Commenting on the government’s announcement of the ‘Your First Home’ scheme, CPS Head of Housing and Infrastructure Ben Hopkinson said:
‘Like ‘Help to Buy’ before it, the ‘Your First Home’ scheme will subsidise demand for housing while doing little to address the underlying issues driving Britain’s housing crisis.
‘As a number of CPS papers have shown, we are 6.5 million homes short of our comparable European neighbours and stamp duty has a chilling effect on the housing market. Andy Burnham should be slashing stamp duty, and the other taxes and regulations that make building too expensive, rather than layering a new subsidy on top of eye-watering taxes.
‘At a time when gilt yields are worryingly high and the government is only one global shock away from a fiscal crisis, we shouldn’t be adding more to the state’s liabilities’
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
- Ben Hopkinson is Head of Housing and Infrastructure at the Centre for Policy Studies
- The Centre for Policy Studies is one of the oldest and most influential think tanks in Westminster. With a focus on taxation, economic growth, housing, immigration, and energy abundance, its goal is to develop policies that widen enterprise, ownership and opportunity
Date Added: Saturday 26th September 2026
