In a push for new legislation, a Labour MP has forced a Commons debate over short-term lets, arguing that London’s legal cap is meaningless unless ministers close what she calls a major enforcement loophole.

Rachel Blake (pictured), MP for Cities of London and Westminster, used the Ten Minute Rule procedure to do so, which allows an MP to formally propose a new law and force a debate in the Commons.

Enforcement issues

She says that although councils already have powers to restrict short-term letting, in practice, they cannot enforce them. Under existing regulations, homes in London cannot be rented out for more than 90 nights a year without planning permission.

The Government has also committed to further tightening the rules by introducing a mandatory national registration scheme requiring hosts to display a reference number when listing their properties.

She argues that the scheme will fail unless it also records how often homes are used, telling MPs: “The registration scheme must collect a crucial piece of information that we currently cannot access: the number of nights for which homes are being let out.

“Without this crucial data, enforcing the 90-day limit will remain an elusive task to local authority planning enforcement teams.”

These individuals turn our homes into hotels, our communities into commodities and our neighbours into night-time nuisances.”

She cited AirDNA data that shows nearly 6,000 short-term lets in Westminster and the City of London exceed the annual cap.

According to Blake: “These individuals turn our homes into hotels, our communities into commodities and our neighbours into night-time nuisances.”

She added: “Homes are not hotels — and communities must have the power to protect themselves.”