I am proud to represent such a beautiful part of the country. Many people visit East Devon and immediately fall in love with the place.

As an MP for such a popular tourist destination and chair of the Hospitality & Tourism cross party group in Parliament, I’ve spoken several times in Parliament about the need to get the balance right: help local people to rent or buy a home; and support the tourism industry, which is key to our local economy.

It is therefore welcome that the government has now confirmed new rules on short-term lets will start to be introduced from this summer.

A new mandatory national register will give councils the data they need about short-term lets in their area. The changes have been welcomed by the Professional Association of Self Caterers and its fantastic chair Alistair Handyside MBE for levelling the playing field. Every provider of short-term lets will be required to provide safe and quality assured accommodation, just as other guest accommodation providers such as hotels and B&Bs must currently do.

Under the government’s reforms, councils will be given greater power to control short-term lets by making them subject to planning permission. This will support local people in areas where high numbers of short-term lets are preventing them from finding housing they can afford to buy or to long-term rent. Homeowners will still be able to let out their own main or sole home for up to 90 nights throughout a year without planning permission.

The government has already closed business rates loopholes for holiday lets – making sure everyone pays for local services – and has given councils the power to double council tax on vacant and second homes from next year, after a campaign by Conservative MPs in the South West.

Without reform, we don’t have people to work in the towns in which we live. And, as one rural resident so ably put it to me: “Without full time residents living in the rural community, villages will be empty shells, more in keeping with a film set than a place to live.”