Critics of the government’s Help to Buy scheme claimed it was fuelling a new and unsustainable rise in property prices as data from the Office of National Statistics showed the average UK house price rose 3.7% in the year to July.
But Chancellor George Osborne refuted such claims and his defenders pointed out that if London is excluded the average price rise over the same period was under 1%. The data show that London house prices, at 1.9 times the national average, are now at their highest ever level in relation to the rest of the UK.