Cameron's housing promise to people 'without rich parents'

David Cameron says Newsbeat listeners without "rich mums or dads" are the people he is targeting with the government's new housing scheme.

But those same listeners say they are struggling to save any money at all towards a deposit and need more help.

We sent our reporter Steffan Powell to meet Mr Cameron to put that to him.

We started by asking him if he is disappointed that the number of under-35s who own their own home has decreased since 2010.

The PM says it's "disappointing", but says his government has already "taken some big steps" including offering larger discounts to council tenants who want to buy their council houses.

"We've also had the Help to Buy scheme which has been fantastically popular - where if you can't afford a big deposit you put down a 5% deposit and the government basically helps you with the next 20%. That's helped a lot of people," he says.

But not everyone agrees with the PM on the success of that scheme, with some reports that it's only helped people buy houses that would have been sold anyway.

The PM is now promising 200,000 homes will be built and made available to first-time buyers in England by 2020 if the Tories win the election in May.

Any of them under the age of 40 in England can register to buy the new homes that will be 20% cheaper than their market value.

He wants the new scheme to work alongside Help to Buy.

"This is about listeners to Radio 1 who work hard, who are maybe earning £20,000-30,000, maybe they've got a partner, they want to buy together, they can afford the mortgage payment... but they cant get a deposit together because they haven't got a rich mum or dad.

"Those are the people I want to help," he says.

Meanwhile, Labour says the plan isn't enough to solve the problem. Cameron's opponents claim that the coalition has seen the number of new houses drop to the lowest level since the 1920s.

Carl, a mechanic from Dorset, told Newsbeat: "I've got a family with three children, where as we can afford to pay a mortgage or pay our rent we don't have enough disposable income to be able to save the huge deposit needed to be able to buy the house."

He added: "Rental prices have gone up so much any spare money we have goes on paying for the rent and for the bills because they go up and my wages haven't."

But the PM says it will help "lots of young people who work hard and do the right thing.

"You've got starter homes which means you can buy the homes for 80% of the market value, and because of help to buy you only need effectively to get a 5% deposit if you qualify."

The Tories say homes worth £250,000 outside London - or £450,000 in London - would be eligible for the scheme and that first-time buyers would have to repay the 20% price advantage if they sold within five years.

We asked the PM about the environmental implications of the new builds.

"The latest type of carbon neutrality... they won't have to meet every one of those standards.

"They will be green houses they will have good insulation standards, but we are saying they don't have to meet the absolutely tip-top level that's coming in in some years to come.

"We are making some exemptions there but in the end you have to make some choices - my choice is build some houses that young people can afford to buy," he says.

· Labour promises 200,000 new homes built a year by 2020. It would give local authorities new borrowing powers to fund projects and could allow councils to penalise firms "hoarding" land if developments do not begin within a fixed period.

· The Lib Dems want 300,000 new homes built a year by 2020, including 10 new garden cities. Councils would have to identify suitable land over a 15-year period while sites would be ring-fenced for smaller developers.

· UKIP says developments on disused and derelict land should be prioritised, with reduced VAT and new homes exempt from stamp duty when they are first sold.

· The Green Party wants to build 500,000 new social homes for rent. They say it they can fund it, in part, by scrapping buy-to-let mortgage interest tax allowance.

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