Tory plan offers £5,000 ‘first-job bonus’ to young workers buying homes

The Conservative Party has proposed giving young people a £5,000 national insurance rebate to help them buy their first home.

The plan, to be announced by shadow chancellor Mel Stride on Monday, would grant a “first-job bonus” when individuals start their first full-time job.

According to The Times, the measure would divert national insurance contributions into a long-term savings account and could provide working couples with up to £10,000.

The Conservatives estimate that 600,000 people a year would benefit, with the £2.8 billion cost funded by cuts to government spending, including ending sickness benefits for mild mental health conditions and restricting welfare access for around half a million foreigners.

Stride will say: “When we deliver the urgent change that is needed to stop young people going straight from school to a life on benefits, we will use those reforms to fund tax cuts which are laser-focused on aspiring young people.”

Under the proposal, the first £5,000 in national insurance payments would go into a savings account that could be used to buy property or withdrawn after five years.

Badenoch, the Tory leader, said there was a “gap for the responsible, optimistic, competent Conservative approach.”

The Times also reported comments from James Cleverly, who said the party must “re-establish the mantle of being the party of aspiration.”