Renters (Reform) Bill

Simon Jupp Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech and I commend him for all of his efforts on the Bill. One of the challenges is that sometimes our thinking about this issue is constrained to, for example, a metropolitan area. He and I both represent rural constituencies that are really affected by short-term holiday lets, and the unintended consequence of this Bill is that landlords will be pushed towards using those, because the rules and regulations will become so tight and constraining on long-term landlords. Does he agree?

[Anthony Mangnall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point, and it comes back to the question of trying to incentivise long-term lets over short- term lets. In rural constituencies in the south-west, we face a rising tide of short-term lets. However, we are not legislating on the basis of our own respective constituencies, but on a nationwide approach. We should look very carefully at other countries and other examples of where things have gone so badly wrong through, sometimes, the simplest tinkering of housing legislation: Scotland on rent controls might be one, and Finland or Berlin might be another. They are examples of things having been got horribly wrong.