North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called for the regulation of hairdressing to be included in the Public Health (Wales) Bill.
Responding to a Statement on the Bill in the Assembly Chamber this week, Mr Isherwood, expressed concern that currently anyone in the UK can set up as a hairdresser and asked for the regulation of hairdressing to be included in the Bill.
He said:
“Your statement refers to the creation in the Bill of a mandatory licensing system for practitioners carrying out special procedures - acupuncture, body piercing, electrolysis and tattooing - helping to protect people and so on. But when I wrote to you regarding the hair industry, you replied, on 27 October, that the regulation of hairdressing will not be included in the Public Health (Wales) Bill at introduction into the Assembly, scheduled for 7 November.
“Given that the hair industry in Germany must be registered and have a master craftsperson employed, but in the UK anyone can set up, and they don’t have to be qualified, trained or registered, despite providing dangerous procedures, including the use of chemicals on skin and hair, and given that the Bill as it stands does include beauty and procedures such as Botox and, I believe, dermal fillers, will you now give consideration, post introduction of the Bill, to the concerns raised by the industry in this respect?”
The Minister for Social Services and Public Health, Rebecca Evans AM, replied: “It’s our view that industry regulation and health and safety are non-devolved, so it’s not something that we believe that we would have the powers to regulate within this Bill in any case.
“The reason we’ve chosen those four particular special procedures in terms of introducing the Bill to the Assembly was because these are ones that carry particular harm, or potential harm, I should say, because they puncture the skin and that could lead to infection, blood-borne viruses and so on.”
Mark Isherwood added: “The Minister’s argument is inconsistent. Chemicals used in hair salons can burn the skin, and tissue fluids from burns also pose a risk of blood borne virus transmission”.