BoE's David Miles: UK Housing Market Not Overheating Yet

Britain's housing market is not overheating, said Bank of England policymaker David Miles, despite rising house prices amid the controversial Help to Buy scheme which is making mortgages cheaper and easier to get hold of.

Miles said the BoE's financial policy committee (FPC) has tools to restrain the housing market if the beginnings of a bubble appeared.

"We're not in that situation at the moment, but they are mindful of the risks," Miles, a member of the monetary policy committee (MPC), told Bloomberg TV.

Critics of Help to Buy, a stimulus package for the mortgage market that has fuelled a rise in housing demand, say it risks blowing a new bubble.

They point to rising house prices, abnormally low interest rates, falling incomes in real terms, and a constrained supply of new homes as a dangerous environment for Help to Buy to operate in.

"I think right now the situation is different in the south east and different in London than it is across the country as a whole," said Miles.

London's house prices rose 11.5% across the year in 2013, according to Land Registry. Miles said when you take London out of the mix, UK house prices are only rising by between 3.5% and 4%.

He also said that the level of mortgage approvals is rising "but it still remains rather below average levels of transactions in say the ten years leading up to the financial mess".

Net mortgage lending is at "extremely low levels still and hasn't bounced back significantly at all from the very depressed levels seen".

Those who do not see the UK's housing market as a "mixed picture", and focus on London and the south east, would have a "misguided" view of the economy, Miles added.