Patricia Hewitt and the mystery of the tattoo questions (Updated)

Is this discomforting?

Patricia Hewitt has put down the following questions:

90 Ms Patricia Hewitt (Leicester West): To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that companies offering tattoos and/or tattoo removal are regulated and inspected by (a) the Healthcare Commission and (b) the new Care Quality Commission. (207842)

91 Ms Patricia Hewitt (Leicester West): To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many complaints his Department has received from patients who had been treated in tattoo and tattoo removal facilities in the UK in (a) the last 12 months and (b) the last five years. (207843)

92 Ms Patricia Hewitt (Leicester West): To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that clinics offering tattoos and/or tattoo removals meet high standards of clinical quality and consumer protection. (207844)

Thing is, according to the Register of Members Interests (and posts past) Patricia Hewitt receives £45-50,000 from Alliance Boots, the chemist giant, and £50-55,000 from Cinven, the private equity giant that bought Bupa's hospitals off Bupa.

It may well be that the good people of Leicester West are queuing up in Ms Hewitt's constituency surgery to ask about the inspection regime of the Healthcare Commission.

Update she says it is. Patricia Hewitt writes: "The questions I tabled about tattoo treatment stem directly from the experience of one of my constituents, who has been left very badly scarred after having a tattoo removed. There is no conflict of interest whatsoever with the two companies you refer to, neither of whom has any involvement in my constituent's case"

Comments

[Mad Max]

Regarding conflict of interest, at least she is not an MP wage slave frightened of rocking the boat. I have seen people disfigured by tattoo removal and she is right to ask such questions.

However, it does fall into the category of politicians again removing risk for actions taken freely by us. You reap what you sow and puritans are the natural allies of Parliament.

[Chuck Unsworth]

Is Tattoo Removal a national epidemic of some sort? I keep seeing new Tatoo and/or piercing parlours springing up everywhere. Maybe we should just send the cops round to close them down. Mind you, I suspect that the cops form most of the clientelle, anyway.

Perhaps La Hewitt has had one of those 'intimate' tattoos - and has managed to lose it in a wrinkle somewhere.

She could have just written to the Ministry. But then the paymasters would not have had full value for money, I suppose.

[Steve]

Thanks. At least I can steer clear of Boots now.