When asked whether he would consider introducing mortgage interest relief “at source” by Conservative MP Jake Berry, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ruled it out today, noting that it could fuel further inflation.

He said: “Those kinds of schemes which involve injecting large amounts of cash into the economy right now will be inflationary, so much as we sympathise with the difficulties and we’ll do everything we can to help people seeing their mortgage costs go up, we won’t do anything that would mean we prolong inflation.”

Hunt said that he would meet with mortgage lenders this week to see what further help they could offer households struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.

Mortgage rates rise again as products fall

The Government last week said that it would not give direct fiscal support to householders wanting mortgage help.

The last few weeks have been tumultuous for the mortgage market as higher than expected inflation figures led to swap rates rising and mortgage rates have climbed since.

Lenders have been temporarily removing and repricing deals over the past few weeks due to swap rate volatility.

The latest daily figures from Moneyfacts indicate that average mortgage rates have climbed across the board. The average 2-year fixed residential mortgage rate today is 6.15%. This is up from an average rate of 6.07% yesterday and the average 5-year fixed residential mortgage rate today is 5.79%. This is up from an average rate of 5.72% yesterday.

Menawhile, there are currently 4,498 residential mortgage products available. This is down from a total of 4,641 yesterday.