Sunbed Use: Health Implications

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for her passionate and excellent speech and for so bravely sharing her own experience with melanoma, which makes it all the more delightful that she is with us in such fine health this morning. I am very sorry to hear about her brother, but I am pleased that her diagnosis was found early and was successfully treated. I also thank the hon. Members for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) and for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for their excellent contributions.

It is fair to say that the health implications of using sunbeds once dominated public consciousness. Almost 10 years ago, when the Sunbeds (Regulation) Act 2010 was introduced by the former Labour MP for Cardiff North and passed by a Labour Government, the health risks that came with using sunbeds were well known and well talked about. I remember a parliamentary reception with celebrities such as Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud speaking out loud and clear about the dangers of sunbeds.

Roberts spoke as someone in the public eye who felt compelled to be tanned—despite being of ginger complexion and very fair skinned—and to constantly use tanning products. She bravely said that she was coming to a point in her life where she wanted to be her natural colour. However, that was 10 years ago, and we should have come a lot further, but owing to vanity or whatever, everyone still goes in search of that elusive tan. As the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire says, we do not need a tan; it should not be something that we desire.

The issue has certainly not been talked about in a long time, not least in the House, where between January 2011 and February 2019—more than eight years—the word “sunbeds” has been said only 16 times. It is therefore very welcome that the hon. Lady has brought this issue to the fore once again, because there is a generation of young people who will not really understand the risks of sunbed use. They will not know that the short, high-intensity exposure to UV radiation provided by sunbeds is dangerous and can dramatically increase the risk of skin cancer. Looking tanned might seem desirable when we are young, but I doubt, as the hon. Lady said, that looking aged with skin damage several years along the line will be as desirable. I invoke the dried-up prune analogy once again: we have all seen them on the beaches, haven’t we?

It is important that we get the message about the health risks across to young people, particularly because people frequently exposed to UV rays before the age of 25 are at a greater risk of developing skin cancer later in life. I have to admit that that statistic greatly worries me. I confess that, as a young woman in the 1980s, before we knew what we know now, I used sunbeds, although not as often as some. It was obvious that they could not be that good for me, but I did not realise how bad they were for me. I often used them to get a base tan before going on holiday, because we all believed that we would look after our skin better if we got a base tan before going abroad. As the hon. Lady said, that is a total fallacy. Has the Minister therefore made any assessment of how many young people know the risks of sunbed use, and does he have any plan to address the issue?

All the Government information on sunbed use dates back to 2009 and 2010, despite more relevant information being published since. For example, the WHO published a 2017 report entitled “Artificial Tanning Devices: Public Health Interventions to Manage Sunbeds”. The IARC also assessed UV-emitting tanning devices as “carcinogenic to humans” based on consistent evidence of a positive association between their use and the incidence of melanoma.

As we have heard, melanoma is on the increase in the UK, and it is estimated that the NHS will spend £465 million on treating skin cancer patients by 2025. I pay tribute to charities such as Melanoma UK and MelanomaMe., which was set up in my constituency in 2017 by Kerry Rafferty and Elaine Taylor—I met them in 2017 when opening an awareness event for them in Sunderland—after one of them suffered from melanoma and the devastation it wreaked on her life and body. Charities such as Melanoma UK and MelanomaMe. support patients and their families and raise awareness of skin cancers and the risks of sun exposure and, of course, sunbed use.

The Minister knows how strongly I feel that the Government have an obligation to prevent cancers, and I know he is passionate about doing so. That is why I believe that the Government must look at sunbed regulations again, to assess whether they need to be updated almost 10 years on since they were first published. It must be a priority for the Government to ensure that people know the risks of sunbed use before using them, as well as during and after their use. For example, people are told that smoking is harmful before they take it up, but guidance does not disappear once they have started smoking or even once they have stopped. Even though they may carry on smoking, everyone who smokes will admit to knowing the health risks. We are not at that stage with sunbed use.

It is easy to shrug off health warnings when it comes to sunbed use, because the symptoms of skin damage may not appear for up to 20 years. However, skin damage can have very serious implications, as we have heard, so the warnings must not be shrugged off. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire called for a ban on sunbeds across the UK, like in Australia and other countries. Although I can see why she calls for a ban, I feel that we must first allow the Government to look at all the most recent evidence and make an assessment. They should definitely update the regulations if necessary and ensure that younger generations are made aware, at the earliest stage, of the risks of sunbed use.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, this issue was very much in the public consciousness almost 10 years ago, and perhaps it is time to ensure that it is again. I am sure the Minister will take on board all that he has heard this morning, and I look forward to his response.