Over the last few months, we have witnessed a series of failed efforts by the anti-sunbed lobby seeking to bring about a ban on commercial use of sunbeds, with a campaign based on untruths and flawed science that subsequent peer reviewed research has proved incorrect. This isn’t the first time we have dealt with a lobby of this nature and our experience and cohesion as an industry is ensuring their efforts are having little impact.
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An online petition calling for a ban only secured about 15,000 signatures after six months of concerted lobbying and campaigning, some 85,000 short of the number required to have a petition debated in the Main Chamber of the UK’s government. In response to the failed petition, a polite response from the Department of Health advised there was no intention to introduce a ban, but that they would keep the matter under review with the latest research and advice from the relevant government departments – you can imagine the response from the campaigners!
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Defeated but not yet quite “out,” the campaigners managed to secure the support of a sympathetic but ill-informed Member of Parliament (MP) to lead a “debate” in Westminster Hall – this isn’t the main Chamber of the Houses of Parliament, but a route of parliamentary privilege for MPs who are keen to ensure a topic gets discussed by fellow MPs. The lobbyists were clearly ecstatic with the announcement of the debate and social media buzzed with contributions from both sides of the fence. As always, industry comments were informed and polite whilst the other side delivered hostility and fallacious comments.
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Let me say, that as an industry, regardless of our achievements to date, we are not complacent.
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The day of the so-called debate arrived and as an industry, we were delighted to see less than a handful of MPs turned up – The Westminster Hall has seating for scores of MPs – clearly knocking the wind out of the campaigners sails once again. We believe our industry efforts were able to minimise any impact by providing robust scientific evidence to MPs ahead of the debate which challenged the merits of the campaign, highlighting the flaws, indeed untruths, in its claims. In the end, the few MPs who did turn up were supportive of the campaign, so all in all, it wasn’t a debate at all – another opportunity unsecured by the campaigners.
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But for me, the best was yet to come. The media interest surrounding the issue resulted in a live interview on national TV news between myself and the MP who led the debate. Now, I much prefer doing live TV and radio interviews rather than pre-recorded, as there’s no opportunity for editing. And even though I say so myself, this interview was probably one of the best examples of the anti-tanning lobby displaying their arrogance and ignorance of the real facts on responsible tanning. I’ll say no more; but if you’re interested, you can take a look at the interview using the link: vimeo.com/317515314.
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The lack of any post “debate” whoop-whooping by the campaigners spoke volumes to me. But let me say, that as an industry, regardless of our achievements to date, we are not complacent. We certainly expect the tanning bed naysayers to continue in their misguided efforts; but now, after experiencing all their setbacks, we very much hope they will reflect upon and consider favourably our numerous approaches to sit down together for a collegiate discussion.
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Only time will tell.
