---

Sunbeds (Regulation) Bill

Fifteen pence? Well, that sounds pretty inexpensive to me—it is even less than the price of a Mars bar, or whatever young people eat these days. I read somewhere that the price was 25p in an unsupervised studio, but if the price can be as low as 15p, that suggests that the costs of provision are probably very low and that there is scope for the development of a black market, with substantial profits to be made. If sunbeds are driven out of the legitimate community and pushed underground, we could end up with another sub-culture being exploited by some of our friends from Albania or wherever, although that is speculation. It would therefore be a mistake to start legislating heavily in a way that would result in such activity going underground and thereby becoming even less apparent to those concerned to regulate it and ensure that it is of high quality. There is an important educational role to be performed, in relation not only to artificial UV but to the natural UV from the sun. Many people experience a feel-good factor following exposure to UV light. Indeed, the dark, sunless days of winter are known to have an adverse effect on the mental health of many citizens, although I am not advocating access to sunbeds as a solution to all the mental health problems in this country. On the radio this morning, I heard evidence that mental health problems had increased significantly during the lifetime of this Government, but I will not go down that route now. It used to be the privilege of only a few to be able to top up their tan in the West Indies in January and February. Now, that can be done by jetting off to places such as Dubai, Egypt, other parts of north Africa or the Canary islands. For those who cannot afford the time or the expense of such excursions, however, a local sunbed salon is attractive. Only a couple of days ago, I was talking to someone who works in this great Palace of Westminster and who is getting married next month in Las Vegas. She has decided that it would be a good idea to top up her tan in advance of the trip by using a sunbed. She told me that that would raise her self-esteem and prepare her for the sun that she hoped to experience in Las Vegas. The local sunbed salon has a legitimate role to play in that regard. I was unfortunately unable to attend the Second Reading debate, in which my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) raised the possibility of there being an agenda out there among those who want to ban all sunbeds, and wondered whether everyone in the country might ultimately be prohibited from using them. There was no clear answer from the Minister or from the promoter of the Bill to the question whether the Bill would set us on the slippery slope, or whether it was simply a free-standing Bill that was not part of a more wide-reaching agenda. How great is the demand for sunbeds? There is a shortage of hard evidence, but the Sunbed Association has told me that there are up to 6,000 salons, of which about 1,000 are members of the association.