Politics Home Article | Nation’s sunbed operators welcome tougher action on illegal use

In January, the Department of Health and Social Care confirmed it would launch a public consultation on strengthening enforcement against illegal sunbed use, including measures to clamp down on under-18 access and ensure that all salons are supervised. The proposals form part of the Government’s wider National Cancer Plan and reflect a renewed emphasis on prevention and avoidable risk.

For professional sunbed operators, the announcement was not met with resistance but with broad support. Under-age use is already illegal, and those who operate responsibly argue that tougher, more consistent enforcement is essential, not only to protect young people, but to maintain public confidence in a sector that already works within clear legal boundaries.

That stance may surprise some observers. Yet for responsible businesses, illegal use by under-18s is not just a public health concern. It is corrosive to trust, damaging to livelihoods, and unfair to the vast majority of businesses that invest time and money in compliance.

“No responsible business wants to see underage use,” says Gary Lipman, Chairman of The Sunbed Association (TSA). “It puts young people at risk, and it undermines the reputation of an entire professional sector that operates within clear rules.”

Operating within the rules is certainly nothing new for the UK’s tanning salon industry. Commercial sunbed use in England has been heavily regulated for more than a decade. Under the Sunbeds (Regulation) Act 2010, under-18 use is illegal, and operators must take active steps to prevent access by children. Professional salons also operate within strict technical standards governing UV outputon sunbeds, equipment maintenance, hygiene, and staff training.

For the vast majority of operators, compliance is not an optional extra. It is absolutely fundamental to the way that professional salons function on a daily basis.

“Illegal operators damage every business that plays by the rules,” Lipman says. “When breaches occur, they are not simply individual failings. They create headlines that obscure the reality of a responsible sector and erode confidence among customers, regulators, and policymakers alike.”

It is important to remember that behind the industry headlines are thousands of small, local businesses, many of them family-run, embedded in high streets and communities across the country. Owners know and care about their customers, understand and communicate the risks of UV over-exposure, and have a strong incentive to ensure sessions are controlled and appropriate.

“People come here because they want structure and reassurance,” one salon owner told us. “We talk about skin type, exposure time, and breaks between sessions. We’re not here to push people to overdo it. Quite the opposite.”

For operators like this, the idea that under-18 use is somehow widespread within professional salons feels deeply frustrating. Not because the issue should be minimised but because it reflects a failure of enforcement by authorities, not a failure of standards. Equally, figures claiming 34% of 16-17 year olds using sunbeds is based on a sample of 100 across the whole of the UK,  simply not statistically viable to present as a national picture.

TSA and its members are unambiguous in their support for measures that strengthen enforcement against those who flout the law. They believe the major gap that the consultation must address is less about standards and more about how to tackle the patchwork of enforcement that enables rogue operators to continue unchecked.

“The rules are already there,” Lipman explains. “Where they are enforced properly, they work. What’s needed is consistency and focus on the small number of operators who ignore them.”

That approach matters not only for public health but also for policy effectiveness. Experience across many regulated sectors shows that when local authority enforcement is patchy, responsible operators bear the reputational cost while the minority continues unchecked.

There is also a wider risk to measures that damage the compliant majority. Removing regulated, supervised provision does not eliminate demand. It displaces it. In the tanning space, that can mean unregulated home devices, illegal nasal sprays or injectables, or prolonged, unsupervised exposure outdoors, all of which lack the safeguards professional salons provide.

The sector’s response is not defensive. TSA has consistently supported strong safeguards for young people and has worked with regulators, Trading Standards, and local authorities to improve guidance and compliance. Rather than resisting scrutiny, responsible operators regard regulation and enforcement as essential tools for maintaining standards and public confidence.

“We share the goal of reducing avoidable harm,” Lipman says. “That’s not something imposed on us; it’s something that each one of our members already works towards every single day.”

The Government has been clear that the consultation will consider impacts on small and medium-sized businesses alongside public health objectives. That balance is important. Many professional salons employ young people, train staff, and contribute to local economies while operating within a tightly controlled framework. Lipman says that any MP interested in finding out more about how modern salons work should contact TSA or simply visit a TSA member salon in their constituency.  

“There are professional, TSA member tanning salons on highstreets across the UK,” he tells us. “MPs should take the time to visit one in their constituency, talk to the people who run them, and see how checks, supervision, and customer education work in practice.”

Connecting policy to practice is critical. Effective policy and regulation, operators believe, must recognise the reality of how businesses operate on the ground. It can then strengthen enforcement where the law is being broken, support clarity and consistency, and avoid measures that inadvertently penalise those who are already compliant.

As the consultation develops, the sunbed sector’s message is clear. Under-age use is always unacceptable, rogue operators should be firmly dealt with, and responsible businesses should not be penalised. In a debate often dominated by extremes, that position may surprise some, but it is precisely the kind of grounded, evidence-led stance that effective public health policy depends upon.