More recently, Nia Griffith, the MP for Llanelli, called in an adjournment debate for compulsory state registration, but that was rejected by the UK Government Ministers, who said registration would cost the industry £75 million. In November 2013, the matter was debated in the Senedd. Keith Davies, the former Member for Llanelli, brought it for one of these short debates. It was noted in the debate that the Welsh Government powers in this area are limited. The Hair Council continues its campaign in the Senedd to continue to raise awareness. I would urge everybody to support the council in lobbying the UK Government to introduce regulation in the area and limit the traumatic injuries suffered by some consumers.

Almost half of all house fires are caused by electrical accidents, and emergencies are taking the lives of around one person per week. Using unsafe and unqualified electricians for electrical repair dramatically increases a person's likelihood of becoming one of these victims. Research from Electrical Safety First revealed that nearly one quarter of people have arranged and paid for work with electricians without checking the electrician's credentials first. Furthermore, one third of people simply used a friend's recommendation when booking an electrician, while another quarter said that they would knowingly hire an unqualified electrician if they were in a hurry. People who need electrical repairs performed could quite easily shoot themselves in the foot by using an unqualified electrician. Electrical Safety First discovered that almost 1.3 million people in the UK needed to pay a professional to fix an unqualified electrician's botched work, illustrating that using unqualified electricians can easily lead to protracted delays rather than speeding up the process. They, of course, are the lucky ones when nothing actually serious happened.

But it's not just consumers who are dissatisfied with the poor work among unqualified electricians. Professionals also complain about the shoddy and dangerous work they have had to deal with. A third of registered electricians polled by Electrical Safety First said that they have noticed the amount of dangerous and substandard electrical work rise since 2012.

Returning to carpentry and general building, the most common reason for an attached and self-supported deck to collapse is the contractor only providing nails between the deck ledger and the structure of the house, resulting in the deck pulling away. Fans of Fawlty Towers will remember the episode of the unqualified builder who Basil Fawlty employed. Over his wife's objections, Basil hires his usual firm of incompetents, O'Reilly's, to do some carpentry work in the hotel room. The hotel is left in a worse condition than when they started and potentially unsafe and there were worries it may fall down. It couldn't fall down because they had to make another episode. This was comedy, but in real life, unfortunately, the same thing happens too regularly.

As fans of the excellent BBC programme X-Ray will remember, we've seen regular reports of shoddy and often dangerous work carried out. The work got carried out by a builder—I say 'builder' in inverted commas. This is because, often, unfortunately, a builder is not always really a builder. It seems that anyone who puts an advert in the local paper or wears overalls nowadays happily calls themselves a builder, and there's nothing that can be done about it. This is the trap for the unwary property owner who takes full responsibility for work undertaken on their property and who's usually left holding the can for very expensive rectification work, assuming the structure is allowed to remain and not be demolished when the builder has flown, denying responsibility or it's simply too hard to take to task through the courts.

There are no legal requirements as such for anyone who wishes to set themselves up as a beauty therapist. The UK beauty industry is unregulated. This means that anyone can open a salon or work as a therapist without any training, qualifications or insurance. The repercussions of this can be extremely precarious. If you were to receive treatment from an unqualified or uninsured therapist and something went wrong or you had a reaction, you may find yourself in a vulnerable position. Thousands of women are potentially putting themselves at risk by inviting rogue beauty therapists into their homes. Some agencies allow anyone to register and advertise for work with no checks. Lauren Shalson, co-founder and director of the reputable company Spa By Car, says:

'Many online beauty agencies offer work or let therapists register based simply on a phone call. How can you safely send someone into a client's home without at least meeting them in person?'

There are people without qualifications who believe they are unnecessary. They self-define as electricians, hairdressers, beauticians, carpenters, bricklayers and believe they're competent as they've been working at it for some time, they've done work on their own house or done work on their own family. I think there's a big difference between making minor alterations in your house and actually going out there and doing substantial work on somebody else's. I really think this is just generally dangerous. I believe that everybody should, when advertising a service, also have to show their qualifications. Qualifications that people have studied hard for should not be ignored. If you want to employ someone unqualified and take the resulting risk, you should do so knowingly rather than unknowingly.

Why does it matter? Beauty therapists and hairdressers can do permanent damage to your face and head. Unqualified construction workers can leave houses dangerous. Removing a load-bearing wall can lead to a house falling down; bad electrical wiring can lead to fires and electrical shocks causing death; and, finally, badly constructed roofs can lead to roofs collapsing and the problems that can exist for anybody who's in the house at the time.

I believe that qualifications are important and we need to protect the qualified from the unqualified taking their work and the unqualified putting people in danger. Apprenticeships allow you to combine work and study by mixing on-the-job training with classroom learning. You're employed to do a real job whilst studying for a formal qualification, usually for one day a week at a college or a training centre. By the end of your apprenticeship, you should have gained the skills and knowledge needed to either succeed in your chosen career or progress onto the next apprenticeship level.

Apprentices in every role follow an approved study programme, which means they gain a nationally recognised qualification at the end of their apprenticeship. They're taught by people who are skilled and know how to work safely. They can identify potential hazards. How many unqualified electricians understand inductance and how to prevent it? We need to ensure that work is done is to a good standard, which is what they've learnt in their two years, four years—however long it's taken them to go through the apprenticeship.

The qualifications, often by City and Guilds, are to a national standard or an international standard that is comparable to standards anywhere in the world. People have worked hard to gain qualifications while doing apprenticeships. They need to be rewarded for those skills and those unqualified individuals should not be allowed to undermine them.

Why, if someone claims to be a barrister or solicitor without qualification, the full force of the law comes down on them, but they can claim to be a builder, carpenter, beautician or hairdresser with no law stopping them? The people I feel for are those people who have spent time, energy and—as everyone knows who has taken exams—worry to train and pass the exams to become fully qualified, only to have someone down the street who's got no qualification, who's just claimed, 'Give me the job. I can do it.' Giving them the job, they can't do it. Thank you.