Short-term and Holiday-let Accommodation (Licensing) Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 9th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Housing matters. Our communities matter. There can be no greater human right than having shelter, yet in many of our communities housing is being flipped over to short-term holiday lets amid a housing crisis. Housing is snatched to make wealth for investors while housing poverty’s grip freezes families out of their homes and out of their communities. Children are being taken out of school and people are being forced to leave their jobs as they cannot find somewhere to live, all so that others can profit from those dwellings. Villages are becoming desolate and urban streets are being turned into party metropolises. There is something very wrong in what is happening, and our constituents are suffering. My Bill would fix that.

Rural, coastal and urban communities are at the centre of an extraction of wealth and housing that is leaving destitution and despair. For the Government not to license short-term holiday lets but just to register them will let landlords off the hook and deepen the housing crisis. A registration scheme will appease the industry, landlords and short-term holiday let platforms but fail to give local authorities the tools that they need to protect residents. That is why I call for support for my Bill, which would bring fair and balanced changes into legislation.

I am grateful for the support of housing campaign groups such as Generation Rent, Acorn and Action on Empty Homes, as I am for that of Members across the House in the other place. Other countries are years ahead of us, yet the obsession with deregulation has caused the Government to hesitate. It is now incumbent on MPs to ensure that we legislate.

The Government’s new plans to register short-term holiday lets will not give local authorities opportunities to create controlled zones where Airbnbs are banned or numbers limited, nor to raise penalties where breaches of locally determined criteria occur so that fines can be issued or licences removed. My Bill would legislate to achieve that. Measures have been already deployed throughout Europe and in many places across the world. With the Bill, we would simply catch up by addressing the challenge.

A registration scheme tells us simply where holiday lets are, but we already know that because they are listed on public platforms. My Bill would add controls to that and do something about it, unlike the Secretary of State’s current approach. The Government are also calling for a new use class consultation up to the summer, but that concerns me, as a new use class will lock in short-term holiday lets, making it more difficult for such properties to return to residential use. Under my Bill, when the owner changes the property will automatically return to residential use—quick and simple.

The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020 amended the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 to introduce a new use class, stating that buildings or lands that were in those particular use classes prior to transfer would be treated as automatically moving into the new use class, according to the House of Commons Library. That would mean that 330,000 short-term holiday lets would be automatically deemed for that purpose. With the stroke of a pen, the Secretary of State is taking a third of a million properties out of residential use, and then requiring a full planning process for each to return to being a residential dwelling—difficult, timely and costly. This has not been thought through.

My legislation would be far more receptive to reversing properties back to housing. In April 2016, just 76,000 properties were marketed on the Airbnb website. That has risen substantially just in the last year by another 14%, but there are many other platforms out there. Every day, 29 more properties flip from residential use to short-term holiday lets. So much time has been lost, which is why we cannot delay.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. This is clearly a huge issue across the country, including in my constituency in Reading. Does she also believe that more action needs to be taken on the wider range of temporary lettings that can take properties out of use by families, such as some types of student lets and some other temporary lettings?

[Rachael Maskell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. So many things need to be done on housing, and I know that a Labour Government will put it foremost in their agenda, to ensure that everyone has a home to live in. In York, we have over 2,000 short-term holiday lets. The Government consulted over the summer about a registration scheme, but that horse has bolted. The market is out of control. It needs regulating, and my legislation would achieve that. With a licence, people do not get just a register but safety certificates, ensuring that standards are in place and complied with. If not, the licence can be revoked. Those are the challenges that we want to be addressed.

We have clearly seen a massive growth in this industry. What started off in San Francisco as an air mattress on a floor is now a £57 billion industry worldwide. That is why we have to get a grip on it. It is not just about a spare bed in the shared economy; whole swathes of streets are now pepper-potted with residential accommodation turning into holiday lets. In my constituency, we have seen a particularly sharp rise. It seems to be an issue for holiday destinations.

Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

It is not the threat of the American Government to our NHS that worries me; it is the threat of the Tory Government to the NHS. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that distinction.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will give way once more and then I will have to make some progress.

[Matt Rodda]

I very much appreciate my right hon. Friend giving way; he has been very generous with his time. He mentions the threat of the Government to British agriculture—he is absolutely right on that—and the threat to the environment in some of the measures. Does he agree that there could also be risks for many small exporting businesses who face a series of hurdles to get over because of the Government’s trade policy?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the position of small businesses. Support for small businesses, particularly exporters, is something on which the Government really have to do far better.

UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

We know that this deal is almost a carbon copy of the EU-Japan deal. We can discuss the ironies of this Government plagiarising the EU’s work on another occasion. However, I would like to focus on the small but significant differences and what they might mean for the UK.

We will undoubtedly hear a lot of concern about digital rights today, and it would be remiss of me not to voice my concerns and the concerns of my constituents—I am also a graduate of the School of Computing at the University of Leeds—about what the deal means for data privacy. The deal allows for the

“free flow of data between Japan and the UK”,

and from there on to other trade partners, undermining existing data protection frameworks.

Perhaps most concerningly, this means our data being transferred to a range of countries, including the USA, and obviously the other countries that have recently signed the CPTPP. US data protection laws are some of the weakest in the western world. There is no federal oversight, just a patchwork of state enforcement models. By allowing data to be sold off to the US, the Government are removing the right of UK citizens to know where their data is held and for what purpose. We will not be able to stop our data being used in discriminatory ways, and we will not be able to have it deleted. This could well undermine the provisions of the online harms Bill that the Government plan to lay before the House.

It is also worth noting that despite e-commerce and online retail being wrapped up in digital tech services, they are not mentioned in the deal. Instead, the deal only specifically refers to FinTech, which gives us a crucial clue about the Government’s plans. FinTech firms, usually backed by venture capitalists, are necessarily globalised. The deal fails to support small start-ups or individuals. It tells us what we already know: the Conservatives are not the party of business, they are the party of the financial elites. This deal does not create a level playing field.

The lack of concrete and enforceable environmental and sustainable provisions is another real concern of mine. This deal was a golden opportunity to outline and to aspire to establish world-leading practices as both countries work to reduce their carbon emissions to zero by 2050, and to lay the groundwork for COP26 in Glasgow. How many golden opportunities on the climate are the Government prepared to squander in the run-up to COP?

I think it is fair to say that the natural environment is at best an afterthought here. Little consideration was made of the deal’s effect on biodiversity, which is particularly pertinent as we export more agricultural goods and import large quantities of chemicals and plastics. There is an over-reliance on future technologies to excuse the potential increase in carbon emissions caused by international trade. This is worrying, and yet to be addressed.

Japan’s track record on animal welfare and sustainability is shaky, to say the least. Last year, it resumed catching whales for profit in defiance of international criticism, yet the majority of the environmental provisions in this deal are non-enforceable. Flimsy, unenforceable terms present a real barrier to upholding high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards. The Conservatives promised us in their manifesto that they would not compromise on that, so why are they compromising on it in this first deal?

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend perhaps notice a pattern emerging here? We have seen the Agriculture Bill, and the widespread concern about chlorinated chicken and other abhorrent practices. We have heard today of the deep concern about some of the things that are happening in Japan. While we obviously welcome the deal, does he agree that there is a pattern emerging of the Government putting serious environmental concerns at the back of the list of the matters they are addressing in these deals?

[Alex Sobel]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. I sat on the Environment Bill Committee many months ago, when the Bill first came in and before there was a huge pause, and this was also clear in relation to that Bill, so we are seeing a pattern across these Bills and these deals.

Moving on to the wider ambitions of the Government, I would like to ask—I see that the Secretary of State is leaving her place, but perhaps the Minister for Trade Policy will respond—whether this is the first step towards joining the regional comprehensive economic partnership, or just clearing the way to become a member of or a signatory to the CPTPP through the British overseas territory of the Pitcairn Islands.

Trade Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I am going to make some more progress.

In addition, the Government have committed to providing regular updates to Parliament on the progress of negotiations. We have already adopted a similar approach for Japan, because that is an enhanced agreement. There is an important distinction that new clause 4 does not make, requiring, as it does, the roll-over agreements not yet signed to be subject to the same scrutiny as new agreements, even though the original EU-third party agreement has been subject to both EU and UK scrutiny.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I am going to make more progress.

For new trade agreements, the Government have already committed to working closely with the relevant scrutiny Committees in both Houses throughout negotiations. This includes providing confidential briefings, as appropriate, to keep them apprised. This approach is in line with the recommendations of the former Member for Blackburn, Jack Straw—who served in government with the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner). He said in his evidence to the Lords Constitution Committee that

“it should be for the negotiators to decide how much privacy and confidentiality there should be”

during negotiations

“and certainly not others”.

Finally, when negotiations have concluded, we will work with the relevant Select Committee to ensure, where practical, that there is time for the Committee to produce a report on the final agreement before it is laid in Parliament under CRAG.