THE National Audit Office (NAO) inspection of the Conservatives’ help to buy scheme this month found more than half of people using the government’s loan scheme could have bought a house without state support.

Help to buy, launched by then Tory chancellor George Osborne in 2013, offers buyers zero-interest loans worth up to 20 per cent of the cost of new-build houses.

The NAO report means that the government’s most expensive scheme to increase house supply, with over 200,000 loans worth £11.7 billion, is not helping those most in need.

Instead many of the loans help people who were buying a house anyway get a bigger and more expensive home.

So why is the scheme renewed each year, despite ever-growing complaints?

One reason is that it very much does help housebuilding firms, who have seen profits zoom thanks to help to buy-backed sales.

In turn some housebuilders profiting from help to buy fund the Conservatives. Take billionaire John Bloor.

He is the 88th richest person in the UK. His companies have given £1.6m to the Tories since 2015.

His housebuilding company, Bloor Homes, has seen profits rise up to £134m, with company annual reports specifically citing help to buy as contributing to their success.

Thanks to his donations, Bloor has been to Conservative Leaders Group dinners-for-donors with Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson and other top Tories in 2016 and 2017.

Or take Home Counties developer Thakeham Homes, which has given the Tories £129,000 since 2017, including paying for a company-branded “lanyard” that went round the neck of every conference delegate in 2018.

Thakeham also says help to buy has encouraged its sales. Thanks to its donations, Thakeham director Robert Broughton has been to Tory dinners with May, Hammond, Johnson and Amber Rudd in 2017 and 2018.

There are other encouragements. The NAO report shows developer Taylor Wimpey made 12 per cent of all sales funded by help to buy.

Former Tory MP Angela Knight is on the board of Taylor Wimpey, so the government is pumping up companies that could give them jobs, post-retirement.

Knight is still close to Tory circles, and even had a part-time job at the Treasury — the department behind help to buy — as the chair of the Office of Tax Simplification until the end of February.

Help to buy means the Conservative government has borrowed £11.7bn and invested it in houses.

But instead of investing that money in new council houses to help those in need in the housing crisis, it has spent the money helping those who could already buy houses buy bigger houses.

This has helped housebuilders make big profits without really dealing with housing shortages. In turn the developers are funding the Conservative Party. We need a new government to break this rotten financial cycle.