Extra help for first-time buyers

The government is to announce new measures to help first-time buyers and key workers onto the housing ladder.

There will be £1,500 grants to help certain qualifying buyers with the costs of setting up a new home such as solicitors' charges and furniture.

In addition the government will confirm locations of surplus public sector land to be used to build 30,000 new homes.

The grants are to run in conjunction with a part-buy scheme offered to key workers and certain first-time buyers.

Three million pounds has been put aside for the first wave of £1,500 grants, which will be offered to buyers who take part in the government's Open Market Homebuy scheme (OMHB).

Under the OMHB, qualifying buyers take out a mortgage for a percentage of their home and then a cheap loan - known as a shared equity loan - from the government and lenders to pay for the balance.

Those who qualify include social tenants, key workers and some first-time buyers.

There are currently two OMHB shared equity loan products offered by the government, offering loans of between 15% and 50% of the total cost of the property.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say: "By offering new grants and sharing a stake in their home, we are making the dream of a new home more affordable for thousands of low-income first-time buyers and key workers such as nurses and teachers."

Developers who bid for the public sector land will have to provide a high level of affordable housing.

Housing Minister Caroline Flint will say that there is an "urgent need" to build more homes.

The government has pledged to build an extra 200,000 homes on surplus public sector land by 2016.