Higher-income households were the biggest beneficiaries of George Osborne’s Help to Buy mortgage schemes, introduced in the 2010s, according to an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) thinktank.
高收入家庭是乔治·奥斯本 2010 年代推出的”购房援助”抵押贷款计划的最大受益者，这一分析来自财政研究所（IFS）智库。
Launched by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government in 2013, Help to Buy involved two separate schemes aimed at making home ownership more achievable in a period of rapid house price growth.
该计划由保守党-自由民主党联合政府在 2013 年推出，旨在快速房价上涨时期让购房更加容易。
The first was taxpayer-backed loans to reduce the deposit buyers needed. The second was a mortgage guarantee scheme, covering part of lenders’ potential losses on high loan-to-value mortgages.
第一个计划是政府为购房者提供的贷款，以减少所需的首付。第二个计划是一种抵押贷款担保计划，覆盖部分贷款机构在高贷款价值比抵押贷款上的潜在损失。
Both applied to homes worth up to £600,000 and by 2014-15 they supported about a fifth of first-time buyer purchases.
这两个计划都适用于价值不超过 60 万英镑的房产，到 2014-2015 年，它们支持了大约五分之一的首次购房者购房。
However, using a new approach based on survey data and local property prices, the IFS suggests much of the benefit went to higher earners who would eventually have been able to buy a home anyway – particularly those living outside London and south-east England, where property was less expensive.
然而，IFS 通过基于调查数据和地方房产价格的新方法指出，大部分利益流向了高收入者，他们最终无论如何都能购房——尤其是那些居住在伦敦以外和东南英格兰地区的人，那里的房产价格较低。
Bee Boileau, a research economist at the IFS and a co-author of the briefing, said: “Help to Buy policies can help first-time buyers get on the housing ladder, in theory, but can also push up house prices and require the government to assume the risk on loans that the private sector is not otherwise willing to make.
IFS 的研究经济学家 Bee Boileau，也是该简报的合著者，表示：“理论上，Help to Buy 政策可以帮助首次购房者进入住房市场，但也会推高房价，并要求政府承担私营部门不愿承担的贷款风险。”
Our research indicates that the Help to Buy schemes introduced in 2013 had the largest impact – in terms of making more homes affordable – on higher-income households.”
“我们的研究表明，2013 年推出的 Help to Buy 计划在使更多房产变得可负担方面产生了最大影响——主要针对高收入家庭。”
The report adds: “Since these individuals would normally be expected to be able to save for a minimum deposit quite quickly even without Help to Buy, it is likely that these schemes accelerated their first home purchase by a few years rather than making the difference between becoming a homeowner or not in the longer term.”
报告补充道：“由于这些个人在没有 Help to Buy 的情况下通常也能很快存够最低首付款，因此这些计划很可能通过提前几年加速了他们首次购房，而不是在长期内改变了他们成为房主或非房主的可能性。”
The analysis suggests the mortgage guarantee scheme had “limited effects on affordability”, as buyers were still constrained by the maximum multiple of their income they could borrow.
分析表明，抵押贷款担保计划对“可负担性”的影响“有限”，因为购房者仍然受其收入倍数上限的约束。
The loan scheme was “more important for almost all households” in improving the affordability of local properties. However, it had a much narrower scope as it only applied to new-build properties, leaving it “muted in effect”, according to the IFS.
该贷款计划对“几乎所有家庭”在提高当地房产的可负担性方面“更为重要”。然而，它的适用范围要窄得多，因为它仅适用于新建房产，因此根据 IFS（英国财政研究所）的说法，其“效果被削弱”。
The two schemes had little effect on social mobility, the thinktank suggests. Boileau said if future governments wanted to tackle inequality, they could target help at lower-income households, but warned that could mean the taxpayer taking on more risk.
该智库指出，这两项计划对社会流动性影响甚微。布瓦洛表示，如果未来政府想要解决不平等问题，他们可以针对低收入家庭提供帮助，但警告这可能意味着纳税人承担更多风险。
Help to Buy had been criticised by many experts for inflating prices without boosting housing supply: a report by the House of Lords built environment committee in 2022 suggested that the money spent on the scheme “would be better spent on increasing housing supply”.
许多专家批评 Help to Buy 计划因未增加住房供应而推高了房价：2022 年英国上议院建筑环境委员会的一份报告指出，该计划所花费的资金“最好用于增加住房供应”。
A version of the mortgage guarantee scheme was reintroduced in 2021 and made permanent by Labour last year, aimed at ensuring 95% mortgages remain available.
一项住房抵押贷款担保计划于 2021 年重新引入，并由工党去年使其永久化，旨在确保 95%的抵押贷款仍然可用。
The Tories’ housing secretary, James Cleverly, defended Help to Buy, saying: “The previous Conservative government’s Help to Buy schemes gave many thousands of people the chance to realise the dream of homeownership. Under Labour, in contrast, things are getting harder and harder for first-time buyers, with housebuilding in sharp decline and stamp duty fees soaring.”
保守党的住房部长詹姆斯·克利弗利为 Help to Buy 辩护，他说：“前保守党政府的 Help to Buy 计划给了成千上万的人实现拥有住房梦想的机会。相比之下，在工党执政下，首次购房者的处境越来越艰难，房屋建设急剧下降，印花税费用飙升。”
