Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The numbers are based on the ONS projection that was used at the last Budget. No account is taken of the achievements of the renegotiation secured by the Prime Minister. On the Treasury analysis, a large number of independent economic commentators have argued that it is broadly in the right direction. My hon. Friends who advocate that we should leave the EU should come forward with their own analysis, setting out exactly what model they would follow and what the economic consequences would be.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to help first-time homebuyers.

[The First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

We are both building more houses and helping young families afford those homes. Some 400,000 new homes are being built over the years of this Parliament, half of them starter homes for first-time buyers. In the Budget I also launched the new lifetime ISA, so that young people no longer have to choose between saving for a home and saving for their retirement—we are going to help them do both. All this from a Conservative Government who support people’s aspirations to buy their own home and, in time, pass that on to their children.

[Victoria Prentis]

Following the promise of an extra £19 million from the Treasury to help make Bicester garden town a reality, will the Chancellor update the House on the other means he is using to encourage house building, particularly for first-time buyers?

[Mr Osborne]

I am delighted that we can support the community that my hon. Friend so ably represents in Parliament, and provide money for the upgrade of the M40 junction and a new secondary school to go with the new homes being built in Bicester. Of course that comes as part of a suite: we are investing in new starter homes and in shared equity products for people; our help to buy ISA has been used by hundreds of thousands of people; and the new lifetime ISA will also help young people. Those are all things we are doing to make sure this a home-owning democracy.