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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many and what proportion of Help to Buy, Equity Loan customers are in arrears, in each region of the UK.

At end November 2019 1,983 Help to Buy customers or 5.8 per cent of the total due to be paying interest fees, were in arrears. The large majority of customers in arrears are only one or two payments behind and this debt very largely reflects short-term administrative issues with direct debit set-up at the start of the interest fee paying period. Total interest fee arrears of £189,000 at end of November 2019 represent 2.7 per cent of total amounts charged to customer accounts.

The number of customer in arrears by region are: East Midlands – 221; East of England – 210; London – 103; North East – 174; North West – 352; South East – 270; South West – 182; West Midlands – 230; Yorkshire and the Humber – 241.