Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)

My Lords, I am delighted to speak in this debate, for which I am most thankful to my noble friend Lady Eaton. It is we on these Benches who have been and proudly remain the party of home ownership. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Paul, I declare that I was born in a council property, on a south Manchester council estate, which my parents had the good sense to buy in 1972 under the Conservative Government of Ted Heath. Unlike the noble Baroness, obviously, I became a Conservative. We are committed to supporting first-time buyers specifically to help home ownership to become a reality, especially for younger generations. Under the previous Government, 800,000 people bought their first home through schemes such as Help to Buy and stamp duty relief. The lifetime ISA was also introduced to help young people save towards their first home. We understand the Government are seeking to introduce a new ISA scheme. Any assurances the Minister can give to existing lifetime ISA scheme users and clarity on how they will be affected, if at all, would be greatly appreciated. Savers should not be punished for doing the right thing. As for stamp duty relief, Labour let the threshold expire. My party has pledged to scrap stamp duty altogether on all primary residences. If implemented, the average buyer could save over £4,500. The policy is there for the Government’s taking, but, alas, millions of prospective buyers face exorbitant stamp duty bills, slowing the housing market, disincentivising those who want to downsize and keeping larger family homes and home ownership out of reach. If noble Lords do not believe me, the Housing Select Committee reported in June this year: “Stamp Duty Land Tax reduces the affordability of home ownership, slows the property market, and ultimately damages the economy. While it is a valuable source of revenue for public finances, Stamp Duty Land Tax must not be maintained in its current form and needs to be reformed”. The tax did generate £15.2 billion in the most recent financial year, but this is a question of priorities. Do the Government care more about increasing levels of home ownership or would they rather increase welfare budgets? We have done the work for them. This is not an unfunded announcement. We have identified £47 billion of savings, around half of which could come from the ballooning welfare budget. Would the Government rather see that increase or would they rather see more people get their keys to their first home? Some 76% of renters—