Tories’ flagship Help To Buy scheme which is meant to get Brits onto the housing ladder ‘funnels cash to the wealthy’
The average Help to Buy claimant earns £55,000 a year, according to official statistics
WEALTHY Brits earning as much as £100,000 are getting taxpayer-funded loans to buy a home, official figures have revealed.
The Help To Buy scheme is meant to help people get on the housing ladder - but those being helped earn an average of £55,000.
And in London the average wage of Help To Buy claimants is now £72,000 - around three times the national average salary.
Critics described the policy as "welfare for the upper middle classes" and called for it to be radically changed or even scrapped.
Help To Buy equity loans provide cash to homebuyers which enables them to own a property with a deposit of just 5 per cent.
Over the past five years, the scheme has paid out £8.3billion - with 160,000 people benefiting from it.
New Government figures show the average household income of claimants has now risen to £55,000.
And 10 per cent of those who've benefited earn at least £80,000 a year.
Buyers in London are even wealthier - reflecting the capital's sky-high house prices.
The average income of claimants has increased faster than inflation since the scheme started in 2013, suggesting the gains are increasingly going to richer Brits.
Labour's Shadow Housing Secretary John Healey told the Independent: "Badly targeted schemes like Help to Buy aren’t focused on those who most need a hand up.
“Labour would refocus Help to Buy to help first-time buyers on ordinary incomes."
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And Sam Dumitriu of the Adam Smith Institute told The Sun: "This is welfare for the upper middle classes, which I don't think is a good idea."
He called on the Government to concentrate on building new homes to bring house prices down, rather than pumping up prices by subsidising buyers.
Today it also emerged that a quarter of all property buyers rely on a handout from their parents.
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