Andy Burnham's government will lend people buying their first home in England 20% of the value of a newly built home. They need a 2.5% deposit.

The stories

5 on this beat today.

Every story told the same way: what happened, who is involved, why it matters, how it works, the truth and the good news.

1. 01

   Andy Burnham's government will lend people buying their first home in England 20% of the value of a newly built home. They need a 2.5% deposit.

   20%

   of a new-build home's value, lent by the UK government to a first-time buyer

   the buyer needs a deposit of only 2.5%, half of what Help to Buy asked for [1]

   203,000 of 300,000

   new homes finished in England in the year to June 2026, against the yearly pace the target needs

   the UK housing secretary sees only a 'slim chance' of reaching 1.5 million [5]

   15%

   rise in the supply of new homes that a UK government review credits to Help to Buy

   the review called fears that the scheme pushed up prices overblown [4]

   What happened

   • Andy Burnham, Britain's prime minister, announced a scheme called Your First Home on Saturday. [1][3]
   • It came as he arrived in Liverpool for his first Labour conference as prime minister. [1]
   • It is for first-time buyers in England who have saved a deposit of 2.5%. [1]
   • The UK government would lend them 20% of a newly built home's value to help pay for it. [1]
   • The UK government's part is an equity loan, sized as a share of the home's value. [1]
   • Labour says it will carry no interest for an opening period. [1]
   • Burnham says people without help from the 'bank of mum and dad' are among those it aims to help. [1]
   • He says it will also give builders the confidence to build the new homes the country needs. [2]
   • The money is to come from existing government budgets, and housebuilders will pay towards the running costs. [1][2]
   • Details come in the Budget on 28 October, and people can pre-register before the end of the year. [1][3]
   • UK ministers have not said whether there will be an age limit or a cap on home values. [1]
   • It copies Help to Buy, which from 2013 let buyers of new-build homes put down 5% and borrow up to 20% of the cost, free of interest for five years. [1]
   • A UK government review found Help to Buy raised the supply of new homes by 15% and was 'very high value for money'. [4]
   • It said fears that the scheme pushed up house prices were overblown. [4]
   • Katie Lam, housing spokeswoman for Britain's Conservative Party, said the new scheme asks first-time buyers to take on even more debt. [2]
   • She said a charge on developers could push up the price of new homes. [2]
   • England finished about 203,000 new homes in the year to June 2026, far short of the 300,000 a year its 1.5 million target needs. [5]
   • Angela Rayner, the UK housing secretary, says there is only a 'slim chance' of hitting it. [5]
   • An investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority found that 11 housebuilders build about 40% of new UK homes. [6]
   • It said they are not pushed to build faster, because that could hurt profits or local sale values. [6]
   • A briefing from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says higher mortgage rates and the end of Help to Buy cut demand for new-build homes in the UK. [7]
   • Someone born in the UK in the mid-1990s has about a 25% chance of owning their home, the BBC reports. [8]

   • Buyer's deposit2.5%
   • Government loan20%
   • Rest for the buyer to raise77.5%

   Who is involved

   • Andy Burnham Britain's prime minister; he announced Your First Home before his first Labour conference as leader
   • Angela Rayner England's housing secretary; she says the scheme targets the first-time buyers who need help most
   • Katie Lam the Conservative Party's housing spokeswoman; she says the scheme loads buyers with more debt
   • England's housebuilders the companies that build homes for sale; they will pay towards the scheme's running costs
   • John Healey Britain's chancellor; his first Budget, on 28 October, will give the scheme's details

   How it unfolded

   1. 2013 Help to Buy starts, lending up to 20% of the cost of a new-build home [1]
   2. 2023 Help to Buy ends [4]
   3. Saturday Burnham announces Your First Home [1][3]
   4. 28 October the Budget sets out the details [1][3]
   5. End of 2026 pre-registration opens [1]

   Why it matters

   The next test is the 28 October Budget: whether it caps the value of homes the loan can buy, and whether builders start more than the 203,000 homes a year England now finishes. [1][5]

