Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Twenty Seventh sitting)

Tim Farron Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

This is a really important new clause. York’s housing market has been completely skewed by this new insurgent enterprise, which is significantly affecting not just people’s housing but their health. The mental stress for communities is significant. Families are having to move away from the places where they grew up, and businesses are having to close. The situation is urgent. I hope that the Minister will use this Bill to bring forward much-needed legislation. I hope he will talk to colleagues in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about the review it has carried out, and listen to our communities. This is a big issue for Members from right across the House. We have had so many debates about it; it is time to move forward. It is time to license, so that we can build real communities again.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I want to say a big thank you for your role in chairing many sittings of this Committee, Mrs Murray. I also thank the Clerks, who have supported you and all of us.

Earlier this week, we offered Government Members the opportunity to vote to enable local authorities to compel developers to build only affordable housing for a period of time, and they rejected that. Now, the hon. Member for York Central has put forward a very reasonable and timely suggestion about how we might do something about the stock that we have. If they will not do one or other, what is meant to happen to our housing stock? The reality for communities such as mine in Cumbria is that the evaporation of the long-term housing rental market has led to enormous hardship. It is a catastrophe.

It was a problem before the pandemic, but the combination of the stamp duty cut, introduced by the last Chancellor but three at the beginning of the pandemic, and a failure to acknowledge the consequences of the staycation boom, meant an absolute avalanche of full-time residential property going into either the second home market or the short-term rental market. That has had absolutely devastating consequences.

The fact that the Government have not kept their manifesto promise to scrap section 21 evictions means that there is literally an open door for any landlord to get rid of the people they have in those homes, and those homes then go into short-term holiday let usage. In South Lakeland, in my constituency, in one year we saw a 32% rise in the number of holiday lets. As hon. Members can image, South Lakeland had tonnes to start off with, so that is a vast number. Where did they come from? They were not new build properties, but existing homes that were lived in by families and others who have now been evicted, not just from those homes but from those communities.

I do not want to make any assumptions, but I imagine that in a community such as yours, Mrs Murray, the situation is similar and you have lost some of the full-time population. What then happens to the working-age population? I can think of successful primary schools that have lost 20% to 40% of their pupils for that reason in the last two years.

Cumbria Tourism undertook a survey of its member organisations and businesses, which work throughout the lakes, dales and other parts of Cumbria, and found that some 63% could not work at capacity over the last year because they did not have the staff to do the job. The lack of affordable housing kills economies as well as ruining family life and undoing the fabric of our communities, including schools, churches, pubs, businesses and bus services, the demand for which dries up.

The situation is catastrophic. If the Government will not accept the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for York Central, the amendment I proposed or any of the other amendments that have been proposed, what are they going to do about the crisis in our existing housing stock in communities such as those in York, Cumbria and many other areas of the country? They might nod and show their concern, but they must act. This is an absolute emergency, so act. This is something they could do, so why would they not do it?

[Dehenna Davison]

I am incredibly grateful to the hon. Member for York Central for raising the issue so passionately. I know she is deeply concerned about it and has been campaigning incredibly hard on it throughout her time in Parliament. I note she mentioned her private Member’s Bill. I have already offered to engage with her on issues that we have discussed previously in Committee, and I am happy to engage with her on that as well.

Online platforms have enabled greater choice in accommodation for holidaymakers and have brought benefits to the tourism sector. On the one hand, it is an incredible compliment to a place to see a lot of Airbnb rental properties popping up, as the area becomes a tourism hotspot and a lot of people want to visit incredible places such as York and Cumbria, but unfortunately we know the issues that can come with that as well.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale mentioned local school numbers declining and local shops and pubs seeing their year-round trade turning to seasonal trade, which is not something they necessarily expected or planned for. Many hon. Members from across the House are familiar with such arguments and have raised them in debates. I have had particular representations from hon. Members from Cornwall and Devon, who I know face similar issues.

The hon. Member for York Central mentioned illegal activity and gave examples from her constituency. That is another area where it is crucial that we get our policy right. That is why DCMS launched the call for evidence on this topic, which she made reference to, as an important first step in understanding how we can continue to reap the benefits of short-term lets, while also protecting holidaymakers and local interests.

The Government are now carefully analysing over 4,000 responses to this exercise. What local people and affected stakeholders have said will help to inform the development of evidence-based and proportionate policy proposals. Accepting this amendment before we have analysed those responses would pre-empt the necessary policy development needed. We plan to publish our response to the consultation in the usual way. We want to make sure we get the policy right because we recognise that there are so many issues related to it.