Contribution
My constituency includes parts of the Lake District national park and I have been a councillor for the town of Keswick for a number of years, so this has been a big issue for me. It was interesting to hear my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) talk about the number of holiday lets in her constituency, which I think she said was 2,000. The CA12 postcode, which comprises Keswick and the surrounding villages, has 1,000 holiday lets. The impact on a micro level is part of the issue. There will be people in some councils around the country who will listen to this debate and think, “What are they talking about?”, but others will know exactly what we are talking about and recognise the problems that it is causing for our people.
I have followed this debate for a few years, and I appreciate the toolkit approach, but my worry is that that is throwing everything at it. We have to remember that some of our tourism economies are now quite reliant on this accommodation. We have even seen some traditional holiday accommodation, such as bed and breakfasts and guest houses, move away because people prefer self-catering options. For me, the question is how we remove the bubble, which is causing so much harm, without destroying our tourism economy. We need to look at the range of options and evaluate them by asking what we would really gain from them and what damage they would cause.
I want to start with tax, which is a funny one. Some people have the idea—I have never bought into it—that if we throw taxes at people, eventually there will be a new equilibrium and all of a sudden we will hit a sweet spot where we have the right number of holiday lets and everyone is happy. Even if we were to achieve that in the Cities of London and Westminster or in Cornwall, it might not work in my area. I do not believe the tax system is designed in a way that will allow us to manage this problem. I appreciate the arguments about fairness and what is just, and whether it is right that, every time a property turns from a residential property to a holiday let property, the tax burden of the parish precept has to be put on the neighbours, because of the way that calculation is done. I get that parts of the tax system are unfair, but I still do not think it is the answer to our problem.
There is also the registration system. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for bringing this issue to Westminster Hall. I used to be a Labour activist in her constituency and I remember it being talked about on the doorstep, but Westminster has a key thing that some other areas do not: the 90-day rule. It also has many people living in leasehold properties who are forbidden by their leases from offering short-term lets. The real issue in Westminster is the cat-and-mouse game whereby the leasehold block management companies chase people to try to prove that photographs on Airbnb are of the inside of their flat. Neighbours make complaints, but often enforcement is not possible. I can see the power of a registration scheme for enforcement by those companies and by councils. We have seen this problem on the Churchill Gardens estate, with chocolates on the pillows —the works.
I can see why a registration system would work in London, but there is a big flaw in it. In my area, it would only allow us to do one thing: count how many short-term lets there are. I do not need to count them to know the damage they are causing. What we really need is caps. Some people say, “Well, use the planning option,” but that would see permission given in perpetuity under permitted development rights. It would be a disaster for my community if the 1,000 holiday lets were made permanent in that way.
My hon. Friend the Member for York Central suggested a licensing scheme, and I think that is the way forward. That would allow us to build in caps. Importantly, whereas the planning system is under-resourced, does not have the funds and is front-loaded because people only pay for planning applications at the beginning, under a licensing scheme, owners would have to pay on an annual basis.