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Special Report: Diminishing room for double standards in the sharing economy

MPs appear ready to demand regulations on accommodation platforms be enforced. Ian Taylor reports

The interim report on The Sharing Economy of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on tourism, released on Wednesday, may make uncomfortable reading for senior figures at Airbnb and similar platforms.

The MPs make a clear call for standardising health-and-safety regulations across accommodation providers and platforms.

They acknowledge the platforms’ plea for regulation to be “light touch” yet conclude: “Consumers should be protected.”

The report notes: “Customers [of the platforms] . . . are less protected if things go wrong than they assume.”

It acknowledges the increasing popularity of the ‘sharing economy’ but suggests: “Growth must not be at the expense of consumer safety.”

The MPs suggest: “The problems and discrepancies around regulatory compliance stem from a failure of enforcement”. They identify two main reasons for this:

“Firstly, leading sharing economy platforms do not check if hosts are compliant with regulations such as gas and fire safety before allowing them to post a property on their site.”

The report notes: “A checklist provided to hosts does not reach the standard expected by current regulations and sharing economy businesses do not currently undertake checks.”

The MPs find it “of particular concern that sharing economy companies deny responsibility for customer safety”.

They note the suggestion that “sharing economy companies be made co-liable with premise owners for the safety of consumers” and state: “This is a view with which we have considerable sympathy.

“If traditional booking agents for self-catering properties can be held liable for not checking the safety of properties on their books, we see no reason why sharing economy platforms cannot be held liable under the same duty of care.”

Second, the MPs note “the difficulties” faced by regulatory authorities in locating accommodation providers “as the platforms do not provide data on the exact location of a property until a booking is made. This makes it difficult to implement an effective inspection regime.”

They add: “The London Fire Brigade does not have the data or resources to deal with the large increase in tourist accommodation [and] . . . There has been a mushrooming of sharing economy properties in coastal or rural tourism hotspots where the capacity of regulatory authorities to monitor let alone regulate is very thin.”

The MPs conclude: “There needs to be sufficient transparency to allow enforcement authorities to know the location of all tourism accommodation properties.”

They add: “The All-Party Parliamentary Group recognises the need for a proportionate and light-touch approach. However, there is significant evidence to suggest an increasing number of professional operators are using online platforms as a low-cost . . . route to market.

“It is also difficult to distinguish between a person running a traditional B&B in a three-bedroom house and a person running a similar business through a sharing economy platform, or between a person letting a self-catering unit through a company such as Wyndhams and someone advertising a self-catering property through Airbnb.”

The interim report concludes with six observations, which may be summarised as:

1. All businesses offering accommodation should compete on a level playing field.

2. There is “an urgent need” to clarify and codify platforms’ security assurances.

3. The experiences of people living near platform-listed properties need “far more attention”.

4. The implications of enforcement agencies lacking adequate resources to carry out safety inspections “must be grasped”.

5. The Inquiry will consider a ‘soft touch’ statutory registration scheme for all accommodation.

6. Variable limits on holiday rental of residential accommodation might be suitable outside London.

Chair of the group Gordon Marsden said: “We have endeavoured to look at the evidence, guided by the principle that there should be a level playing field in standards for both traditional models and the distribution innovations of the sharing economy.

“We have endeavoured to look at issues of accommodation safety and legal protections, as well as at the grey areas of responsibility between platforms such as Airbnb and others.

“We have touched on the potential for a registration scheme, as well as the impact on those affected as neighbours.”

Marsden noted “the urgent need for more research on what is happening” and said: “Balancing choice, diversity and innovation with the principles of a level playing field will not be easy. But more clarity and definition are urgently needed.”

The inquiry began at the end of 2016, with the MPs taking written and oral evidence through the course of 2017.

A final report is due in May.

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