Home comforts

Whether by accident or design Gordon Brown and his equally beleaguered Chancellor gave a handy fillip to their compatriots yesterday. By raising the threshold for stamp duty on house purchases to £175,000 for the coming year, at a stroke they removed nine-tenths of first-time buyers in Scotland from its reach, a far higher proportion than in England. That is because at £155,691, the average house price north of the Border is considerably lower. By the same token, Scots also stand to benefit disproportionately from the increase to £175,000 in the capital limit allowed for Income Support for mortgage interest payments when a homeowner becomes unemployed. And it will be paid after 13 weeks of unemployment, a much-needed change. The current 39 weeks is widely considered to kick in too late to be helpful.