Labour MP Wants Hairdressers Regulated

A Welsh MP has called for hairdressers to be officially regulated, to avoid “unscrupulous” and “incompetent” traders.

Nia Griffith, Labour MP for Llanelli, raised the issue in a debate in Parliament on Wednesday, saying she was “quite shocked” hairdressers do not need any qualifications, the BBC reports.

But her calls were rejected by the UK government, with ministers saying that a register would cost the industry £75 million.

The majority of hairdressers learn their trade in an apprentice style scheme where junior staff work in a salon and attend college one day a week.

It is currently voluntary to belong to the UK register of qualified hairdressers.

“Of course the majority of hairdressers have appropriate qualifications, work to a high standard and take great care of their customers,”  Ms Griffith said.

“However, at the moment there is nothing to protect the consumer from the unscrupulous or the incompetent.”

But Mark Harper, the Work and Pensions Minister,  argued that even with regulation it would not guarantee the quality of hairdressers and pointed out that those who were bad at their job went out of business as clients did not return.

Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs told Breitbart London:

“Politicians regulate far too widely and very badly. People need to ask whether they wish to entrust the insights of a left wing politician in ordering what sort of haircut they can be allowed to have or whether they wish to leave these decisions to professional hairdressers.

“I suspect the vast majority of people don’t want the Labour Party determining their hairstyle.”