Renters’ Rights Bill

Debate between Baroness Coffey and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I too have added my name to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, and want to add a very brief footnote to the two speeches that have already been made.

It is at times like this that we miss the contribution of the late Baroness Gardner of Parkes, who many of us will remember intervening forcefully whenever short-term lettings were mentioned, reminding us of the erosion of rented property in London, but also, as the noble Lord, Lord Truscott, mentioned, some of the problems in large blocks of flats when short-term tenants cannot conform to the normal rules.

What we need here is a balance. There is a role for short-term lettings and Airbnb to play as part of a portfolio of opportunities in a coastal resort or, indeed, in a capital city. But what we have at the moment is a one-way street of erosion of long-term property for rent into short-term lettings. If we are to have a balance and get it right, it should be the local authority which should be in a position to strike that balance. I am sure the Minister, as a distinguished leader of a local authority, would agree that local authorities are best placed to do this.

I think I am right in saying that, until fairly recently, you actually needed planning permission to move from long-term to short-term letting, but, in a move to deregulate and make it easier to move from one use class to another, that requirement to get planning consent to move from one use to another was waived in the 2010 or 2015 Parliament, apart from in London.

It was retained in London, and only in London, where, if you want to short-term rent a property, you can only do so for 90 days—a rule that is ineffective unless it is enforced, and many local authorities find it difficult to enforce . What this amendment seeks to establish is whether the Government are minded to extend from London to other parts of the country that type of restriction to stop what is, at the moment, a one-way street.

I just add a rider to what the noble Lord, Lord Best, has suggested. If you need planning consent to go from long-term to short-term, I do not think you ought to need planning consent to go back the other way. In other words, it should be a hurdle to get over, but if you want to revert to long-term renting, you should not have to go through the process again. If one looks at various parts of the country, in some coastal areas, one in 10 homes are now short-term lets or second homes. Roughly 24 homes a day are being lost through this process, so I hope the Minister will be able to respond sympathetically to the thrust of this Bill, and say that there are plans to give local authorities the powers that I think they need to get the right balance in the tenures in their area.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I live not far from Aldeburgh, not too far from Southwold, so I am very conscious of the issues that have arisen from people acquiring homes and then turning them into short-term rentals. It is a really important part of the coastal economy, but I would suggest in a different way that, in fact, the changes made to the tax situation, where it was possible to offset mortgages and all sorts of expenses, led to a significant increase in the price that people were prepared to pay for houses. I saw this in Southwold, where I got a lot of angry letters—admittedly from people who had done just this thing. What happened was that neighbouring houses that had been priced only a few years earlier at something like £300,000 to £400,000, were now selling for over £1 million. This was done on the basis of the short-term property rental that was possible.

However, what concerns me about this particular amendment is that it does not account for those people who are moving into a place to make it their permanent home. At the moment, this amendment suggests that, if it has been used at all for long-term tenancy, it should be excluded or need further planning permission. I suggest that there are plenty of people who are trying—whether in rural or coastal areas—to make their long-term home, but want to take advantage of the times when they themselves choose to go on holiday to be able to get some rental income. It is a perfectly sensible way, at times when people choose to be away potentially at the height of season, to gain that extra income. While I am sensitive to the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, I think that we need to explore what happens when the property transitions from one owner to another so that they can use their new family home in the best way possible, not only to enjoy that home but potentially to make sure that it gets used all year round.