Help to Buy extended in Wales until 2025

The Help to Buy scheme for the purchase of new build houses will be extended in Wales until 2025.

The Finance Minister, Rebecca Evans, confirmed that the Welsh government will spend £63m to keep the shared equity scheme going.

Ministers plan to increase the cap on the purchase price on homes it can be used for from £250,000 to £300,000.

Meanwhile Ms Evans indicated the Welsh government will not be capping council tax rises.

She said the rises so far had not been "palpably excessive".

The average hike is 5.5% but one council, Conwy, saw an annual rise of almost 10%.

Plans to extend Help to Buy are confirmed in the Welsh government's final budget for the year from April, which was agreed in a vote of the Senedd on Tuesday.

The measure passed because of abstentions from Plaid Cymru as part of the Welsh government's co-operation deal with the party.

Help to Buy, which has been scrapped in England, provides a shared equity loan of 20% on new build properties.

It means homebuyers can provide a minimum deposit of 5%. The loan has to be repaid over 25 years.

The Welsh government says that all homes sold through the scheme will need to meet a minimum of the EPC B energy efficiency rating from 1 April, when the price cap will also rise to £300,000.

Ms Evans told a press conference that the funding "will assist Help to Buy to adapt to changes in the housing market and address the impact of the current economic climate on potential homeowners".

The final budget also says that "close to £100m" will be allocated towards measures "to help people stay in their homes and also to support social housing which aim to help people avoid homelessness, prevent repossession and create more social housing".

At the press conference Ms Evans said the Welsh government would only look to cap council tax rises "were they to be palpably excessive".

"The sums which I'm hearing at the moment aren't really coming into that palpably excessive range."

She added that interfering in council tax would "be difficult because it's an important part of local democracy", and that there are lots of people who are eligible for support for council tax and are not claiming it.

Members of the Senedd (MSs) debated the Welsh government's final budget plans for 2023/24 in the Welsh Parliament on Tuesday.

Conservative finance spokesman Peter Fox told the Senedd that "too much of this budget simply misses the mark".

He accused Labour ministers of being "distracted by new powers and pet projects" and said more money should have been directed towards the cost of living crisis, healthcare services and schools.

Plaid Cymru finance spokesman Llyr Gruffydd said there were serious concerns about the lack of any increase in funding for the housing support grant, and said the decision not to continue the Welsh fuel support scheme beyond April was "alarming".

He said concessions agreed in the his party's co-operation deal with the Welsh government would "go at least some of the way to alleviate some of the challenges facing the people of Wales today".

Ms Evans replied to the debate accusing the Conservatives of "epic amounts of brass neck", saying they had "ignored or forgotten the fact that our Welsh government budget in the next financial year will be worth a billion pounds less".