Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed the government will introduce controls on short-term holiday lets.

In an interview with BBC Spotlight – the regional TV news programme for the south west – he says plans for a mandatory national register for short-term lets, inherited from the last government, are now under way.

But he admits the government had not yet acted on a pre-election pledge to introduce further restrictions.

During a visit to Plymouth in 2023 – when Starmer was leader of the opposition – he said a licensing system for holiday lets “should be in operation as quickly as possible”.

The government previously said the registration scheme would help councils to understand the effect of short-term lets on communities.

But in this weekend’s Spotlight interview he simply said he would continue “working with others” to make sure it got to “the underlying issue”.

Starmer said: “We’re going stage-by-stage, so this is basically stage one, we’ll then carefully review what stage two should look like, but in terms of the sort of underlying concern, or issue, I completely understand that and I’m determined that we’ll get to grips with it, working with others to make sure that we get it right.”

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government previously said it understood the “frustration” of communities where large numbers of properties were used as second homes and holiday lets.

“That’s why, to protect communities we are giving councils powers to charge a council tax premium on second homes,” a spokesman told the BBC.

“We are also introducing a registration scheme for short-term lets and removing tax incentives for landlords.”