Latin America: Future Foreign Policy
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Baroness Gardner of Parkes(2 years, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]
My Lords, as chairman of the UK branch of Plan International, a charity, for about 20 years, I have regularly visited most of the countries in Latin America. The major problem always was that people obtained all sorts of wonderful things and shelves were stocked but no one knew how to use them. That was rather wasteful and we wanted to do something about that. Can the Government, given that development is now included in the Minister’s portfolio, assure me that the experience of non-governmental bodies that already work in Latin America will be involved in any plans, as their experience is invaluable in providing insight into opportunities and areas of need? The lesson that I learned was that it was important to have someone explain how to use things, not just to present them and then hope that people would be able to put together a prefab school or all sorts of things for educational use. In the light of the—
Short-term Holiday Lets
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Baroness Gardner of Parkes
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interests as listed in the register.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, government officials meet their counterparts in local authorities regularly and short-term letting is raised through those channels. I am not aware of any specific recent request from a local authority to discuss this issue with any of my ministerial colleagues but the Government remain open to such a discussion. Local authorities already have a number of powers to protect those renting on a short-term basis and their neighbours alike.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
I thank the Minister for that Answer. Is he aware of the concern of the Mayor of London about the great loss of permanent or long-term accommodation for people who want to live, or do live, in London? Now, there is the danger that your property can be taken over at any time. We want to introduce a much fairer system. Local councils should be consulted on this as they know what to do and have done it in the past.
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, I am aware of concerns raised by different parties about short-term lets. My noble friend mentioned local authorities. As I said earlier, we are open to discussing measures that could be taken to improve enforcement with local authorities in London or elsewhere, and with the platforms themselves. However, we do not want to place unnecessary regulatory burdens on households in doing so.