Hairdressing — House of Commons, 2015-01-07
Topic: Mixed Topics
Richard Quentin Fuller (Conservative, Centre-right): First, as a politician I do not think I should be guaranteeing the quality of service that someone receives in a hair salon. Secondly, I do not think that regulation is the same as a guarantee, and I have tried to make that point. Regulation is, as the hon. Lady rightly says, a sticker in the window, but there are plenty of examples of regulation not providing protection. It can sometimes be misguiding to say that people are protected when they are not. If we want protection, we might have to put in place compensation schemes and ask the taxpayer to fund situations where there have been negative consequences. The hon. Lady and I have a substantially differing approach to whether it is appropriate for politicians to guarantee, and to whether a guarantee means protection. As I tried to set out earlier, there are a number of layers of informal protection that guide our decision to get a haircut in salon A or salon B The hon. Lady mentioned the Hair Council’s proposal to have inspectors going around regulating. That would be really tough. The Care Quality Commission has to regulate, I think, 21,000 care homes, and we know that that does not necessarily provide a guarantee of service. There are even more hair salons, so unless there is a very cursory inspection—just popping in and popping out—that would be a substantial undertaking. I have some scepticism about whether the council is currently in a position to provide the level of insight the hon. Lady thinks it can in an industry that is so widely distributed and so small scale individually. The sector also has quite a high turnover—a number of salons will set up and then fail—so there will perhaps be even more than the headline number of salons that need to be regulated The hon. Lady set out a good case, but I disagree with her approach. She talked about the regulation of new industries—for example botox and so on. There is a question—perhaps the Minister will address it—of whether there should be a difference of approach when we look at new industries, such as those providing botox and cosmetic surgery, that do not have a track record of customer service and what people understand, as there is in industries, such as hairdressing, that have been established for generations. What about nail salons? If the Minister is minded to agree with the hon. Lady, does he think we should also regulate nail salons? If so, how many nail salons would we have to cover? If not, why would we cover one, but not the other The hon. Lady did not mention Europe, but given the title of the debate, I want to talk about pending European regulations relating to the hairdressing industry in the UK. When many of us on the Government Benches hear about European regulation—this is a poor joke—we are minded to pull our hair out. [Interruption.] I said it was a poor joke. [Hon. Members: "It was a very poor joke".] It is late in the day, so I can get away with it There is, however, a much more important non-joke issue that was drawn to my attention by the National Hairdressers’ Federation, which is based in my constituency: the framework agreement proposed by the EU on occupational health and safety protection. As I understand it, the Commission is seeking to make the framework voluntary agreement into something that is legally binding in all member states and for all businesses in the industry. This raises several issues. First, I am not sure we want additional European regulation in a sector in the UK. Secondly, it would not apply to those who are self-employed; it would apply only to businesses and so create a two-tier level of occupational health and safety protection? Thirdly, the European trade federation has said it would have severely negative consequences for the sector I think that most people who run salons would say it is a tough, low-margin business where every cost matters. Do we really want to add an additional burden from the EU? I understand that 10 member states have already expressed their opposition to making the regulation legally binding. Will the Minister give us his views and tell us whether the UK has or will oppose making it legally binding rather than a matter of voluntary compliance? In most sectors, voluntary compliance works effectively The hon. Lady has made a strong case for an alternative point of view, but it is a case I disagree with, and I hope that the Minister will also disagree. However, I am grateful to both of them for the opportunity to contribute to the debate.