Boris Johnson mortgage pledge: First time buyers to get 'long term fixed rate deals'

6 October 2020, 12:26 | Updated: 6 October 2020, 14:36

Boris Johnson has promised to create two million more home owners by introducing long term mortgages for first-time buyers - pledging to transform "generation rent" into "generation buy".

Speaking at the virtual Tory party conference, the Prime Minister said his party will turn "generation rent into generation buy" as he said the government needed to "fix our broken housing market".

Mr Johnson said: "We will transform the sclerotic planning system, we will make it faster and easier to build beautiful new homes without destroying the green belt or desecrating our countryside.

"But these reforms will take time and they are not enough on their own.

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"We need now to take forward one of the key proposals of our manifesto of 2019: giving young, first-time buyers the chance to take out a long-term, fixed-rate mortgage of up to 95% of the value of the home - vastly reducing the size of the deposit."

He added: "We believe that this policy could create two million more owner-occupiers - the biggest expansion of home ownership since the 1980s. We will help turn generation rent into generation buy."

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Mr Johnson also said it is a "disgraceful truth" that home ownership levels among younger people has plummeted.

"Millions of people are forced to pay through the nose for a home they can't truly love," he told the conference.

The Prime Minister also attacked the Labour Party for "owning million pond homes in north London" whilst "disliking home ownership".

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Referring to his new home ownership policy, Mr Johnson said: "That is the difference between us and the Labour opposition.

"They may have million-pound homes in north London, but they deeply dislike home ownership for anyone else.

"We want to level up; they want to level down."

Boris Johnson says 'return to normality won't be good enough' after COVID-19 pandemic

The pledge was one of a series of ambitious promises in the Prime Minister’s speech to the annual Conservative conference, also including a massive increase in wind power, one-to-one tuition in schools and reform of social care.

Boris Johnson insisted there was no alternative to the coronavirus restrictions he has been forced to introduce as he promised to forge a new Britain "in the teeth of this pandemic".

In the wide-ranging speech, Mr Johnson:

- Promised to "fix the injustice of care home funding" although he offered no details of how.

- Said he wanted to explore the use of one-to-one teaching for gifted pupils or those in danger of falling behind, saying it could be "transformational".

- Attacked "lefty human rights lawyers and other do-gooders" who had "hamstrung" the legal system.

The Prime Minister confirmed plans for the UK to become a world leader in clean energy, with "every home" powered by offshore wind by 2030.

The focus on renewable power saw the Prime Minister distance himself from his previous views - in 2013 he said wind farms "failed to pull the skin off a rice pudding".