Mortgages scheme 'will cause price boom'

Gordon Brown's plan to use taxpayers' money to help firsttime buyers came under fierce fire from a major think-tank today.

Martin Weale, president of the National Institute of Economic-and Social Research, said the scheme would cause house prices to rise even further, pricing other people out of the market.

He said it would give a " oneway bet" to speculators buying up housing and appeared to be a cheap way of helping a few people while avoiding paying public-sector workers enough to buy homes.

He said: "The real problem is that there are not enough houses." Mr Brown plans "shared equity" in which the Government or the private sector would part-own a house, making it cheaper for buyers who would split windfalls - or losses.

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