The government has this morning a raft of policies designed to help first time buyers onto the housing ladder and to improve housing affordability. The joint Treasury and ODPM policy document, Extending home ownership, sets out three "new build homebuy” options, based on the existing social homebuy model, which will enable first home buyers to buy shares in their homes of between 50% and 75%, with the remainder being funded by the Treasury, banks or commercial housebuilders - up to 3% of which would be paid in "rent" by the buyer. Chancellor Gordon Brown and deputy prime minister John Prescott introduced the new policy, stating: “Getting housing policy right is of fundamental importance both to the lives of everyone in our country and also to the stability and sustainability of our economy and society as a whole. “To extend home ownership levels to two million in the next fie years, we will take action on a number of fronts. We will increase the number of homes available thorough a programme of investment and reform. We will step up the delivery of new housing on the ground by speeding up planning decisions and releasing more public sector land for development. We …