   The truth

   • What is really going on Your First Home is a UK government loan that can only be spent on newly built homes, so the money reaches England's housebuilders first. [1]Those builders finished about 203,000 homes in the year to June, against the 300,000 a year the target needs. [5]A competition investigation found they are not pushed to build faster. [6]
   • Why it works on people The number people hear is a 2.5% deposit. The 20% that makes the purchase possible is a loan, free of interest only at first. [1]
   • Who gains England's housebuilders — A loan that only buys new-build homes brings them buyers who could not raise a bigger deposit. [1] RBC analysts call more help for buyers the biggest possible lift for the sector. [4]
   • Who gains First-time buyers without family money — They can buy a new-build home with 2.5% saved, half the deposit Help to Buy asked for. [1]
   • Who pays Taxpayers in Britain — The loans come out of existing government budgets, so money moves away from other plans. [1]
   • Nobody knows yet

     Whether Your First Home will cap the value of homes it covers, or have an age limit.

     UK ministers have not said, and the details come in the 28 October Budget. [1]

   • Nobody knows yet

     How long the loan stays free of interest, and what it costs after that.

     Labour has said only that there will be an initial interest-free period. Help to Buy's interest-free period lasted five years. [1]

   • Nobody knows yet

     How much the scheme will cost, and how much builders will pay towards it.

     The money is to come from existing budgets, with developers paying towards running costs, but no figure has been published. [1][2]

   • Nobody knows yet

     Whether the review's findings on Help to Buy hold for the new scheme.

     The review found Help to Buy raised new-home supply by 15% and called fears about prices overblown. [4] That scheme asked for a 5% deposit; the new one asks for 2.5%. [1]

   • Nobody knows yet

     When Help to Buy began.

     The BBC says 2013, when it expanded an earlier scheme called FirstBuy. [1] Morningstar's report says it ran from 2011. [4] We report both.

   Good news

   • Britain's longest-running consumer confidence survey has reached a two-year high. Among young people, confidence has not been this high since before Brexit.

1. 02

   US removes 760,000 from health plans

   What happened

   • Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday 22 September that the Trump administration will remove 760,000 people from health plans sold on the Affordable Care Act's public marketplaces. [12]
   • Vance leads a government task force on fraud, and said the people were enrolled by fraud or did not exist. [12]
   • Cancelling their subsidies saves $2.2 billion, he said. [12]
   • Another 419,000 enrollments will get extra checks, and new sales agents are barred for six months. [12]

   Why it matters

   About 19.2 million Americans had these plans in early 2026, and anyone removed by mistake loses subsidised cover. [12]

   A New York Times check found the task force's wider fraud totals hard to verify, because it publishes no breakdown. [13]

   The truth

   • Who gains The US federal budget — Cancelling subsidies for 760,000 people saves $2.2 billion, by Vance's count. [12]
   • Who pays Anyone removed from a US health plan by mistake — They lose subsidised cover, and experts say it is not clear how the 760,000 were chosen. [12]
   • Nobody knows yet

     How many of the 760,000 people removed from US health plans were really enrolled by fraud.

     The administration gave no details of how it chose them, and KFF, a health research group, asked whether all of them were. [12]

   • Nobody knows yet

     What the White House's fraud totals are made of.

     The task force says it has uncovered 245.7 billion dollars in fraud, but publishes no breakdown, so the New York Times found it hard to verify. [13]

1. 03

   US home-loan rates pass 7%

   What happened

   • The average 30-year fixed home-loan rate in the US reached 7.03% on Thursday 24 September, according to Freddie Mac, a company that bundles and sells home loans. [9][11]
   • It was the first time above 7% in 20 months, since January 2025. [9]
   • Freddie Mac's weekly average had been 6.67% in mid-August and 6.76% on 10 September. [10]
   • Home-loan rates follow the 10-year US government borrowing cost, which rose over the summer on worries about inflation and the size of US debt. [9]

   13 Aug6.67%

   10 Sep6.76%

   24 Sep7.03%

   Why it matters

   At the median US home price of about $429,000, one percentage point on the rate can cost a buyer hundreds of dollars more a month. [9]

   High rates helped push sales of existing homes down 2% in August from July. [9]

   How it works

   Help with a deposit either builds homes or pushes up what they cost

   A loan to first-time buyers lets them pay more, and builders either build more homes or charge more for the ones they have.

