Sanitary Products

Anne Milton Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Women (Anne Milton)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Mr Sharma; I do not think that we have done so before.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) on securing this debate. She is absolutely right that this topic remains taboo. I think we can go back 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 years to find some of the origins of the taboo. Even today, some of the cultural issues around women and menstruation are still very strong and not what we would want to see, certainly in this country.

I thank the hon. Lady for her honesty in the story that she told. I was once a young girl at school, and the situation she described would have filled me with horror; I would also have been in the lavatories weeping. I will deal with the issue of poverty and sanitary products in a minute, but while it is a shame that we have not made as much progress as all that, I think back to when I was first elected in 2005, when hon. Members would have been a bit aghast at us even mentioning the word “period” or “menstruation”, so maybe we have made some progress. It is good to see two men in the Chamber—my hon. Friends the Members for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), and for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall)—because this is not just a women’s issue. It is also about men.

Period poverty has been the subject of quite a lot of media and parliamentary attention in recent months; I know that the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) put a question on it to the Minister for Women and Equalities. In general terms, we are clear that no person should be held back by their gender or background, and if someone cannot attend school on the days that they are having a period, it is much harder for them to reach their potential. They are missing out on valuable school time.

On school absences, the evidence is quite clear. We have all seen that every day of school missed can alter a pupil’s chances of achieving good GCSE results and have a lasting effect on their life chances. It is important to say that in this context. That is why we have made it a priority to reduce school absence. There has been some success, with overall yearly absence rates decreasing from 6.5% of possible sessions missed in 2006-07 to 4.6% in 2015-16, which is quite a marked drop. In the context of this debate, it is interesting and perhaps surprising to note that in 2015-16, the absence rates for boys and girls were almost identical, with boys missing, on average, 4.6% of possible sessions and girls missing 4.5%.

[Paula Sherriff]

The Minister agrees that this is a taboo subject—she is absolutely right—but it seems as if the Government have prevented us from talking about it during the passage of the Finance Bill by refusing to table the normal motions. Can she assure us that the Government will allow us to address this issue directly in the House, because we have been prevented from doing so thus far?

[Anne Milton]

With the greatest respect, I do not know this, because I have not looked into it, but I would imagine that that was not to do with the subject. I have no doubt that the Government were not unhappy to discuss periods; we are having this debate today, so there is no question of that. I have no doubt that there are other reasons for what she describes. I am sure that if the hon. Lady made representations to the Backbench Business Committee, it would accept a proposal for a debate on this subject. It is also open to her party to put this forward as the subject of an Opposition day debate—there is an Opposition day debate today.

There is no question of anybody—certainly not me, as Minister for Women— suppressing any debate about periods; the more we talk about these issues, the more we lessen the taboo. If we cannot talk about them here, how can we expect children to talk about them in school?

We need to look into those absence rates further. Also, not being able to afford sanitary protection does not necessarily mean being absent from school; the two do not necessarily correlate. In fact, if the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon is suggesting that that is the reason why many girls are missing school, it is of note that the girls’ absence rate is still lower than that for boys. As I say, we need to do a lot of research on this, and I know that the Minister for Women and Equalities is very keen for that to take place. It will be difficult to dig down into the detail, but we will find out more information by doing so.

The hon. Lady talked about alternatives to sanitary towels and tampons. I looked into this. I was at a meeting with young people who raised some of the issues that she has raised. Actually, I think that one of the Labour Members present was there. We discussed school lavatories being locked during lessons. It seemed odd to me that they should be locked at that time, but it to do with the fact that often it is in the lavatories that a lot of sexual abuse, bullying and harassment takes place. Although there is no policy on that—schools are open to do what they want, and they will open the toilets during breaks, when there can be a teacher on duty—it is a sorry state of affairs that we have got to in this country when bullying, harassment and abuse are so rife that we cannot do what we should be able to do, which is leave the lavatories open so that young girls can be excused from class to change their sanitary protection, or for whatever reason.

There is an underlying problem there, which I know the Minister for School Standards is looking at: making sure that we reduce the amount of sexual abuse and bullying that takes place in lavatories. It has always taken place there; it did when I was at school. The boys’ lavatories in particular were a place where boys’ heads were shoved down the lavatory at regular and frequent intervals, and the girls’ loos were a place where a lot of bullying took place. That has got worse, not better, which is worrying, if we consider all the guidance that has been produced for schools and the fact that we should be a more progressive and open-minded society. I am probably a great deal older than many other Members in the Chamber today, and it feels as though the situation has got worse; it feels regressive, including with respect to taboo.

Interestingly, I saw online a story about Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, that showed just how ignorant people are. She was asked if 100 tampons was the right number for a one-week mission. It is quite extraordinary that people in NASA had no idea—no more than a lot of other people—about this issue.

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

Although this is a very serious subject, I will raise a smile and share an event with Members. It is to do with the taboo and the lack of awareness, particularly among males. As a father, I was encouraging my oldest daughter to go to her swimming club one night. We had a great exchange of views, but how embarrassed was I when I found out the reason why she was not going? I felt so small, and I was an adult. Both the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and the Minister are absolutely right about the taboo, and that the subject is one that a parent of a 10 or 11-year-old girl has to understand; indeed, I am the father of two girls and we have had a number of these experiences. Promoting awareness and talking about this is helpful, although that does not excuse the poverty aspect and the need to provide young girls with the products that we are discussing. That is a male contribution, to balance the conversation.

