Help To Buy hands developers £136m

Bosses blasted for profiting from taxpayer windfall

BRITAIN’S biggest housebuilders have handed executives £136m in pay after their profits were boosted by the taxpayerfunded Help To Buy scheme.

The astonishing bonanza at Barratt Developments, Berkeley Group, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey was shared between just 18 people, their annual reports reveal.

It came after the FTSE 100 firms raked in profits of £3.6bn last year.

Housebuilders have been accused of cashing in on the Government’s Help To Buy scheme, which loans families money to buy newbuild homes, even as the industry reels from scandals over shoddy work and toxic leasehold contracts.

Critics last night branded the fat cat payouts ‘staggering’.

At Persimmon, which paid former boss Jeff Fairburn £39m last year, Help To Buy was used in half of all sales in 2018.

Yesterday, Barratt released its annual report, showing it paid three executives £7.7m overall in the year to June 30.

This included £3.6m handed to boss David Thomas and £2.9m to finance chief Steven Boyes.

Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, said: ‘It seems obvious that executives shouldn’t be raking in hundreds of millions of pounds in the midst of a housing crisis.

‘It shouldn’t need saying. Big business has completely divorced itself from any sense of proportionality or social responsibility. The boards are either frighteningly negligent or utterly venal.’

The latest figures have emerged just days after MPs and ministers launched a scathing attack on the industry during a parliamentary debate.

Labour MP Justin Madders branded Fairburn’s pay ‘truly staggering’, while Tory MP Mark Francois said housebuilders needed to be held to account. Help To Buy was launched by thenChancellor George Osborne in 2013, and allows buyers to borrow up to 40pc of the value of their property from the taxpayer. It was meant to help struggling families, but much of the cash has gone to the wealthy.

Critics also say the programme is a state subsidy for big developers. In total Barratt, Berkeley, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey have handed their executive directors a total of £136.3m in their most recent financial years, analysis by the Mail has found.

Accounts released earlier this year show Berkeley paid seven executives £31.9m in the year to April 30, including £7.8m to chief executive Rob Perrins and £8.3m to chairman Tony Pidgley.

Persimmon handed over nearly £90m to executives in 2018, the highest of any firm. This included £39m to former boss Jeff Fairburn, who quit in December after his package sparked a public outcry, £25m to current chief executive David Jenkinson and £26m to finance chief Mike Killoran.

Taylor Wimpey paid the lowest amount – £6.7m – to executives, including £3.2m to boss Pete Redfern and £1.5m to legal director James Jordan. Redfern sparked a separate row this year after he was offered the chance to buy a luxury flat from Taylor Wimpey at a £436,000 discount. He later ditched the plan after criticism.

Last year housing companies built just 53,198 homes, less than onefifth of the Government’s annual target, Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh said.

She said Persimmon had handed Fairburn his pay ‘almost exclusively on the back of the British taxpayer through Help To Buy’.

Housing minister Esther McVey told MPs: ‘None of us can agree with the exorbitant pay packets that some people have received. The market is not working.’

Last night Barratt and Persimmon declined to comment.