   The twist

   The loan is paid to the buyer. How fast builders can add homes decides whether it becomes new homes or higher prices.

   The picture

   Finished, year to June 2026203,000 homes

   Needed each year300,000 homes

   Step by step

   1. 1 The UK government lends a first-time buyer 20% of a new-build home's value
   2. 2 The buyer can now pay more than their savings and mortgage allowed
   3. 3 More people can afford a new home, so builders can sell more of them
   4. 4 Builders with land, workers and materials build more homes
   5. 5 Where they cannot, or choose not to hurry, the same money lifts prices instead

   The same force, elsewhere today

   Where this chain is also running, in today's other stories.

   • US home-loan rates pass 7%

     The first step runs in reverse. A 7.03% rate cuts how much each buyer can borrow, and sales of existing US homes fell 2% in August.

   Where you've seen this

   Concert tickets

   the seats are fixed, so extra money fans bring goes into resale prices, not into more seats

   Help with rent

   where rented homes are scarce, benefit paid to tenants can end up in the rent landlords charge

   Farm payments

   money paid per acre can raise what farmers pay to rent land, because nobody can make more land

   The catch

   It is rarely all one way. The same loan can add homes where land and builders are free, and lift prices where they are not.

   And the whole of it

   A young buyer with 2.5% saved, a builder choosing how fast to build, and every taxpayer lending the 20% are all inside this one scheme. None of them alone decides whether it ends as new homes or dearer ones.

   The truth

   • Who pays People buying a home in the US — At 7.03%, each extra percentage point on the loan for a $429,000 home costs hundreds of dollars a month. [9]
   • Nobody knows yet

     Whether US home-loan rates keep rising.

     They follow the 10-year US government borrowing cost, and many US central bank policymakers projected one more rate rise before the end of the year. [9]

1. 04

   Amazon's Prime refunds rise to $200

   What happened

   • A revised US court order raises the most any one Amazon customer can get back under its Prime settlement to $200, from $51, the Federal Trade Commission said on 17 September. [14]
   • Future payments will be sent automatically, with no claim form. [14]
   • Amazon agreed in 2025 to pay $2.5 billion to settle FTC claims that it pushed people into Prime without clear terms and made cancelling hard. [14][15]
   • Of that, $1.5 billion is for refunds, and more than $845 million had been paid by September. [14]

   $51Most per customer before

   ↓→

   $200Most per customer now

   Why it matters

   The FTC estimated that about 35 million US customers affected between June 2019 and June 2025 could qualify. [15]

   The first automatic refunds went out between 12 November and 24 December 2025. [16]

   People who had used Prime a few more times had to file a claim. [15]

   The truth

   • Who gains Amazon Prime customers still owed money — Their top payment rises from $51 to $200, and it arrives without a claim form. [14]
   • Nobody knows yet

     How much each Amazon customer will now receive.

     The FTC gave a new top payment of $200, not an average, and did not say how many more people now qualify. [14]

   Good news

   • Amazon will now pay up to $200 each, instead of $51, to Prime customers owed money under its settlement, and payments still to come arrive without a claim form. It had already paid out more than $845 million by September.
2. 05

   Healey to fund union training again

   What happened

   • John Healey, Britain's chancellor, speaks to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Monday, a month before his first Budget on 28 October. [4][3]
   • He is due to announce 15m pounds of government money to bring back the Union Learning Fund, a training scheme run by trade unions for workers in England. [17]
   • Workers need not be union members, and courses run from basic English and maths to skills for growing industries. [17]
   • Sharon Graham, head of the Unite union, wants him to unfreeze income tax thresholds too. [17]

   Why it matters

   The thresholds are frozen until 2031, so more low earners pay income tax for the first time and more workers move into the 40% band. [18]

   Graham says the tax-free amount of about 12,500 pounds would be over 16,000 pounds if it had not been frozen. [18]

   The truth

   • Who pays UK workers getting pay rises — With thresholds frozen until 2031, more low earners pay income tax for the first time and more move into the 40% band. [18]
   • Nobody knows yet

     Whether Healey unfreezes income tax thresholds in his Budget.

     Unite has asked him to, and the freeze runs until 2031. [17][18]