Finance Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Lord Mackinlay of Richborough

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

And people say that progress cannot be made in this Chamber or that there cannot be cross-party agreement! The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. In fact, 10% of girls in Africa do not go to school when they have their periods because they do not have appropriate sanitary protection, so he is right to be concerned about this. What I am saying—let us see whether we can tempt him to make further progress—is that feminism should be without borders; in which case we should be concerned about inequality in the tax rates and VAT that our sisters pay in a range of countries, including those in the European Union.

Tonight we have an opportunity, here in the British Parliament, to show solidarity across the continent and make sure that this issue is part of the negotiating process. Because let us be honest, it was never part of the negotiating process in this House prior to joining the European Community. It was only part of the negotiating process because of Dame Dawn Primarolo. It is a red herring to think that this is about the European Union; rather, it is a recognition that the time has come to end these inequalities. Our sisters in France tried to bring forward legislation just this summer and were defeated. What a strong message of social progress we could send from the British Parliament today by passing this proposal and sending our Prime Minister to have that difficult conversation and to say, “How do we clarify the way in which essential items are categorised across the European Union? How do we make this work for 51% of our population?”

I am sensing from the hon. Member for Stone that he does care about these issues deeply and does recognise the inequality. If he has frustration tonight, it is simply that he is not seeing progress happening quickly enough. Let me reassure him that, whether it takes 20 years or two hours of debate, it is possible to make progress. I urge him to support our new clause, so that we can send our Prime Minister to the European Union with something worth fighting for. We can all hear back from him in February whether he has made progress and been able to say to our French, German and Italians counterparts that tampons and sanitary towels should be treated as necessities in 2015. I am sure that when we hear that message from the Minister tonight, he will give us great succour—that he will use the appropriate terms and bring us all into the 21st century by supporting the new clause as well.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

May I give my respects to the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) for bringing this debate to the House? I have heard some very interesting figures this evening—in particular, that 250,000 people have signed previous amendments and discussion points about this issue over the years, and I know that there have been all sorts of discussions about this very issue for as long as I have been in Parliament.

I am not surprised that new clause 7 has attracted cross-party support, with many Members, both female and male, from the Government, SNP and, obviously, Labour Benches supporting it, and so they absolutely should, because this has always been, and will always be, a wholly illogical tax. We heard some interesting detail from my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). I would not know the difference between various products if they were laid out, yet some would be zero-rated and some would be taxed at the lower rate, although this is not just a female issue. I think she described some of these items as “Oops-a-daisy” products, and if there is a male “Oops-a-daisy” product, it would be zero-rated, so we can immediately see these anomalies in the tax system. Nappies have always been zero-rated because they relate to children. Indeed, one of the anomalies that we have enjoyed compared with much of the European Union—how long that will last, who knows—is that children’s products and food continue to be zero-rated, no matter how luxurious the food might appear to some.