Brown proclaims home ownership success

Gordon Brown has moved to defend Labour's record on housing, saying that almost two million more homeowners have been created courtesy of a climate of economic stability and low interest rates seen over the past decade.

The prime minister, speaking on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC One, said that David Cameron's criticisms that Labour had created a culture of debt needed to be looked at in a wider context.

Mr Brown added that there were systems in place to help Britons cope with the debt that is an increasingly necessary part of getting onto the housing ladder.

"What the Conservatives are talking about is large numbers of people who have been able to take out mortgages and buy their homes for the first time," the prime minister outlined.

"That is a good thing, not a bad thing.

"But on average people are spending a lower proportion on their mortgages and on their payment of debt than happened in the early 1990s when we ran into so much trouble," Mr Brown concluded.

The average income multiple for a first-time buyer mortgage is now 3.37 their annual salary, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.


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