Conservatives pledge to give young people £5,000 ‘first job bonus’ to buy a home
The Conservative Party has pledged to introduce a £5,000 tax rebate aimed at helping young people to buy a home and save for the future.
Speaking at the party’s conference on Monday 6 October, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Mel Stride said that if the Conservatives win power, they will introduce a ‘first job bonus’, which will see the first £5,000 earned by young professionals set aside for savings.
“When someone takes their first job, the first £5,000 they pay in national insurance won’t go to the taxman. It will go towards a deposit on their first home, or it will go towards savings for their later life,” Stride said.
“For a working couple, that means £10,000, helping them buy a home, build a family, save for the future.”
“That is the Conservative dream, a dream that built my life,” he said.
Another feature of Stride’s speech was the focus on cutting Britain’s welfare bill. He attacked Labour’s record on managing national finances and warned that the current government would leave ‘huge debts’ behind by the end of Parliament.
The Conservatives’ solution is to cut the welfare bill and limit access to welfare to British citizens, which Stride said would cut billions in spending.
“Labour want to park you on benefits, we want to help you to a better life,” he said.
“A fairer system also means ensuring that only British citizens can access welfare, because citizenship should mean something. The culture of something for nothing must end now.”
Conservatives are the party of fiscal responsibility: Stride
Stride argued that the Conservative Party’s approach is to tackle national debt and responsibly manage the country’s finances.
“We are the only party that gets it. The only party that will stand up for fiscal responsibility,” Stride said.
He briefly referred to Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget in 2022, which cost the country billions after the government tried to implement £45 billion in unfunded tax cuts.
“We will bring taxes down, we must, but we will only do so when it is affordable… we know when the alternative path leads. We saw that with the mini-budget in 2022,” Stride said.
“Let me be clear, the Conservative Party will never, ever make fiscal commitments without spelling out exactly how they will be paid for.”
“We are and will always be the party of fiscal responsibility,” he said.
