A Century-Long Struggle for Regulation in Hairdressing

Origins: Professional Roots and Public Protection

The regulation of hairdressing has deep historical roots that pre-date the modern trade by centuries. In medieval London, barbers were not merely groomers but practitioners of minor surgery. As early as 1435, a Guild or Fellowship of Surgeons operated alongside the Barbers' Company, leading to persistent disputes over professional boundaries. These tensions resulted in the first Royal Charter granted to the Barbers' Company by Edward IV in 1462, empowering it to regulate surgical practice, uphold standards, and eliminate charlatans.

This uneasy relationship culminated in the Act of Parliament of 1540, which formally created the Company of Barbers and Surgeons of London. While separating the duties of barber and surgeon, the Act was fundamentally about public safety and professional competence. Over the following two centuries, the professions diverged completely, with surgeons eventually forming what became the Royal College of Surgeons in 1745. Hairdressing, however, was left behind, detached from statutory protection and professional recognition.

The First Modern Push: 1922–1939

The first serious attempt to secure state recognition for hairdressers came in 1922, when employers and employees together formed the voluntary Hairdressers Registration Council. Its purpose was clear: to raise standards, formalise training, and protect the public by identifying competent practitioners through certification.

This voluntary initiative acknowledged a fundamental truth — that without regulation, anyone could call themselves a hairdresser, regardless of skill or training. The Council promoted apprenticeships, education, and competence, but its leaders quickly recognised the limitations of a purely voluntary system.

By 1936, the matter reached Parliament. A Bill for statutory recognition secured its First Reading on 29 July 1936, but parliamentary prorogation prevented further progress. A renewed attempt followed in March 1939 under the Ten-Minute Rule, only to be halted by the outbreak of war.

Post-War Reality: Public Risk and Exploitation

Following the Second World War, the absence of regulation became increasingly problematic. A 1947 Commission of Inquiry under the Wages Council Act highlighted serious structural issues within the trade. It noted that the public often accepted indifferent standards, that wages stagnated despite trade expansion, and that unrestricted entry encouraged an oversupply of poorly trained practitioners.

The report was blunt: anyone, without experience, training, or oversight, could open a salon. In many areas, consumers had no alternative and were forced to accept substandard or unsafe services.

Parliamentary debates in 1949 exposed further abuses. Young trainees, often women, were given inadequate instruction, encouraged to rent salon space prematurely, and left professionally damaged when their lack of skill became evident. These practices were not merely exploitative; they undermined the future workforce and placed the public at risk.

Health, Hygiene, and the Public Interest

Throughout these debates, one argument remained consistent: regulation was not about protecting hairdressers from competition, but about protecting the public. Hairdressing touches every person, men, women, and children, throughout their lives. Yet it remained largely unregulated despite involving chemicals, electrical equipment, skin penetration, and infection risk.

Parliamentarians warned that danger did not only exist in backstreet salons. Poorly trained operators behind gilded shopfronts posed equal risk. Chemical depilation, electrical epilation, and cosmetic treatments were being performed by untrained individuals, sometimes resulting in permanent injury.

What does address them, and what has always addressed them, is local authority regulation under public health powers. The byelaws made under Section 77 of the Public Health Act 1961, and the premises licensing schemes adopted by at least eight local authorities, focus precisely on what matters: cleanliness of premises, sterilisation of instruments, hygiene of practitioners, and infection control. These are enforceable, inspectable, and directly relevant to consumer safety. The 1964 Act, by contrast, created nothing more than an expensive membership scheme with no enforcement powers whatsoever.

The Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964

After more than four decades of debate, the Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964 was finally passed. Piloted as a Private Members' Bill, it established the Hairdressing Council and created a statutory register of qualified hairdressers.

However, the Act was deliberately limited in scope. Mandatory training and compulsory registration for all new entrants, originally envisaged during parliamentary debate, were removed on the grounds that they were considered "unduly restrictive." What remained was not a system of State regulation, but a narrow statutory framework permitting only a voluntary register.

This limited statutory footing lies at the heart of today's problem: the Hairdressing Council repeatedly acts beyond its lawful powers (ultra vires), presenting itself as a regulator despite having no authority to regulate, enforce standards, confer State registration, or maintain a comprehensive and accurate register.

Consequences: Ultra Vires Action and Structural Impossibility

Over time, the Hairdressing Council has moved beyond the narrow role envisaged by the 1964 Act. Despite having authority only to operate a voluntary register, it has repeatedly behaved as though it were a statutory regulator, asserting status, issuing post-nominal style designations, and implying State recognition where none exists. These actions are ultra vires: they do not arise from, nor are they supported by, the Act.

Even within its limited remit, the Council has been unable to maintain a reliable register numbering only a few thousand hairdressers and barbers. The register itself provides stark evidence of this failure. Practitioners remain listed years after allowing their registration to lapse, with outdated trading names, incorrect locations, and in at least one documented case, a contact email address belonging to an internet service provider that ceased operating fifteen years ago.

