Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of traditional short-term lets on the local economies of (a) rural and (b) coastal communities.

Traditional short-term lets have long provided visitor accommodation to rural and coastal locations, supporting jobs and the local economy. However, it has been highlighted that there is no single, definitive source of data on short-term lets in England with which to make a more detailed assessment, and the Government has committed to introducing a registration scheme for short-term lets in order to better understand the size of the market.

In April 2023, the Government published a consultation on the design of a short-term lets registration scheme. The consultation closed on 7 June 2023, and the Government will respond in due course.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will work with the relevant Government departments on the design of the registration scheme and to ensure that different measures which apply to short-term lets are proportionate, complementary and easy to understand.