Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme extended to 2023 for first-time buyers

New regional price caps will be introduced, ranging from £600,000 in London to £186,100 in the North East.

Key Budget measures for housing:

• £1bn to help fund the implementation of Universal Credit over the next five years
• £500m in Housing Infrastructure Fund to unlock a further 650,000 homes
• The next wave of strategic partnerships with nine housing associations, which will deliver 13,000 homes
• British business bank guarantees for SME house builders
• ‘Simplification’ of process to convert commercial properties to new homes
• Providing funding to empower 500 neighbourhoods to allocate homes to local people in perpetuity
• Help to Buy equity loan scheme extended by two years to 2023 and limited to first-time buyers
• Retrospective inclusion of first-time buyers of shared ownership in stamp duty relief

These caps have been set at 1.5 times the average forecast regional first-time buyer price. Previously the scheme had a universal cap of £600,000 across the whole of England.

The Budget documents reveal, however, that the policy will not be further extended beyond 2023. "The government does not intend to introduce a further Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme after March 2023," it said.

A range of lenders welcomed the extension. Kevin Roberts, director of Legal & General Mortgage Club, said: “Today’s extension of the Help to Buy scheme to 2023 has provided much-needed clarity over the scheme. Not only do house builders now have more certainty for longer-term planning and building the thousands of new homes our country so desperately needs, but it also gives potential buyers who are saving for a deposit the peace of mind that they too can benefit from the scheme over the coming years.”

Critics of the Help to Buy scheme have previously warned it pushes up house prices by inflating demand.