Finance Bill

Anne-Marie Trevelyan Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

The issue that has dominated the debate is new clause 7 and VAT on tampons and sanitary towels. New clause 2 would require the Treasury to write a report on a VAT exemption of women’s sanitary protection products including a financial assessment of the impact on the purchasing of these products, especially for those aged under 25.

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

I put my name to this amendment because I have long thought that this is a bizarre and discriminatory tax on sanitary products and it needs sorting out. Perhaps in the 1970s, when I am sure the Minister like myself was at school, the luxury goods description still made sense as many women were not using a product which has now transformed our ability to be freed up from the monthly restrictions of periods. Many girls at school with me were off games every month because they did not have access to what is now considered a completely normal part of our sanitary products and frees young women to be sportswomen. I ask the Minister to be brave, to think about this and to stand up for all young women.

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her remarks, and I will address that point in a moment.

New clause 7 would require the Chancellor of the Exchequer to

“lay before both Houses of Parliament a statement on his strategy to negotiate with the European Union institutions an exemption from value added tax for women’s sanitary protection products”

within three months of the passing of the Act. It would also require a Minister of the Crown to

“lay before Parliament a report on progress at achieving an exemption from value added tax for women’s sanitary protection products within European Union law by 1 April 2016.”

This debate has highlighted the ongoing campaign to zero-rate or exempt from VAT tampons and other sanitary protection products. As we have heard tonight, that campaign has cross-party support. In the case of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), that support goes back many years to when she was at school. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) has also campaigned on the issue for many years, and my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) has raised it tonight and on other occasions, as have many other hon. Members.

As the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) pointed out, this Government sympathise with the aim of the new clause. As we have also heard, however, the UK does not have the ability to extend zero rating to new products unilaterally. We have more extensive zero rating than most, if not all, other member states, but any change to EU VAT law would require a proposal from the European Commission and the support of all 28 member states. Without that agreement, we are not permitted to lower rates below 5%. None the less, as this debate illustrates, there is considerable cross-party support for the UK to abolish VAT on sanitary products. To that end, I undertake to raise the issue with the European Commission and with other member states, and to set out the view, which has been reflected in this debate, that it should be possible for a member state to apply a zero rate to sanitary products. In that context, I thank the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) for raising the matter tonight. We have seen on both sides of the House a demonstration of the belief that that flexibility should exist.