Money, in brief

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]

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]

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 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]