Estate agents have reported that short-let properties rented via platforms like Airbnb are a “significant problem” in the housing market, broadcaster and member of the Lords Joan Bakewell has claimed.

She made the comments during a two-hour of grilling of representatives from the short-lets sector by a Lords committee looking into the housing crisis, during which Bakewell revealed had completed her own research into the issue with a clutch of agencies.

Industry representatives included Merilee Karr from the UK Short Stay Accommodation Association, Airbnb’s North European boss Amanda Cupples and Booking.com’s PR boss Fiona MacConnacher.

The trio denied that Baroness Bakewell’s observations were accurate and all three made a strong defence of the short-stay sector, claiming that without accurate and timely ‘big data’, claims that Airbnb is narrowing housing supply in rural and urban tourist hotspots were ‘likely to be inaccurate’.

Register

Cupples and Karr called for the Government to speed up its plans for a national register of short-let landlords in England, saying that it would provide the resources to accurately gauge Airbnb’s effects on the housing market.

They also revealed that the government’s data department, the ONS, is preparing to publish an index of short-let rents and property usage.

Nevertheless many of the committee members, and the industry trio, agreed that greater regulation of short-lets was needed both from a supply, anti-social behaviour and safety perspective and that a national short-term accommodation register was the first step towards that.

The comments will be of interest to the numerous letting agencies who now offer Airbnb property management services including, most famously, Portico, and specialist companies such as GuestReady.

Watch the session in full.