The £5.4 billion support package, of which £1.3bn is to be spent in 2013-14, also includes an increase of the maximum Right to Buy discount in London to £100,000, an expansion of the Build to Rent fund to £1bn and an additional £225 million to the affordable homes guarantee programme.
The Help to Buy scheme will see the Government provide £3.5bn of capital spending towards a shared equity loan programme under which loans worth up to 20% of the value of a home will be available to purchasers of new build homes with a value of up to £600,000. The loan programme, which the Treasury said will support up to 74,000 more home buyers, will open on 1 April and be available for three years.
The scheme also comprises a mortgage guarantee which will run for three years from January 2014. The Government will offer guarantees to lenders offering mortgages to buyers who have a deposit between 5% and 20%. It will apply to existing home owners as well as first time buyers. The Treasury said that up to £12bn guarantees will be made available to support £130bn of mortgages.
The Government's Right to Buy scheme, which supports social tenants in purchasing their homes, will see an increase of the maximum discount cash cap in London from the existing £75,000 to £100,000, Osborne announced.
The Chancellor announced an expansion of the £200m Build to Rent fund, which was announced in the 2012 Autumn Statement, to £1bn. He said that the fund, which provides equity or loan finance to support the development financial stage of building private rent homes, was "significantly oversubscribed".
The Government's Affordable Homes Guarantee programme will be provided with an additional £225m, which the Treasury said would support a further 15,000 affordable homes starting by 2015.
The Budget also saw the Government confirm a number of previously announced measures it will take to reform the planning system. This includes the publication of "significantly reduced planning guidance" by the summer, the promotion of new Local Growth Deals and City Deals as well as consultation on allowing further flexibilities between use classes, including changes from agricultural and retail to residential.
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is progressing a public sector land auctions model and will work with the Treasury to explore the feasibility of a wider use of the model.
The Chancellor announced a boost to the UK's infrastructure with £3bn of Government department savings to be spent yearly on infrastructure projects from 2015-16.
He also confirmed the announcement earlier this week that the Government will create a Single Local Growth Fund for Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) following recommendations made by Lord Heseltine in his report, No Stone Unturned.
