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Sunbeds (Regulation) Bill

The background to the new clause and the group of amendments, all of which are in my name, is regulation. You will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that has been a perennial theme in Friday debates for many years. As this may be the last occasion on which you preside over our private Members' Bills proceedings, I am sure that you are deserving of praise for your forbearance during these repetitive debates, which have often centred on whether more regulation is the answer to the nation's ills or whether we should consider legislative proposals more carefully before rushing them on to the statute book to deal with any problem that arises. That theme is very much pertinent to proposed new clause 1 and the proposed amendments. Are the Bill's regulations necessary? Are they proportionate? Could the problems that they seek to address be dealt with in a better way? Will the regulations be vulnerable to the law of unintended consequences? Are the regulations necessary as a matter of substance, or are they more equivalent to exercises in gesture politics? My understanding is that the sponsors of the Bill believe that exposure to ultra-violet light can lead to skin cancer, particularly if young, unprotected skin is exposed over a prolonged period. There seems to be a substantial amount of medical evidence to support that proposition. The sponsors consequently argue that because malignant melanoma is one of the five most common cancers among those aged 15 to 24, and because four out of five melanomas are caused by exposure to UV sunlight, something has got to be done, but it will not have escaped your notice, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that there is an undistributed middle in the sponsors' logic. That malignant melanomas are one of the five most common cancers among 15 to 24-year-olds is a statement of fact, but the suggestion is that, by implication, those melanomas are caused by exposure to artificial sunlight, and there is no evidence for that at all. In Committee, the Bill's promoter, the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan), argued that the consequences of UV exposure—in terms of skin cancer—are often not apparent for many years. If it is correct that exposure to UV rays results in malignant melanoma a long way down the track, where is the evidence that the melanomas in people aged between 15 and 24 are caused by UV exposure? Might there be some alternative explanation? The incidence of cancers among relatively young people is quite small. Obviously, one case of cancer is one too many, but the sponsors of the Bill, who say that UV exposure is the fifth most common cause of cancer in young people, have unfortunately not given us any direct figures. We need to ensure that intellectual rigour is brought to the arguments in support of the Bill. The sponsors have not discovered a way in which to prevent people from exposing themselves to natural UV light from the sun. That is obviously the most common way in which people are exposed to UV light, and thereby the risk of contracting melanomas. We know that as soon as there is any sunshine, the number of people who rush out and strip off—not necessarily completely—is considerable. That shows that there are limits on the legislative zeal to regulate. There is no proposal by the promoter of the Bill to regulate exposure to ordinary sunlight. Instead of doing that—they cannot regulate such exposure, but it is obviously the biggest cause of melanomas—they are bringing their legislative zeal to regulating exposure to artificial sun. Artificial sun is produced by sunbeds or, more accurately, by the ultra-violet tubes inside sunbeds. I am told by the Sunbed Association that an ultra-violet tube emitting ultra-violet radiation of 0.3 W per square metre is equivalent to being in the Mediterranean sun at midday, so a 10-minute session on a sunbed should produce a tan without burning. Prevention of burning is often ensured by the use of anti-sun tanning creams, which stop the skin being over-exposed to the ultra-violet light from the sunbed tubes. Interestingly, although the Government apparently support the Bill, they continue to impose the full rate of VAT on sun creams, which are a much better way to prevent the adverse consequences of exposure to all UV light, whether from the sun or artificial sources. So although the Government say that this is a desperately important problem that needs to be addressed urgently, they still impose a 17.5 per cent. tax on the creams that help to prevent the adverse consequences of exposure to UV light. New clause 1 addresses the issue of sunbeds with tubes that emit higher levels of UV radiation. If a sunbed has tubes that emit levels of radiation greater than 0.3 W per square metre, the likelihood of consequent burning is greater. Burning is normally the precursor to a raised risk of melanoma, so it is important to prevent burning and ensure that only a gentle tanning takes place. I was very interested when my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds)—I am delighted to see him in his place on the Front Bench—raised this issue in Committee. He said that if we want to deal with this problem and reduce the risks of using sunbeds, we should first act to regulate the amount of UV radiation emitted by the tubes in sunbeds. I was surprised that the Government did not say that they agreed and would therefore use this Bill as an opportunity to ensure that the European standard was incorporated into British law, so that anyone hiring out or selling a sunbed that exceeded the recommended maximum wattage per square metre of UV would be outlawed. A logical regulator would make that their starting point in introducing legislation.