Debate contribution: First-time Buyers: Support

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 3 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

3 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

First-time Buyers: Support

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4774625

Read the official Assembly record

Text

As the housing crisis destroys communities across the North and wage growth stagnates, falling far behind house prices, homeownership has never been more remote for working-class communities across the North. More people are finding it impossible to get on the property ladder. They are trapped in an under-regulated and extortionately expensive private rented sector. Others have no option but to move back into the family home, which is, as we have heard, their only hope of saving for a deposit. We need to reflect on the reasons why people want to own their own home. Most people do not want to own property for the sake of it. They want to be free of the whims of private landlords who can hike rent or evict them at a moment's notice. Above all, first-time buyers desperately want independence, affordability and security. The sentiment behind the motion is well-intentioned, but there are serious concerns about help-to-buy schemes. I echo those raised by the Deputy Chair of the Committee. They cannot be ignored. The warped logic behind help-to-buy schemes dictates that, by stimulating housing demand, supply is sure to follow. In practice, help-to-buy schemes have pushed up house prices and private rents in the UK and Ireland. The campaign group Priced Out calls the policy, "help to sell", because the scheme serves only to help prop up house prices that are already out of reach for most working-class people. The UK's National Audit Office reports that more than half of the 211,000 people who used the help-to-buy scheme could have bought a home without state support. As well as giving a hand up to people who could already afford to buy, the scheme massively boosted the profits of developers. Help to buy is a failed housing policy in the vein of Thatcher's right to buy. It is, at best, misguided to try to resurrect that in the name of supporting first-time buyers. Pumping money into the help-to-buy scheme is not a solution to the housing crisis. Even that well-known radical organisation, the House of Lords, recognised that in 2022. Its Built Environment Committee concluded that the help-to-buy scheme:

"inflates prices by more than its subsidy value" —

and does —

"not provide good value for money, which would be better spent on increasing housing supply."

The Minister and parties should take note. Let us focus on what works, which includes cracking down on profiteering landlords who charge extortionate rents and massively expanding the supply of social housing. The Minister, and, in fairness, previous Ministers, have refused to do that. Those solutions would benefit everyone, including first-time buyers. That is what I will attempt to do through my people's housing Bill, which will introduce long-overdue rent reductions and turn empty houses into homes. I encourage Members to support that when it comes to the House.

471 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification