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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will extend the Help to Buy scheme to enable first-time buyers to buy property off-plan in order to avoid being priced out by foreign investors.

The Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme has enabled over 81,000 households to purchase a new-build home, to March 2016. The Government has committed a further £8.6 billion to the scheme, to provide up to 145,000 further homes by March 2021. Under London Help to Buy, which was launched in February 2016, equity loans of up to 40% are now supporting increasing numbers of first time home buyers.

Under the scheme, buyers can already make reservations up to 9 months before sale completion of a home. In practice, they can buy off-plan, before the property has actually been built. In line with usual industry practice, they can also take on a mortgage offer up to 6 months before completion.

Homes can only be purchased through Help to Buy for a primary residence: they can only be bought by persons who will live in the home. They cannot be bought by investors who live abroad and then leave homes empty or sub-let them.