The government is considering a further crackdown on short-term lets in a bid to free up more homes for local people.
During a Commons debate on the housing emergency-struck communities of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook told MPs the limited number of measures introduced in the previous Parliament did not go far enough.
“Although we will progress with measures such as the introduction of a registration scheme for short-term lets in England, and the abolishment of the furnished holiday let tax regime, we are also considering what additional powers we might give local authorities to enable them to better respond to the pressures that they face,” said Pennycook.
Lib Dem MP Andrew George urged the Minister to allow places such as Cornwall to be granted devolved powers to target local housing need. “The way in which the system works is that we get all the second and investment properties - the developers are very pleased to do those, but they are not so keen to deliver the genuinely affordable homes, which are the ones that we need,” he said.
George told MPs the government should also close the loophole of allowing short-term lets to move from paying council tax to business rates. However, he added: “Surely there must be a way, within the tax system, of rewarding those good landlords, as well as regulating and penalising the bad ones?”
The debate comes as Airbnb’s latest study found that across the vast majority of places in the UK, there is no relationship between the growth in listings on the site and the increase in housing costs. About 95% of the change in rents and house prices from 2015–2022 was due to other factors unrelated to the growth of short-term lets, according to the platform.
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