Sunbeds (Regulation) Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken for the almost unanimous support in the House for the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for having cited some of the dermatological research—I should perhaps have declared at the outset that I am married to a dermatologist, although he has not had any input into this Bill. This is a problem particularly of the fair-skinned, who burn much more easily and who are much more liable to be the group that, sadly, are caught up in the tanning culture. They get exposed to sunbeds as well as to the sun. My other comment relates to the local authority burden. One has to remember that when a young parent dies of melanoma, leaving an orphaned child or two orphaned children, the cost to the local authority is massive. These costs are in completely different budgets but if we can cut down the mortality rate in young people and all that goes on afterwards, I suggest that a little bit of investment in driving up standards and inspections would be well offset, and probably more than offset—although, as far as I know, nobody has actually done the sums. If I may comment on my visit to the salon, the information is not in the advertising. There is another layer of information that has to be much more personalised. It is usually women, but not always, who come in to use a sunbed. They misclassify their skin types, as was said so eloquently by the noble Baroness. They think that they are a darker skin type than they are. They are unaware of the number of moles that they may have. Those who have a lot of moles, or who have moles of different sizes and shapes, and pigmentation moles in particular, should not be using sunbeds. The appropriate use of eye protection is important. In the salon that we visited the salon owners had themselves made a face protector that people could use as one was not commercially available. They were aware of the risk to some people of parts of the face, which was good practice and we welcomed it. The information falls into many layers. It is not just the broad information that may be covered in advertising. I am grateful to the Minister for her support for the Bill. I now simply ask the House to give it a Second Reading. Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.