Vikki Slade

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1. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

   First-time Buyers

   I welcome the Government’s focus on first-time buyers, because so many young people cannot get their first step on the ladder. My concern with the properties that are being built—not on the green belt but within town-centre boundaries—is that first-time buyer properties are being manipulated out of the system, in the same way that affordable homes have been on the green belt. I know the Government have done some stuff around the green belt golden rules, but what are they doing to ensure that we have first-time buyer homes on every development?

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2. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

   Immigration: Earned Settlement

   I am aware that businesses not offering high-quality employment, such as mini-marts, barber shops, vape shops and nail bars, are still able to get sponsorship licences. Will the Home Secretary commit to reviewing the types of businesses that can access those licences and stop these people being able to exploit people who are not high-quality employees?

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3. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

   Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation

   More than 60 years ago, this House passed legislation establishing a register for hairdressers. The purpose was clear: to encourage professional standards; to support qualifications and training; to provide consumers with confidence; and to recognise hairdressing as a skilled profession. The principle was right then, and it remains right today—what has changed is the world around it. The high street has changed. The labour market has changed. Increasingly, the sector itself is warning us that the voluntary system, put in place in 1964, is no longer enough to ensure a sustainable future for hairdressing and barbering. Tonight, I want to make the case that moving from a voluntary register to a mandatory one is not a radical step, but a natural next step. Crucially, it is not a proposal to create a new register. Parliament has already established that principle; the register already exists. I am simply seeking through mandatory registration to strengthen a framework that Parliament itself put in place when Harold Wilson was first Prime Minister. The proposal would help to tackle the collapse in apprenticeships, strengthen public safety and support the legitimate businesses that form the backbone of our local high streets. What is perhaps most striking is that the sector itself has now reached this conclusion. The British Hair Consortium, the National Hair and Beauty Federation, the Hair and Barber Council, employers, educators and industry leaders are all increasingly united in calling for a mandatory registration scheme. This is not Government regulation being imposed on an unwilling industry, but a solution designed by the industry for an increasingly urgent problem. As I am sure you are aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, hairdressers and barbers are far more important than many people appreciate. We all know the feeling of walking out of a salon or barber shop feeling better than when we walked in. Many people value the relationship they have with their hairdresser, such as my cousin Jayne and her daughter, Lucy, who travel several hours every couple of months to see their stylist after he moved to Dorset. Nick supported my mum, Lin, as she lost her hair through chemotherapy, and still managed to make her feel a million dollars. These professionals improve confidence, wellbeing and self-esteem. These businesses provide social connection. In an increasingly isolated society, they often offer something that technology never can—genuine human interaction. One survey found that 42% of young men had experienced weeks when visiting a barber or personal care professional was the only in-person interaction they had.

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4. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

   Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation

   In my constituency, one such barber is Mike Taylor of Bond’s in Broadstone. He recently created a retro-style, one-to-one barbering space, specifically recognising the role that barbers play in supporting men’s wellbeing and mental health.<span id="692" class="column-number" data-column-number="692"></span> Barbering and hairdressing are not just socially valuable but economically vital. The wider beauty and personal care sector contributes more than £28 billion to the UK economy and supports almost 600,000 jobs. These are jobs that cannot be offshored or replaced by artificial intelligence, and they drive footfall to our town centres. When people visit a barber or salon, they often spend money elsewhere on the high street too. They are anchors of our local economies in villages, market towns and city centres. For generations, hair and beauty has acted as a ladder of opportunity. It has provided first jobs for young people, offered flexible careers for parents and carers, and enabled thousands of people to build businesses of their own. Following the introduction of my private Member’s Bill in September, I was contacted by Nova who owns NovaLux salon in Poole. She reminded me that when we first met 25 years ago, she was an apprentice at Karen’s Hair Design in Broadstone where I was a customer. I ran a business on the same high street. She trained, qualified, gained experience and, ultimately, has built a successful business of her own. Hers is exactly the sort of journey that this sector has made possible for generations. Nova’s story is the story of hair and beauty, but she shared with me that professional qualified business owners who follow the rules increasingly feel that they are competing against businesses that do not. People like Nova increasingly tell me that the profession that they love is becoming harder to sustain. The concern I hear repeatedly is not about competition but about unfair competition.

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5. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

   Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation

   I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Indeed, the number of barber shops on our high streets has doubled in the last decade or so, and I am fairly sure that the number of us requiring a weekly haircut has not. The point is not about competition but about unfair competition, alongside what are, it has to be said, quite impossible trading conditions.

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6. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

   Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation

   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.

   Hansard source
7. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

   Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation

   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 <span id="695" class="column-number" data-column-number="695"></span>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.

