Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation

Kevin McKenna Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Vikki Slade]

It is interesting; although this campaign is specifically about hair and barbering, there have been calls for a similar registration system for those industries that do piercings, tattoos and that sort of thing, but the industry itself is struggling to work out exactly what it should look like. There is a big issue around insurance, which I will come on to.

According to analysis commissioned by the British Hair Consortium, employee numbers in the sector fell by about 23% in 2025, which is equivalent to the loss of 20,000 jobs. To put it another way, that is the equivalent of 20 employing salons making all their staff redundant every working day for a year.

Industry estimates suggest that more than 70% of those working in the sector are now classified as self-employed. Of course, genuine self-employment is not a problem—many talented stylists and barbers have always chosen to rent a chair as a stepping stone towards their own business—but the concern is about places where self-employment exists entirely on paper.

When I met representatives of the National Hair and Beauty Federation a couple of weeks ago, they described workers who were, in their own words, employees on Friday and self-employed on Monday. Nothing about their work or the business had changed; only their employment status had changed. They continue to work at the same chair in a single salon with no control over their prices and unable to determine their own working practices, but they no longer have sickness cover, pensions or any rights. The change involves reduced tax receipts for the Government and, crucially, fewer apprenticeships—without workers, a business cannot hire apprentices.

It is in apprenticeships where the consequences are most serious. Hairdressing apprenticeship starts in England fell from more than 13,000 in 2015 to just 4,000 in 2023, and forecasts suggest that recruitment could completely collapse within a couple of years if current trends continue. That should concern every Member of the House, because those are not just statistics but lost opportunities for young people, for social mobility and for skills development. The sector reports that about a quarter of its apprentices have special educational needs, which is a significantly higher rate than the wider apprenticeship sector. Many of them have also spent time not in education, employment or training. For thousands of young people who struggle to access traditional academic pathways, the sector has provided a route to qualifications, employment and independence.

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this really important debate. I recently visited Bodylines, a salon and spa in the middle of Sittingbourne, which is run by Liza—with a z, not an s, just to confuse everyone—who made this point very strongly. Bodylines is a great salon that has been there for about 40 years—it is a well-embedded business in the town—and she used to offer lots of training places, but now she simply cannot because she is out-competed by venues that rent chairs by the hour to the pseudo self-employed.

Liza told me how that is a real threat to the future of the industry. My mother trained as a hairdresser in the ’60s before becoming a social worker. As the hon. Member said, these roles are vital for getting people into a whole range of employment opportunities, but without businesses that can support them, they will be gone forever. The pseudo self-employed roles will not persist, either.

The biggest thing Liza raised with me was how much money from VAT the Government are losing. Those other venues are not charging VAT and the responsible self-employed are not paying it, so we are losing money in that way as well. This is something that, on every front, we have to change.

[Vikki Slade]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. This issue is about tax receipts. I am not talking about stopping people cutting their family members’ hair or stopping genuinely self-employed people running a start-up from home. This is not about where people trade; it is about whether they trade legitimately and how we sustain the next generation of the industry.

I am really glad that the hon. Member mentioned that point, because I want to tell a story that was shared with me by Mike Taylor about an apprentice who has taken up his programme. Mike has an incredible academy that takes on about a dozen young people—mostly NEETS—aged 16 to 18 in Broadstone, where I live. He has an apprentice who every week is travelling from Kent—it is a long way from Kent to Dorset, but he could not find a local training placement—to stay with his aunty in Dorchester for his training so that he can develop his skills. He could not get an apprenticeship close to home. The only opportunity available to him was working for an unscrupulous barber, who paid him just £1 an hour, despite the employer charging customers for his services. That is not entrepreneurship; that is not business. That is exploitation. That young man wants to learn a trade and build a career, and he should not have to choose between exploitation and abandoning his ambitions. Legitimate businesses, like those mentioned by the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna), should not have to compete with such people.

That brings me to the issue of public safety. The House of Commons Library notes that anyone can practise as a hairdresser or barber without holding any recognised qualifications. In a profession involving chemicals, blades and close physical contact with the public, that is increasingly difficult to justify. Most practitioners are highly skilled professionals who take enormous pride in their work, but consumers deserve confidence that those offering professional services have met the appropriate standards and wield their scissors safely. Most members of the public would reasonably assume that someone advertising themselves as a professional hairdresser or barber had demonstrated some level of competence, but that assumption cannot always be made. Poorly applied chemicals can cause burns, overuse of bleach can lead to hair loss and poor hygiene standards can contribute to skin conditions such as ringworm.

A mandatory register would help provide the public with confidence that practitioners had achieved recognised qualifications and, just as importantly, it would enhance the reputation of those who already meet those standards every day. This proposal is practical, proportionate and achievable. We are not trying to create a system from scratch. The register already exists, and the Hair and Barber Council already administers it. The infrastructure is in place. We want to build on the infrastructure that is already there. Mandatory registration would simply strengthen and modernise an existing statutory framework for the realities of today.

The sector estimates that costs to hairdressers would be likely to fall if registration was universal, and that registration could become a recognised prerequisite for securing insurance and demonstrating professional competence. It would improve standards for consumers and it would support legitimate businesses. It could help enforcement agencies to tackle the tax evasion, illegal working, employment status abuse and criminal activity associated with rogue businesses. Indeed, support for the proposal now extends beyond the industry itself. The all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, chaired by the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell), has highlighted concerns about the extraordinary growth in barbering alongside declining tax enforcement activity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Dearden]

I know that my hon. Friend is working closely with colleagues across Government on this issue, and I thank him for his continued campaigning and advocacy. We must double the maximum duration of closure orders so that criminal businesses cannot simply reopen while investigations continue.

[Kevin McKenna]

It has been interesting to listen to all the points that the Minister made about the potential negatives of a mandatory registration scheme, and the things that might not work. In terms of evidence, I would offer the fact that about 100 years ago, in the early 20th century, nursing was not a registered profession. All those arguments are very familiar, and although people as notable as Florence Nightingale were opposed to nursing registration, it was seen as essential. A lot of the challenges that the Minister has identified were overcome—we would not conceive of nursing not being registered now, and I think that is true for other intimate professions such as beauty and hair.

[Kate Dearden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I hope that he and other colleagues hear that we want the same things. We want customers to be safe, workers to get the rights they are entitled to, young people to have a route into this brilliant profession, and criminals to have nowhere to hide on our high streets. As colleagues will have heard, I am not yet persuaded that a mandatory register would deliver those things, but I am open to evidence and I thank hon. Members for their offers this evening.

I am also persuaded that enforcement, employment reform and direct support for employers will deliver. As the Barbers and Hairdressers (Registration) Bill is before the House, it would not be right for me to comment on its specific provisions this evening, but if the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole has evidence of harms that existing powers are not reaching, I would like my officials to look closely at that. I thank her for securing this debate, and all colleagues for their contributions and for championing a sector that matters so much to our communities.

Question put and agreed to.