Consumers’ hopes were falsely raised over assistance with mortgages

According to officials from the Conservative Party, the hopes of consumers across the UK were falsely raised by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, due to the delay with the Homeowner’s Support Scheme.

The scheme was announced by Mr Brown last year, and whilst it was supposed to have been launched by the start of this year, giving many homeowners and consumers hope over assistance with their mortgages, it ended up being delayed until April.

The government said that the reason behind the delay was that further negotiations had to be entered into with lenders with regards to the finer points of the scheme. However, officials from the Conservative Party have said that it is clear that something went wrong with the scheme, adding that Gordon Brown simply raised the hopes of consumers in the UK but didn’t deliver what was promised.

The shadow housing minister, Grant Schapps, said: “It looks to me like an attempt to grab the headlines by the prime minister rather than actually deal with the problems.”

He added that it was “completely wrong for the government to announce a scheme where the details haven’t been worked out and where months later people’s expectations will have been dashed because actually they are still losing their homes rather than the scheme being in place.”

The Council of Mortgage Lenders has confirmed that the government was still in negotiations with lenders, stating: “When there is a gap between an announced policy measure and its implementation, inevitably people wonder what’s happening and try to find out about that.”

Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, said: “The much-publicised Homeowner Mortgage Support Scheme announced last year has not yet helped a single family in trouble. The prime minister’s wasteful complacency means that millions of extra families could be added to already full social housing lists.”

Tags: leader, council of mortgage lenders, family, nick clegg, shadow housing minister