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Sunbeds (Regulation) Bill

I will ignore it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, other than to say that I note the inconsistency of the promoter of the Bill saying that it should apply to people up to the age of 18, even though she introduced a Bill two years ago—admittedly without success—to reduce the voting age to 16. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) could draw that inconsistency to her attention at an appropriate moment. The Government's attempts to deny those aged 16 and 17 access to alcohol and cigarettes have manifestly failed. Illegal drug taking among teenagers has now reached epidemic proportions, as have alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking. Even more sinister is the fact that the laws to restrict the carrying of knives and the sale of knives and other offensive weapons to people under 16 seem to have had no effect whatever. Record numbers of young people drive without insurance—they routinely ignore those rules—and the incidence of drink-driving and drug-driving among young people is also on the increase, having at one stage started to decline. The Bill in its present form would ban 16 and 17-year-olds from using tanning salons, but would those young people actually forgo their tanning sessions if they really wanted them? Of course not. They would simply go and find another outlet where they could have access to a sunbed. I have looked on the internet to find out the availability of sun-tanning machines. They can be bought online for a couple of hundred pounds. If we drive 16 and 17-year-olds out of the legitimate salons on the high street, they will simply go to friends' houses. They will club together to buy pieces of equipment—often second-hand—which may not comply with the standards that I mentioned earlier. All of this would be counter-productive.