Campaign to regulate hairdressing industry heads to the Senedd

Posted on by karen.smith

A national campaign to encourage all qualified hairdressers and barbers to become state registered to professionalise and regulate the industry will be taken to the heart of government in Wales on Wednesday (February 5).

Anyone can currently set up in business in the UK and work with potentially dangerous chemicals as a hairdresser or barber without having the necessary qualifications. The campaign aims to make state registration of qualified hairdressers and barbers compulsory to assure customers they are in safe hands.

A reception is to be held in the Senedd, home of the National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff, on the evening of February 5 to inform Ministers and Assembly Members about the Hairdressing Council’s state registration campaign.

At the event, which is being sponsored by Conservative AM for Monmouth, Nick Ramsay, Assembly Members will be invited to sign a Statement of Opinion to support the campaign to make state registration compulsory. Deputy Minister for Skills and Technology Ken Skates will be attending the event together with representatives of the hair and beauty industry.

Speakers at the Senedd event will include Hairdressing Council member Shirley Davis-Fox, chair of Bridgend-based ISA Training, the largest independent hair and beauty training provider in Wales. She is spearheading the campaign, which gathered momentum last year, gaining cross party support from AMs and Welsh MPs in Westminster.

Also attending will be celebrity hairdresser Warren Holmes, who is a passionate supporter of state registration.

Mrs Davis-Fox has visited salons and colleges of further education across Wales, lobbied AMs at the Senedd and in their constituencies and taken her campaign to the Houses of Parliament in London. Nia Griffiths, MP for Llanelli and Carmarthenshire, has agreed to lead a Westminster Hall debate on state registration.

Keith Davies, AM for Llanelli, led a 30-minute debate in the Senedd in November supporting compulsory state registration of hairdressers and barbers and Simon Thomas, Plaid Cymru AM for Mid and West Wales, has written to Deputy Ministers for Skills and Technology Ken Skates calling for trainers, tutors and educators in schools, colleges and training providers to be state registered to raise standards.

Mrs Davis-Fox has also written to Health Minister Mark Drakeford to ask him to include hairdressing and barbering in a Welsh Government investigation into the wider beauty industry following the Keogh Report review of the beauty and cosmetic industry.

She says it seems illogical that tattoo and piercing artists have to be licensed by the local authority before they can open a business, yet anyone can open a hairdressing salon irrespective of whether they are qualified to handle potentially dangerous chemicals and equipment.

She describes the compulsory state registration of qualified hairdressers and barbers as a crucial step on the road to gaining universal recognition and respect for the profession.

“Hairdressers and barbers should be brought into line with other professions, which have a register of qualified practitioners,” she said. “Consumers would then be assured that the person doing their hair has been trained to a required standard and it would bring hairdressing and barbering in line with other countries worldwide, which already have regulations.”

She emphasised that hairdressing contributes £5 billion a year to the UK economy and employs 245,000 people.

Ensuring that she practices what she preaches, ISA Training pays for the first year’s state registration of all learners who complete their level three Apprenticeships in Hairdressing and Barbering. All members of staff delivering hairdressing qualifications are also state registered.

Salons, hairdressers, colleges and politicians interested in joining the state registration campaign are asked to contact Mrs Davis-Fox on 0845 301 8660.

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