Mark Clarke - Encouraging home ownership

Mark's Priorities > Encouraging home ownership

Mark Clarke wants to see young Tooting residents and key workers given the support they need to get their first step on the housing ladder.

But stamp duty is hitting first time buyers in Tooting increasingly hard. Five years ago only 28% of people in Tooting paid the higher 3% stamp duty. Now that number is 60%. This means many first time buyers have to pay a minimum of £8,200 in tax just to buy their own home.

Mark believes that we should be taxing things we want to discourage such as pollution, not things we should be encouraging like buying your first home.

Changes by the Labour Government to the key worker purchase scheme have reduced the amount of people who are taking up this scheme. Programs such as this are important in an area like Tooting where there are two large hospitals - St George’s and Springfield - which have many nurses and other critical workers.

Mark’s family benefited from the right-to-buy scheme in the past and he is campaigning for schemes to give young first-time buyers and key workers, like nurses and teachers, the chance to get on the housing ladder.