UK Landlord Forum / Life

I expect we've all seen news about the government's initiative to help first time buyers, e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15810966

I'd be interested to know what you feel about this.  Putting aside my "landlord hat" for a moment and putting on my "citizen of the UK hat", I'm worried it's not going to be a good thing:
- Why are we nationally obsessed with house ownership as the only way to occupy a home?
- How does home ownership, which is expensive and long winded to sell and buy line up with geographical mobility - to allow people to move around to work?
- Are people who currently own a first time buyer type home are going to be stuffed?  If they want to move up to a second time buyer type house (say a new addition to the family) and want to sell their house then the new buyer has to find the 25%-odd deposit.  But a new build govt backed scheme house only needs 5% deposit found.  So how are any already build houses going to get sold?  Will these prices have to drop still further?
- Some say our problems from 2008 involved being too adventureous with property backed debt.  Is this exactly what the govt's doing in this scheme?
- There's a lot of empty property out there which could be renovated back into use much more easily than new build (which usually requires extra infrastucture).  But renovation attracts 20% VAT, which new build is exempt from.  Is this right?

So in short, I'm really worried my tax (which I really don't mind paying - I like to see my town have good schools and well lit streets with police on the beat) is just going to go down the plug hole with this idea.