Labour MP Calls for More Tracking of Short Lets
•February 19, 2026
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Why It Matters
Accurate monitoring of short‑term rentals is essential to enforce housing caps, protect affordable homes, and maintain community quality. Without it, illegal lettings undermine local planning and exacerbate London’s housing shortage.
Key Takeaways
- •90‑day short‑let cap ineffective without enforcement data
- •MP Blake urges mandatory night‑count in registration scheme
- •Westminster has ~6,000 rentals breaching the cap
- •Local councils lack tools to monitor short‑term lets
- •Proposed law uses Ten Minute Rule to force debate
Pulse Analysis
The UK’s short‑term rental market has expanded rapidly, prompting London authorities to impose a 90‑night annual limit on whole‑home lets. While the rule exists on paper, councils repeatedly report an inability to verify how many nights a property is actually rented, leaving the cap largely symbolic. The government’s response—a mandatory national registration scheme that requires hosts to display a reference number—aims to bring transparency, yet it stops short of capturing usage frequency. Without a reliable night‑count, enforcement teams remain blind to violations.
Labour MP Rachel Blake, representing the Cities of London and Westminster, leveraged the Ten Minute Rule to table a private member’s bill and force a Commons debate on the enforcement gap. Citing AirDNA analytics, she highlighted nearly 6,000 listings in Westminster and the City of London that exceed the legal limit, turning residential blocks into de‑facto hotels. Blake argues that the registration scheme must record the number of nights each property is let, providing the data local planning officers need to act against illegal short‑term rentals and protect community cohesion.
If Parliament adopts Blake’s proposal, the short‑let sector could face stricter compliance checks, potentially curbing the conversion of homes into profit‑driven accommodations. Accurate night‑count data would enable councils to issue fines, revoke licences, and preserve affordable housing stock, addressing rising rent pressures across the capital. Conversely, a failure to tighten reporting could embolden platforms and landlords to sidestep regulations, eroding neighbourhood stability. Stakeholders—from property owners to tourism platforms—must therefore prepare for a regulatory environment that balances economic benefits with the need for robust community safeguards.
Labour MP calls for more tracking of short lets
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.”
The post Labour MP calls for more tracking of short lets appeared first on The Negotiator.
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