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8. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

   Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation

   I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The vast majority of people in the sector are doing the right thing. The problem is that they are watching other people in the sector with empty chairs all day, and wondering how on earth they support five or six employees or other people working in the space. The sector has said that it is happy to share the information so that we can know the scale of the industry, how many hairdressers are working in it and where we need more training places. This is a means of using a register that already exists to professionalise the system and help the Government to move it forward for the future. Rather than relying solely on expensive raids and investigations after problems have emerged, the register could allow for standards to be established from the outset, and for the scale and shape of the sector to be mapped, with sufficient training providers in the right place to help people such as the young man who needs to have training available in Kent. A survey by the National Hair and Beauty Federation found that support for a mandatory register in the sector is at around 80%. That figure should give Ministers pause. Industries do not often ask Parliament for regulation, yet this one is—not because it wants bureaucracy, but because it wants a sustainable future. Some critics suggest that registration could increase costs or unnecessary burdens, but I disagree. The greatest threat to consumers and the industry is not professionalisation, but the <span id="696" class="column-number" data-column-number="696"></span>continued erosion of standards, legitimate businesses being forced from our high streets by those willing to ignore the rules, the loss of apprenticeships, the loss of public confidence and the gradual devaluation of a skilled professional. When the Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964 was debated, its promoter described hairdressing as both an art and a science. The Government of the day recognised the need for standards, qualifications and public confidence. They were right then, and those principles remain just as relevant today. Making the register mandatory would not create a new principle; it would just bring what was considered a pioneering proposal in 1964 into the 21st century. It has the potential to increase revenues and make it harder for illegal businesses to operate in our town centres. Ultimately, it would support the next generation of hairdressers and barbers. If it succeeds, perhaps that would mean fewer bad hair days for all of us. When a profession, its employers, its training providers and its representative bodies are all asking Parliament to act, Parliament should listen. Parliament recognised the importance of standards in hairdressing in 1964. The time has come to finish the job that Parliament started more than 60 years ago. I commend these proposals to the House, and I look forward to working with the Minister to deliver them.

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9. 2 Nov 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

   Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation

   The various agencies, in my discussions with them, have said that the cost of being in the voluntary register is currently about £75. They have suggested that if a mandatory register was extended to all people working in the area, that would reduce the cost to £25. It would cost probably less than the cost of a haircut to be on a register with an organisation, which then itself would be involved in some of those enforcement activities that would benefit the Government.

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10. 29 Oct 2026·Parliament·Vikki Slade

