Home building industry body Homes for Scotland has welcomed the £250m of funding set aside to help First Time Buyers in the UK Budget but warned that any impact in Scotland would depend on how the next Scottish Government chose to use any of the new money it received.

Highlighting the need to prioritise any such funds into initiatives targeting this vital group of consumers, Chief Executive Jonathan Fair said: “First Time Buyers are essential to a healthy and well-functioning housing market but they have been particularly hard hit by severe restrictions in mortgage lending. Still the main obstacle to recovery in our sector, it is imperative that this blockage is removed.

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“We therefore wish to work closely with the next Scottish Government to develop programmes leveraging private sector investment to increase the flow of finance. A key example of this type of approach would be the introduction of a Mortgage Indemnity Guarantee underwriting lending risk at limited public cost. The social and economic benefits increased housing production could deliver are immense. If, for example, build levels could be increased by 10% per annum over the lifetime of the next Parliament, we could have 46,000 new homes, 38,000 new jobs and over 1000 new apprentices.”

Referring to UK Government moves to further reform Stamp Duty on bulk purchases and make Real Estate Investment Trusts easier to set up and more accessible to investors, Fair described these as “helpful” but said that more detail was required in order to make a full assessment.

(GK/KMcA)