A Labour MP has initiated a Commons debate calling for enhanced enforcement mechanisms in the forthcoming national short-term letting registration scheme, arguing that current regulations cannot be adequately policed.
Rachel Blake, MP for Cities of London and Westminster, used the Ten Minute Rule procedure to propose legislation requiring the registration scheme to record the number of nights properties are let, addressing what she describes as an enforcement gap in existing rules.
Current regulatory framework
Under existing regulations, residential properties in London cannot be rented out for more than 90 nights annually without planning permission. The Government has committed to introducing a mandatory national registration scheme requiring hosts to display reference numbers when listing properties.
Blake told 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.”
Scale of non-compliance
Blake cited data from AirDNA indicating nearly 6,000 short-term lets in Westminster and the City of London exceed the annual 90-night cap. She stated that councils possess powers to restrict short-term letting but cannot enforce them in practice.
“These individuals turn our homes into hotels, our communities into commodities and our neighbours into night-time nuisances,” Blake said.
The proposed legislation would require the registration system to track usage data, enabling local authorities to identify properties breaching the 90-day threshold. The Ten Minute Rule procedure allows MPs to formally propose new laws and force parliamentary debate, though such bills rarely progress without government support.
