time buyers.

A key objective of the scheme, alongside supporting people into homeownership, is to increase housing supply. By focusing the scheme on new build homes, Help to Buy has been very successful in achieving that. Our latest independent evaluation concluded that 14.5% of all new homes in England between 2015 and 2017 would not have been built without Help to Buy. Making Help to Buy available on second hand homes would not have the same supply effect and as such there are no plans to extend the offer to existing stock.