The issue is not merely one of competence, but of feasibility and cost. The last government estimates for establishing a full statutory registration scheme placed the cost between £10 million and £13 million. No credible funding mechanism has ever been identified. It is unclear who would bear these costs — individual practitioners, consumers, or the taxpayer — particularly in an industry dominated by small businesses and sole traders.

Meanwhile, many local authorities already possess powers to license and regulate hairdressing premises on public health and safety grounds, and several actively exercise these powers. This localised approach allows proportionate regulation tailored to regional needs, without creating a costly national bureaucracy.

Compounding these concerns are persistent governance failures. The Council has repeatedly failed to publish accounts in a timely and transparent manner, undermining confidence and eliminating any meaningful public accountability. Given its ultra vires conduct, operational failures, and lack of financial transparency, the continued existence of the Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964 can no longer be justified. The logical and proportionate remedy is repeal of the Act and formal dissolution of the Hairdressing Council, rather than further attempts to retrofit regulatory authority that Parliament has never granted.

Constitutional Failure and Admitted Purpose Drift

The 1964 Act did not create a trade organisation. It created a body with a single, narrow function: to maintain a voluntary register of hairdressers. Yet the Council's own retiring chairman has publicly stated, in a video posted to social media, that he is proud the Council has "evolved into a trade organisation." This is not a minor rebranding; it is an admission that the Council has abandoned its statutory purpose entirely.

Trade organisations exist to advocate for their members' commercial interests, to lobby government on policy matters, and to campaign for regulatory changes that benefit their sector. None of these activities is authorised by the 1964 Act. A body created by statute to maintain a register cannot lawfully transform itself into something Parliament never intended. The chairman's statement is, in effect, an acknowledgement of systematic ultra vires conduct — not as an aberration, but as an institutional identity.

More fundamentally, the Council may no longer be capable of lawful constitution at all. The 1964 Act specifies the composition of the Council, including appointments from designated bodies representing various interests within the trade. Among these were the National Hairdressers Federation and the Incorporated Guild of Hairdressers, Wigmakers and Perfumers — the latter dissolved as a company on 17 January 2023, with no successor body named in the Act to exercise its appointment power.

The combination is fatal to any claim of legitimacy. The Council has publicly admitted it no longer serves its statutory purpose, while simultaneously being unable to constitute itself lawfully under the Act that created it. What remains is not a statutory body but an unaccountable private organisation trading on the residual authority of legislation it has long since abandoned. This is not an argument for reform; it is conclusive evidence that the 1964 Act has been rendered a dead letter by those entrusted with its implementation. Repeal is not merely justified, it is overdue.

Existing Local Authority Powers: A Proportionate Alternative

The argument for national mandatory registration assumes no effective regulatory framework exists. This is false. At least eight local authorities, including Edinburgh, and those covered by the County of Cleveland Act 1987, already possess and exercise powers to register and regulate hairdressing premises. These provide a clear and proven model of proportionate regulation that Parliament has endorsed without requiring a national scheme.

The County of Cleveland Act 1987, for example, requires registration of both practitioners and premises, imposes criminal sanctions for non-compliance (up to Level 3 on the standard scale), grants powers of entry for inspection under Section 17 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, and mandates the display of certificates and byelaws. The Edinburgh Corporation Order Confirmation Act 1991 contains similar provisions, requiring premises registration, providing clear grounds for refusal based on suitability, establishing judicial appeal to the sheriff, and imposing criminal penalties for operating without registration.

The associated byelaws, such as those made under Section 77 of the Public Health Act 1961 for the former Borough of Teesside, focus precisely on what consumer protection requires: cleanliness of premises, sterilisation of instruments, hygiene standards for practitioners, proper waste disposal, and the use of clean materials for each customer. These are substantive, enforceable requirements directly relevant to public health and safety.

Feature	Local Authority Model	Hairdressing Council Model
Basis	Premises-based, targeted enforcement	Individual-based, no enforcement
Accountability	Locally accountable, democratic structures	Nationally opaque, private body
Focus	Public health outcomes	Professional status, post-nominals
Fees	Reasonable, cost-recovery basis	Set nationally, arbitrary rates
Enforcement	Criminal sanctions, powers of entry, judicial oversight	None

The existence of these schemes demonstrates that proportionate regulation is already available where local authorities choose to implement it — without the need for a national bureaucracy, without the costs estimated at £10–13 million, and without the involvement of a body that has proven incapable of maintaining an accurate register of a few thousand voluntary members. The question is not whether regulation is possible, but why any local authority would cede this proven, accountable, enforceable model to a private organisation with no enforcement powers, no financial transparency, and a documented record of acting beyond its legal authority.

False Claims of Government Mandate

The Council's website explicitly states that it holds "the mandate from Government to protect and develop the current voluntary register" and that "we alone hold this Government mandate." No such mandate exists. The 1964 Act created a body with narrowly defined powers; it conferred no exclusive mandate, no governmental authority, and no monopoly over registration.

