Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring Disclosure and Barring Service checks for tattoo artists as part of the local authority licensing process.

No assessment has been made by the Department of the potential merits of requiring Disclosure and Barring Service checks for tattoo artists as part of existing local authority registration and licensing processes. On 7 August we announced our plans to introduce a licensing scheme for non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England. There are no current plans to include tattooing as part of this scheme, as registration and licensing schemes already exist for tattooing under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982.