    Ofcom

    I beg to move, That this House has considered the role and effectiveness of Ofcom. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. Ofcom’s mission is to make communications work for everybody. According to the Ofcom website, it helps people to get the most from their post, mobile, broadband, landline and online services, as well as “keeping an eye on TV and radio.” Yet as our methods of communication have broadened and the pace of technological change has increased, I have become increasingly concerned that Parliament has repeatedly given Ofcom new responsibilities without first asking whether it has the powers, resources or institutional culture necessary to fulfil those it already had. In preparation for this debate, I spoke with Citizens Advice, which raised concerns that Ofcom’s principal duty to further the interests of citizens, in relation to communications, and consumers, in relation to markets, creates a bias against intervention, meaning that action to protect consumers is often delayed, limited or treated as a last resort. I will focus on four areas: broadcasters, scam calls and messages, broadband infrastructure, and—I apologise, as this is the third parliamentary debate on this in a week—Royal Mail. Although those areas appear different, they all point to the same question: does Ofcom have the powers, appetite and focus to fulfil the role that Parliament expects it to? As we know, UK broadcasters are rightly respected around the world. Although the media landscape has become more complex, any organisation wishing to operate on television or radio must be subject to Ofcom regulation. The Ofcom broadcasting code is not optional, and it exists to protect the public from harm. Section 2 of the code covers harmful and offensive material, and section 3 covers content likely to incite crime or disorder. Those sections are crucial. We have all seen what happens when dis and misinformation published online or on TV spills over into violence in our communities. Just last year, Ofcom found that GB News breached the code by broadcasting discriminatory misinformation that linked LGBT people with paedophilia, yet only a year later, we see further investigations being made into similar GB News content that makes highly offensive claims about LGBT people. The fact that such behaviour is occurring again, on the same channel, so soon after regulatory action raises serious questions about whether that intervention was effective in the first place. Section 5 of the code covers impartiality and accuracy. Constituents regularly raise issues on that, and, I will be honest, those are not related just to GB News. Some people believe that the BBC has a left-wing bias, while others believe that it has become increasingly right wing— <span id="242WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="242WH"></span>some might say that that suggests the BBC has got it about right. I have found myself shouting at the TV, particularly during certain programmes, asking why the outrageous comments made by one commentator or another have not been shown. I am regularly asked why the activities of certain parties that have only a handful of MPs seem to get disproportionate coverage, and whether the media are now more interested in ratings than in impartiality on current affairs. But I am afraid that allegations made against public sector broadcasters such as the BBC pale into insignificance when compared with the regulation of GB News. A recent investigation, involving experienced journalists and specialists in the field, reviewed GB News’s output and found repeated examples of content that they considered inconsistent with the Ofcom code, yet in many cases, no regulatory action had followed. A former Ofcom director of standards said: “This was a test case for how Ofcom regulates broadcasters on due impartiality. It has failed that test.” He went on to say: “It now appears that Ofcom has abandoned any pretence that meaningful regulation of broadcast content is still being maintained.” That criticism deserves to be taken seriously. In 2024, Ofcom investigated GB News’s use of politicians as presenters, and concluded that politicians presenting news “risks undermining the integrity and credibility of regulated broadcast news.” In its response, it warned that repeated breaches could ultimately lead to sanctions, including fines or the loss of a broadcast licence. And yet today, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who has been notified that I intend to refer to him, is advertised by GB News on its website as a presenter offering viewers the latest news, opinion and analysis. That appears to conflict with rule 5.3, which states: “No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes”, and rule 5.9, which says that “presenters must not use the advantage of regular appearances to promote their views in a way that compromises the requirement for due impartiality.” The hon. Member is also a shareholder in the channel and has received significant payments from it—this is all in the public domain. Even the channel’s founding chairman, Andrew Neil, has publicly questioned why Ofcom permits the arrangement. So I ask the Minister: what discussions has she had with Ofcom about the effectiveness of the broadcasting code, and will she consider launching a review into whether sitting MPs or political party leaders should be permitted to present news and current affairs programmes at all? I realise that this is a slight jump in tone, but the same questions about enforcement arise when we look at scams. I welcome the recent fine imposed on a telecoms provider for failing to prevent the misuse of telephone numbers, and I recognise the work that Ofcom has done to block scam messages in transit. However, my constituents continue to suffer due to the failure of Ofcom to enforce. Melchior from Broadstone receives scam calls from people claiming to be police officers, using genuine police station telephone numbers. Neil from Canford Heath reports receiving up to five scam calls every day from people pretending to be from Government <span id="243WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="243WH"></span>bodies. Judith lost thousands of pounds to rogue traders before a kindly neighbour intervened to help her. Another constituent, Paul, lost more than £60,000 to a romance fraud, where he believed he was communicating with Kate Beckinsale before he sadly died. My constituents are rightly asking why ID spoofing remains so prevalent when the technology exists to verify and authenticate communications. Five years ago, Ministers pointed to developments in the United States—in fact, it was the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) who wrote to my constituent saying that they intended to look at systems in America and bring them over here—yet residents continue to lose money and there does not seem to be any progress. Can the Minister explain what progress has been made through the migration to digital telephony, which concludes in January, what evidence exists that scam tracing is now improving, and how Ofcom intends to enforce protections more effectively in the years ahead? That brings me to the issue of connectivity. Although Ofcom’s figures show considerable improvements in gigabit broadband, the headline statistics mark the reality in rural and coastal communities. The most vulnerable of our residents are often the most digitally disconnected. Some are unwilling or unable to use broadband and internet, and it is important that we do not leave them behind, but when someone chooses to be digitally connected, they cannot be priced out of the market simply because they live in a rural area. People in rural communities such as mine are isolated when the wind blows or because their property is in a small hamlet, or even because, as I heard this week, it is the “last property” in the line in a village. According to Ofcom’s data, gigabit-capable broadband is now available in 88% of homes and businesses, with 4 million premises still without coverage. I recognise the significant improvement since 2020, but in some areas, properties have been dropped from the edge of a gigabit scheme, with the alternatives being simply laughable. Residents living on rural lanes between Wimborne and Sturminster Marshall were missed out of the scheme and told that they can get a voucher from Building Digital UK to spend on a commercial connection. That left them with two problems. The vouchers have been suspended in Dorset for at least the last two years, and even when they are available, no commercial provider will provide internet to six properties if the UK Government-sponsored provider does not feel that it is viable either. In Pamphill and Shapwick, the local church warden has just been quoted £4,000 plus VAT by BT Openreach to install broadband because they need a pole—a pole that will serve only one building because it is the last building before the river. The irony is that there is already a pole there, but BT’s failure to maintain its infrastructure means that it has decided to pass the cost on to the customer, which in this case is a church with about 20 people in the congregation. What is Ofcom doing to make sure that small rural communities can get the broadband availability they need? These small communities often do not have a bus, mobile service or even a village shop, so when they need help, the only option they have is the internet.

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