When challenged directly on this point, the Council's own Registrar has privately acknowledged that the organisation is not a public authority. Yet publicly, and in submissions to Parliament, the opposite is asserted. The gap between private admission and public claim raises serious questions about the accuracy of the Council's representations to government, Parliament, and the public.

Statistical Misrepresentation

The campaign for mandatory registration has been accompanied by statistical claims of extraordinary scale. The Council and allied trade bodies have repeatedly asserted that self-employment in the sector costs the Treasury £2.4 billion annually. Freedom of Information requests to HMRC reveal the actual estimated figure to be approximately £22.7 million — an inflation exceeding 10,000 per cent.

Such claims cannot be reconciled with official data and appear to have been designed to manufacture a crisis narrative and influence government policy. That these figures have been presented to Parliamentary committees, cited in media coverage, and used to lobby Ministers raises serious concerns about the integrity of the evidence base on which policy decisions are being invited.

From Consumer Protection to Competition Elimination

The rhetoric of the Hairdressing Council and its allied trade bodies has shifted markedly in recent years. What was once framed as consumer protection is now openly expressed as opposition to competition. Self-employed hairdressers, mobile practitioners, and chair renters are characterised not as entrepreneurs serving consumer demand, but as threats to be eliminated through regulatory capture.

This shift is revealing. If the concern were genuinely consumer safety, the focus would be on hygiene standards, premises inspection, and practitioner competence — matters already addressed by local authority byelaws and public health powers. Instead, the campaign targets business models: chair rental arrangements, self-employment structures, and VAT registration thresholds. These are commercial matters, not safety matters.

Commercial Conflicts and Captured Standards

The Council's activities extend beyond ultra vires claims of regulatory authority into commercial arrangements that raise serious questions of probity. Insurance policies marketed specifically to the hairdressing sector have been designed, by the insurer's own admission, "in conjunction with The Hair & Barber Council." These policies create compliance requirements that can only be satisfied through Council membership or through products sold by Council sponsors.

One such sponsor, whose chief executive sits on the Council's board, manufactures allergy testing products that the Council's own protocols specifically recommend. The circularity is striking: the body that claims regulatory authority writes standards that benefit its sponsors, whose representatives sit on the body that writes the standards. This has the hallmarks of commercial capture dressed in statutory clothing.

Financial Opacity

The 1964 Act requires the Council to keep audited accounts and to furnish copies on request. It does not, however, require public filing. The Council is not a company (no filing with Companies House), not a charity (no filing with the Charity Commission), and not government-funded (no departmental accounts). It therefore falls through every regulatory gap, operating with complete financial opacity.

Without financial transparency, the full extent of commercial relationships, sponsorship arrangements, and potential conflicts of interest remains hidden from public scrutiny.

Training, Fragmentation, and Industry Division

The industry has long been divided over training models and qualifications. The Hairdressing Council has historically favoured extended apprenticeships or multi-year training routes, while private and commercial schools have argued for shorter, intensive programmes aligned with international norms. These disagreements, coupled with longstanding rivalries between trade bodies, have prevented the emergence of a single, coherent voice for the industry.

However, these divisions do not justify national statutory regulation. Significant public funds have already been invested in further education colleges, apprenticeships, and recognised qualifications. The issue is not an absence of training pathways, but the persistent misrepresentation of regulatory status. Public exposure arises not because registration is voluntary, but because consumers are led to believe that a form of State regulation exists when it does not.

The Unfinished Business

More than a century — 104 years — has passed since the first organised movement to register hairdressers began, and over 60 years since the creation of the Hairdressing Council. The lesson of that history is not that Parliament failed to complete a regulatory project, but that it has repeatedly and consciously declined to impose compulsory State regulation on the trade.

This position has been reaffirmed in the most recent House of Commons Library Research Briefing (June 2025), which confirms that hairdressing in the UK remains unregulated, that the 1964 Act provides only for a voluntary register, and that public protection is delivered through existing consumer law, health and safety legislation, and local authority licensing powers. The briefing documents repeated ministerial statements rejecting mandatory registration on the grounds of proportionality, cost, and lack of demonstrated market failure.

Importantly, the briefing also illustrates the extent to which confusion has become institutionalised. References to "state registered" hairdressers appear despite the absence of any statutory basis for State registration or protected titles under the Act. It is highly likely that this language originates not from parliamentary intent but from representations made by the Hairdressing Council itself, underscoring how deeply misleading narratives have permeated public and official discourse.

Witnesses with failing businesses presented themselves as industry experts; commercially-funded campaigns were presented as independent research; and predictions of apocalyptic decline were offered without acknowledgement that every previous such prediction had proven false. Parliament was not fully informed of the material interests at stake.

The unresolved issue, therefore, is not regulatory absence but regulatory misrepresentation. A voluntary body continues to act as though it possesses State authority, despite Parliament having repeatedly closed the door on such a model, most recently in 2025. In light of this clear and settled position, the continued existence of the Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964 serves only to sustain confusion and enable ultra vires conduct.