The chancellor should more than halve the £600,000 limit on Help to Buy and start to wind up the mortgage subsidy scheme before it distorts the UK housing market, the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has said.
Angel Gurría, the OECD’s secretary-general, urged George Osborne to lower the eligible house price limit to the national average, £262,000, and begin a process of closing the scheme.
“It was a good idea and it worked,” Mr Gurría said. “Now the economy is back on track. The price of houses has gone double digit. Do you still really need the mechanism? You need to think about moving towards normality before distortions set in.”
Last week the government announced that about 35,000 homes had been