In his first speech to the Conservative Party Conference as
Prime Minister, Boris Johnson promised to fix the broken housing
market by turning "Generation Rent" into "Generation Buy" heralding
government backing for 95% mortgages.
The Prime Minister said that the Government needed "to fix our
broken housing market" - a throw-back to the 2017
Housing White Paper entitled "Fixing our broken housing
market".
Referencing the Government's latest proposals for reform of the
planning system, he referred to the promise to "transform the
sclerotic planning system" making it easier and faster to build new
homes but also promised to take forward one of the key proposals in
the Conservative Party 2019 election manifesto by giving "young
first time buyers the chance to take out a long-term fixed rate
mortgage of up to 95 per cent of the value of the home". The Prime
Minister said he believed this policy could create two million more
owner occupiers but other than the claim there was no more detail
than was set out in the Government's 2019 Election
manifesto. It can only be presumed that the policy
will be based on the Government offering to underwrite a percentage
of the mortgage loans offered to first time buyers provided the
mortgage lender is prepared to offer a 95% mortgage.
The Prime Minister made no specific mention of social rented
housing or council housing in his speech and there was no repeat of
the promise to build "a new
generation of council housing" made under his
predecessor Theresa May. In his speech the Prime Minister
recognised that many people are happy with renting and the
flexibility that it offers but referred to "millions of people
forced to pay through the nose to rent a home they cannot truly
love or make their own, because they cannot add a knob or a knocker
to the front door or in some cases even hang a picture - let alone
pass it on to their children".
Click here to read the text of the
Prime Minister's speech in full.