Candidates vying to represent Bath have been grilled on child poverty, how they would keep big businesses in the city and what they would do about short-term holiday lets – and their views on Brexit.

They appeared at a hustings organised by Bath Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.

Federation of Bath Residents’ Associations chairman Robin Kerr posed the first question of the evening, about the conversion of family homes into short-term holiday lettings.

Wera Hobhouse: “We have to get the balance right. We have a tourist economy which benefits our city. There’s a real problem with short-term lettings. We need a change to planning law. We need registration. It can’t be right traditional B&Bs have to go through all sorts of checks when Airbnb doesn’t. There needs to be a registration system and councils need resources.”

Jimi Ogunnusi: “For me it’s about building more houses, not shutting existing ones. Where are we going to house tourists? We should build more houses.”

Annabel Tall: “The Government has been preoccupied, not uninterested. The rental market has got out of step with the technology. The legislation has to be updated.”

Mike Davies: “There should be more regulation. I’m a councillor in Bristol – I see developers building houses for the sole purpose of creating Airbnbs. One reason it’s unregulated is because of cuts to local authority budgets. We impose conditions [on planning applications] but we can’t enforce them.”

Simon Gould, the managing director of defence firm BMT in Bath, commented on keeping businesses in Bath when he said: “We have 300 workers in the city. Most people travel in. In the next parliament we have to make some big decisions about whether we want to stay in the city. Premises is one issue. People can’t afford to live in the city, and transport links aren’t great.”

Mr Gould said BMT had grown rapidly and it was inefficient to be based across three different sites in the city – it has two offices in Lower Bristol Road and a third in Monmouth Street.

Tall: “We’re seeing a restructuring of the high street. That’s going to free up a lot of business space. I would hang in there. You have the PR bonus of being here. I would say hang in there for now.”

Davies: “We would cap rents. That would help people to be able to afford to live in Bath. We would build 150,000 houses a year across the country.”

Ogunnusi: “By saying you want to make Bath less attractive for businesses coming in is quite short-sighted. Trying to limit progress is backwards thinking. We need to make it more attractive. Whatever we can do to make businesses come here should be the priority.”

Hobhouse: “There’s a particular difficulty for businesses of a certain size to find suitable premises. We don’t have a lot of big commercial premises. I want to keep you here. It would be wrong to neglect one business that makes this city thrive. Affordable housing can’t be solved on a local basis. We need to build 300,000 homes a year, and 50-100,000 need to be for social rent.”

Moving on to Brexit, an accountant for a high-tech firm in Bristol said the company was likely to lose many of its skilled EU nationals because of Brexit.

Ogunnusi: “There’s a global market, it’s not just Europe. Doctors and nurses coming from the Commonwealth have to go through a massive process. It should be a level playing field. We never gave our explicit permission to get closer and closer to Europe. We voted to leave. We should respect that.

“I would rather have £10 in my pocket and be independent than £100 in my pocket and be part of the European empire.”

Tall: “If we leave with the withdrawal agreement, there shouldn’t be any problems. There would be if we leave with no deal. We’re doing well despite the uncertainty, because a democratic vote was taken. The consequences of going back on the vote would be bigger by a country mile.

Democracy is the founding bedrock of our society. People in the minority have to accept the outcome of a vote. If Wera wins, I won’t campaign for five years to have her removed. We need a majority government [to get the deal through].”

Davies: “We [Labour] would secure a six-month extension and negotiate a new deal in three months. That would maintain our links with the customs union and close ties with the single market relationship.We would put the deal to a referendum.”

Hobhouse: “The two parties promoting Brexit have got into a bind about immigration. The labour market dictates levels of immigration. Trying to stop immigration into this country isn’t going to happen. You’re just making it more difficult to come here and hire people from abroad.

“I continue to fight to stop Brexit. I think the negotiations will ultimately end without a deal, and we’ll leave on WTO [World Trade Organisation] rules. We’re going to end up on our own. We shouldn’t have had the referendum.”

Chief executive of Bath Rugby Club, Tarquin McDonald asked what the candidates would do to help the 20 per cent of Bath children who grow up in poverty.

Davies: “The amount of poverty we have is despicable. A lot of people are in poverty because of social security reforms the Conservatives brought in. Labour would reform the benefits system so we have a compassionate system that looks after people. We would have a national education system which makes sure children have the best possible start in life.”

Tall: “I have no problem with people being rich. I have no problem with the richest one per cent paying 25 per cent of taxes.

“Bath is a bad place to be poor. It’s a very rich city. People get lost in the statistics. We need far more compassion in our politics. We’re raising the living wage.

Ogunnusi: “I’ve travelled the world and seen serious poverty. There’s no one solution. One thing about the UK is we have compassion in this society.

Hobhouse: “Everyone should pay a fair share. I don’t believe we can solve the problem by just taxing the super rich. I believe in good public services, but they cost money. We should contribute to them fairly. I find it particularly devastating to see young people growing up in poverty.” Stephen Sumner, LDRS.