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Ed Balls demands action on rising house prices

Adam Williams
Written By:
Adam Williams
Posted:
Updated:
09/03/2017

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has called for changes to the Help to Buy scheme in London, accusing Chancellor George Osborne of failing to act over rising house prices.

In an interview with the Financial Times Balls accused George Osborne of ‘washing his hands’ of the housing market by moving decision making powers to the Bank of England.

He said the government needed to pull back on the Help to Buy scheme in London following a period of rapidly rising house prices in the capital.

“You can’t, as chancellor, wash your hands of responsibility for balancing the housing market,” Balls told the newspaper.

He said there was a ‘a very substantial overlap’ in Osborne and the Bank of England’s powers and said the former was shifting responsibility to the central bank, which was still learning how to deal with its additional responsibilities.

“The danger when you have a large overlap is that people think it’s someone else’s responsibility,” he said.

Balls warned that increasing the Bank Base Rate would be a ‘blunt instrument’ against house price rises in London and the South East and could damage the rest of the economy.

The MP for Morley and Outwood also repeated his call to restrict the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme to properties worth less than £400,000.