Bellway’s CEO Jason Honeyman has called for an end to stamp duty for first-time buyers, and he’s absolutely right.
When the relief ended in April, affordability took another hit. Mortgage rates went up, confidence went down, and developers started offering discounts just to keep reservations moving.
Stamp duty has become a pointless barrier. On a £300,000 starter home it can be the difference between buying and backing out.
Honeyman has also pushed for a proper long-term deposit scheme to help buyers who don’t have family money behind them. That isn’t radical, it’s realistic.
The truth is that government policy and market behaviour are now pulling in opposite directions. Labour wants to deliver 1.5 million new homes by 2029, yet the UK is already on track to fall short by around 200,000. You cannot fix a supply issue while choking off demand.
Scrapping stamp duty for first-time buyers is not a hand-out. It is a catalyst. It gets the market moving again and makes ownership a genuine possibility for more people.
If the government wants to prove it is serious about growth, this is where it starts. Not with press releases, but with policies that make it possible for people to buy the homes we are all working so hard to build.
You can read the Reuters article here.
