It was great to see the proposals put forward by the Welsh Government recently to ban unstaffed tanning salons. I have long called for a ban on unsupervised tanning salons and I recently wrote to the Welsh Health Minister calling for her to look into legislating on this issue. It is vital that this proposed new legislation is processed as quickly as possible in order to avoid any more young people suffering terrible burns as a result of unsupervised tanning. I think also that the definition of ‘unstaffed’ should also be carefully considered. Some tanning salon operators install CCTV, with one member of staff supervising several salons and this is deemed as adequate supervision. I would argue that this is nowhere near adequate and must not be allowed.

We’ve all heard the recent tragic stories and in one case a ten year old girl from Port Talbot suffered burns over 70% of her body after spending 16 minutes on an unsupervised sun bed. As a result of the burns she had to be treated overnight at the specialist burns unit in Swansea.

Inappropriate use of sunbeds can have severe health effects in both the short term, causing severe burns, and in the long term because of the risk of cancer. Scientific evidence shows that the use of sunbeds by people under the age of 30 may increase the risk of skin cancer. It is right that the Welsh Government do all in its power to protect our children from these dangers.