Diolch, Llywydd. I wish to formally move the amendment in my name.

When we first started taking evidence about special procedures, I must admit I was shocked by the range of things people did to their bodies. However, the one thing that did disturb me the most was the tattooing of eyeballs. It’s not the fact that someone wants to inject ink into their eyeball that shocks me but the fact that someone would put their health at risk in order to alter the colour of their eyes. Eyeball tattooing involves inserting a needle into the sclera, the white of your eye, in several places and injecting coloured ink, which slowly spreads to cover all of the sclera. The inks used in this procedure are usually not designed for the purposes of tattooing, and are mainly designed for use in commercial printing processes or for adding colour to car bodywork. People who have undergone this procedure report that they have wept coloured tears for days and experienced a burning sensation in their eyes, and that is when there are no complications.

According to the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists, who looked at this issue, the health risks are significant. They include perforation of the eye, which can lead to blindness as the sclera is less than 1 mm thick; retina detachment, an urgent medical condition that may leave the patient blind; endophthalmitis, an infection inside the eye that can also lead to blindness; sympathetic opthalmia, an autoimmune inflammatory response that affects both eyes and can result in blindness; bleeding and infection at the injection sites; delayed diagnosis of medical conditions, as the true colour of the sclera is now hidden—for example, jaundice is often a first symptom of many diseases; adverse reactions to the ink; sensitivity to light; staining of the surrounding tissue due to ink migration; and they state that the long-term risks are not yet known.

It is for these reasons that I have tabled these amendments in my name—35, 36, 37, 38 and 41. There are medical reasons why scleral tattooing may be necessary, so it is not possible to prohibit, as Rhun had stated in one of his amendments, its use outright. Instead, these amendments restrict eyeball tattooing to those properly licensed by the GMC—the General Medical Council. I urge Members to support the amendments in group 6. Diolch yn fawr.