Chancellor George Osborne revealed his plans to extend the Help to Buy equity loan scheme during a television interview on Sunday. The scheme was launched last year in England only with a separate scheme covering Scotland reaching the market in September.

Now the leading trade body for Scotland has called for the Scottish government to follow Osborne’s pledge to extend the scheme.

Philip Hogg, chief executive of industry body Homes for Scotland, said: “The move by the Chancellor represents an important recognition of the success of the scheme and the need to provide greater certainty to developers, enabling further investment in the building of new homes as well as vital jobs and apprenticeships.

“We were pleased that the Scottish government listened to our calls last year and agreed to the introduction of Help to Buy (Scotland) last September. This has clearly had a massive impact in terms of increasing both buyer confidence and output as demonstrated by recent independent statistics. Indeed, indications are that take-up north of the border is actually greater than in England.

“Whilst we await the detail of Wednesday’s Budget, it is essential that the Scottish government continues to address the dramatic housing shortage facing Scotland by channeling any consequential funding into providing comparable levels of support to ensure that buyers and builders here are not disadvantaged.”

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