Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook has hinted heavily that the government will go further than the Tories in its bid to regulate holiday lets.

Earlier this year, the previous government proposed creating a new planning use class for short-term lets that weren’t used as a sole or main home. Existing dedicated short-term lets would automatically be reclassified into the use class and wouldn’t require a planning application, while councils would have more powers to regulate them and subject them to the scrutiny of the planning process.

During the Renters’ Rights Bill debate, Pennycook was asked by Lib Dem MP Gideon Amos whether the government was likely to introduce such a use class.

Not far enough

The minister replied that he believed previous suggestions didn’t go far enough. “We are considering what additional powers we might give to local authorities to enable them to better respond to the pressures they face as a result of the excessive concentrations of short-term lets and holiday homes,” he told MPs.

“The government are very alive to the fact that there are many parts of the country - coastal, rural and some urban constituencies - where excessive concentrations of short-term lets and holiday homes are having detrimental impacts, not least on the ability of local people to buy their own homes or, in many cases now, rent their own homes,” said Pennycook.

“That is the reason why we will progress with abolishing the furnished holiday lets tax regime, and with the introduction of a registration scheme for short-term lets. That will give local authorities access to valuable data on them.”