Money
UK's Help to Buy Scheme Mostly Benefited Higher-Income Households, IFS Finds
A major UK think tank found that the government's Help to Buy programme, designed to help people buy homes, largely benefited those who could already afford to buy without it.
375,000households that used Help to Buy in England between 2013 and 2023
The facts
- 1Help to Buy was a UK government scheme that gave buyers an equity loan of up to 20% of a new home's price, so they needed a smaller deposit.
- 2The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) analysed the scheme and found that most of the benefit went to households with above-average incomes.
- 3The scheme ran from 2013 to 2023 and helped around 375,000 households buy a home in England.
- 4Critics argue the extra demand created by Help to Buy pushed house prices higher, making homes less affordable for lower-income buyers who were not using the scheme.
- 5The IFS estimated the scheme cost the UK government roughly £29 billion in total, including loans and administrative costs.
Why it matters
Government housing schemes aim to make buying a home fairer, but this report shows that well-intentioned policies do not always reach the people who need them most. Supporters of Help to Buy say it got thousands of families onto the property ladder who otherwise would have waited years. Critics say the money could have built more affordable social housing instead. Understanding how public money is spent — and who really benefits — helps citizens hold governments accountable.
Sources
- BBC News
- Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
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