Greg welcomes the recent First-Time Buyers relief helping people get onto the housing ladder, but urges further reform in order to protect revenue, grow social mobility and improve levels of housing market activity.
Hansard, 9 April 2019
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham): Since we last spoke about this, the spring statement showed a further decline in receipts of an additional £2.7 billion over the scorecard. That was not due to changes in Wales and the welcome first-time buyer reforms, which were already in the October Budget numbers. What are the Government going to do to reform the system, protect revenue, grow social mobility, allow the elderly to downsize and get Britain moving again?
Mel Stride (Financial Secretary to the Treasury): The year-on-year changes to the level of receipts from SDLT have reduced recently, but that is due largely to the fact that we have put a great deal of relief into first-time buyers’ relief, which is already helping 240,000 first-time buyers get on to the housing ladder.
