The middle class will only be pushed so far
One of the best policies to come out of recent Conservative governments was George Osborne’s Help to Buy Scheme. I know three couples, first-time buyers in their 30s, who turned to HTB for a loan. They are now happily living in their own homes, two are trying for a family and one has already paid back what they borrowed.
What does the government of Theresa May do with a hugely popular policy that gives aspirational young people a reason to vote Conservative? Abolish it, of course. Reports say that ministers are preparing to replace HTB with a new system, which will help out the lowerpaid rather than giving “handouts” to the middle classes. Official figures reveal that the average salary of somebody supported by HTB is £50,000, more than double the average wage.
Hang on, did you spot the two dirty words there? “Middle class.” I mean, God forbid any of the taxes predominantly paid by middle-class people should go to help actual hard-working middle-class people.
If one in five people taking advantage of HTB sneakily uses the scheme to upgrade their existing property then that is a shocking loophole that should be closed, but such ruses don’t mean the need out there isn’t genuine. It’s a fallacy to think that a couple earning £50,000 between them can quickly build up a deposit to buy a property in the south of England. Rents are punitive.
One couple moved back in with their parents for three years to save the £17,000 needed to buy with HTB. A landscape gardener and a retail manager, they might reasonably expect to be able to afford their own property. Dream on. Recent research found that the average single first-time buyer needs to save for 17 years to raise a 15per cent deposit for a starter home in London. Start saving now, young people, and you too could have a place of your own by the time your pelvic floor has dropped three storeys in 2035!
The average period to get on the property ladder is still 10 and a half years. Compare that with the Help to Buy scheme, where a mere three years and nine
months gets you the necessary 5per cent deposit.
What the mighty brains of Whitehall don’t seem to grasp is that responsible couples put off having their first child until they can put a roof over junior’s head. Result: heartbreaking struggles with infertility and a falling birth rate among the class of person that provides the Treasury with the bulk of its revenue.
Not that we get any credit. I was half-listening to Woman’s Hour the other morning, when presenter Jane Garvey was commiserating with a black artist that so many middle-class white people dominated the arts scene. What social class and colour would you call Garvey or most of Radio 4’s presenters? Yet the default setting for our national broadcaster is now liberal self-hatred for the nice, theatre-going, rubbish-recycling, John Lewis-shopping people who provide the bulk of their listeners.
I’m afraid that a new version of Help to Buy is another attack on the middle class. The sad fact is that a generation of young professionals have been burdened with a double whammy: student debt and astronomical house prices. Helping them to buy is not only good for families, it’s good for a society that relies on the long-suffering middle class to do the right thing. And to produce 2.4 children. And to say sorry and never make a fuss.
Well, enough. Take away HTB, stand back and await the middle-class mutiny.
We will go off our trolleys (Waitrose, obviously) and there might even be a boycott of balsamic vinegar. Terribly sorry.