£230m windfall for top builders since start of Help to Buy

New pay row erupts as Persimmon boss is ousted

THE bosses of Britain’s biggest builders have been paid more than £230m since the Help to Buy scheme was launched five years ago, the Mail can reveal.

The chief executives of seven leading companies including Persimmon, Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey have seen their pay triple on the back of the taxpayerfunded subsidy.

Profits have also jumped fourfold since George Osborne’s housing programme was introduced in April 2013.

But the number of new homes built has grown by just 50pc.

The figures come just a day after Persimmon’s chief executive Jeff Fairburn ( pictured) was forced out after a row over his hefty £102m pay. His pay package, which was cut to £75m after an outcry from investors and the public, was thrust back into the spotlight last month when Fairburn flounced out of a TV interview when asked about the bonus.

But while profits and pay have soared since Help to Buy was launched, many families are struggling to get on or move up the property ladder amid a chronic shortage of homes at affordable prices.

Matt Kilcoyne, of the Adam Smith Institute thinktank, said: ‘Housebuilders love Help to Buy. For chief executives it’s meant bumper bonuses as their firms have lined their pockets with government money. But it pushed up prices for everyone else.

‘The billions taxpayers have put into the scheme have been to the benefit of middle- class earners, with the average beneficiary earning £55,000 a year, with the cost of houses pushed even further out of reach for low earners and the young.’ Developers claim the programme is crucial to tackle the UK’s chronic housing shortage.

A Mail analysis of AJ Bell figures for Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, Barratt Developments, Bellway, Redrow, Berkeley Group and Bovis Homes show combined profits at the firms have jumped from £1.1bn in 2012 – the year before Help to Buy came in – to £4.4bn in 2017.

Profits jumped almost 320pc at Barratt Developments and almost 400pc at Bellway in that time. Salaries to chief executives have seen a threefold increase, from £22.9m in 2013 to £68.7m last year. In contrast, the number of new houses built by the seven firms increased by just 50pc – there were 47,250 new homes in 2012 and 70,890 five years later.

‘Help to Buy has put money in the pockets of major developers, and has helped those who have benefited from it, but at the expense of affordability for everyone else,’ said Reuben Young, director of campaign group Priced Out.

‘How can government be serious about solving the affordability crisis if it is literally investing billions in public money in rising house prices?’

AJ Bell’s Russ Mould said Help to Buy has stoked demand for houses at a time when demand was outstripping supply.

‘You can therefore argue that taxpayers’ pounds have flooded straight into the scheme and into the builders’ profits owing to the surge we have seen in prices and demand,’ he said.

But Steve Turner, director of communications at the Home Builders Federation, defended the scheme. ‘Help to Buy is enabling the private sector housebuilding industry to address a housing crisis decades in the making,’ he said.

‘Alongside increased housing supply this building boom is delivering economic benefits to all areas, creating jobs and enabling people to buy a home.

‘Just as builders posted big losses in the financial downturn, as output has increased, profits have increased, as is the case with any business in any sector.’

The seven companies declined to comment.