Meeting of the Parliament 05 February 2026 [Draft]
I will start on a point of consensus. From what I have heard, there will be unanimous support for the bill at stage 1. I thank the minister for her engagement thus far. Furthermore, everyone in the chamber recognises that the status quo is unacceptable and that there is a requirement for regulation. If that regulation is enforced and adequately resourced, as well as promoted to the public, it will help to limit the black market and thereby improve safety standards across the sector.
Safety standards are high among professional and experienced practitioners. In my view, there are two groups operating in Scotland: legitimate practitioners, a group that includes healthcare professionals and non-healthcare professionals, and the black market bad actors, about whom we have heard. However, from reading the bill, it looks as though it identifies two different groups. The first group, legitimate practitioners, includes only healthcare professionals, even if they have little training in aesthetics; and the second group, the black market, encapsulates all non-healthcare professionals, among whom, bizarrely, are the best practitioners in the field.
My view is that the bill, as drafted, will assist in lowering safety levels and standards and will ultimately reduce enforcement and accountability. Under the bill, only healthcare professionals will be able to register premises with Healthcare Improvement Scotland. That means that highly trained, insured and experienced non-healthcare professionals will be legally barred from operating, regardless of their competence or safety record. It is regulatory overreach, and it will exclude safe practitioners instead of stopping unsafe ones, which is what we are attempting to do.