Matthew Pennycook

What can I say to the hon. Gentleman? He has expertise in this area, but I think it is slightly rich of him to say that the expertise available to Government, including legal expertise, is wrong on this point. The Welsh Government do have a particular approach, as I have heard mentioned several times today; that does not need to contend with the 90-night short-term let limit in London, which creates additional legislative complexity in England. We are engaging with the Welsh Government, who are due to publish their final impact evaluation on a series of measures, including on planning use classes. As I have said many times in this House, we continue to give serious consideration to what further powers local authorities need in order to bear down on excessive concentrations of second homes and short-term lets. As I was saying, the clause does not propose that C6 short-term uses would revert to C3 at the point of sale, nor does it propose an alternative method to facilitate the return of existing short-term lets for use as primary dwelling houses. There is therefore an asymmetry in the proposed clause. This could most negatively impact the place most in need of properties reverting from a short-term use to a sole or main residence use. It is also not clear how the proposed new C3 dwellinghouses definition would interact with existing C3(b) and (c) use classes, which include up to six residents living together as a single household where care may or may not be provided to residents.