[Anne Milton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I particularly commend him on being here, because it shows that we are all prepared to talk about the issue.

Sex and relationships education and religious education definitely came up as issues. We need to do a great deal more to educate young people about the alternatives. Mooncups are one option; I should think that a lot of people do not know about them. There are alternatives.

[Paula Sherriff]

I am having a CupAware party here in Parliament in January. I agree that they are a fantastic sustainable solution, although they are not for everyone. Will the Minister join me at that CupAware party? Will she also join us at the period poverty march in Westminster on 20 December? Parliament is sitting that day, and I am speaking at that event. I hope the Minister will come along and listen to people who have been affected.

[Anne Milton]

I know it is against the rules of the Chamber, but please indulge me, Mr Sharma; I am going to place a Mooncup on the desk. They were invented after I stopped having periods, but I should be able to talk—

[Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)]

Order. It may be best if the Minister puts the item away.

[Anne Milton]

Sorry, Mr Sharma. I will put it back in my handbag. I do not go on marches as a point of principle, but I will be interested in the feedback of the hon. Member for Dewsbury from that event. I do not feel under political pressure, because although we may argue about welfare benefits and poverty—we obviously do—and the route out of those things, we do not disagree on periods and sex education. It should be noted that the Department for Education does not issue specific guidance to schools on the provision of sanitary protection, but it is without doubt the case, and always has been the case, that the school office will have supplies for children who are caught short.

[Layla Moran]

Will the Minister give way?

[Anne Milton]

If I give way now, I will not have time to make all my points. I ask the hon. Lady to bear with me for a minute.

Members are aware of the long-running campaign for sanitary products to be exempt from VAT and the Government’s commitment to zero-rate such products once our leaving the EU offers us the discretion to do so. There are good and bad sides to Brexit, and that is perhaps one of the good sides. In anticipation of that development, we set up the £15-million tampon tax fund, which is equivalent to the amount of VAT paid on sanitary products each year. The hon. Member for Dewsbury raised an issue about one of the organisations, but I was not involved in that. The majority of funding has been grants to frontline charities that aim to improve the lives of disadvantaged women and girls. Those charities include health, wellbeing and education initiatives and support services for vulnerable women. I understand that some of the money has gone to women’s refuges. As a former health professional, I can say how superb some of those organisations’ work is. While the tampon tax fund is not currently open for applications, we can look forward to updates on that in the near future.

More generally, I have to talk a bit about poverty. I have talked about periods, and poverty is the other side of the issue. We know that children do worse in households where no one is in work. Children in such households are five times more likely to be in poverty than those in households where all adults work. They are also almost twice as likely to fail at all stages of their education than children in working families. The number of households where no one is working is just short of being 1 million lower than it was in 2010, which means that there are 608,000 fewer children in such households than seven years ago.

[Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Anne Milton]

I have seven minutes left, so I will not at the moment. I will give way if I have a bit of time at the end.

We have increased the national living wage, which means that a full-time worker is now £1,400 a year better off. We have increased the personal allowance again, meaning that a basic rate taxpayer is now £1,000 better off than they would have been in 2010. We have doubled the childcare entitlement for working parents of three and four-year-olds in England from 15 to 30 hours, introduced tax-free childcare and supported the right to request flexible working, which enables parents to arrange care in a way that works for them. We have a returner programme going on. It is easy to dismiss all that in the arguments that we want to have across the House on benefits, but it is important to recognise that those measures will make a difference to those families.

[Layla Moran]

On the point of money, this is a women-only issue, pretty much by definition; does the Minister not agree that we need new money to tackle the problem? It is all very well us all agreeing with each other, but without the new money, we are not going to get where we need to go.

[Anne Milton]

What we need is credible and robust evidence about the issue. There are a number of other issues, such as young men in school who possibly have to be clean shaven. There is an issue about razors for boys, which are very expensive. They are probably the item in the supermarket that is more frequently shoplifted than anything else. As a former public health Minister, I know that toothpaste is an issue. People with low incomes are perhaps not spending money on toothpaste when they should. There is a clear correlation between that and dental caries, given the fluoride in toothpaste. There are a number of issues. What things are families doing without because they feel that their finances are too tight for them to afford them? Sanitary products are separate, inasmuch as they are a sensitive issue that can increase the stigma that young women face about their menstrual cycle and their reproductive system. I accept that there are additional issues there, but sanitary products are not the only issue.

It is important to find out about school absences and how many children are not buying sanitary protection because they feel too poor to do so. Only then can we think about possible solutions. I thank Members for attending. I am sure that this will not be the last time that we discuss periods. SRE and RE are critical. What matters to me is that we have lessons that include boys and girls, because it is important for boys to understand. It is important to debunk some of the myths that some makers of sanitary products exploit. Saying that sanitary products are meant to keep someone odour-free is complete nonsense. There is no specific odour associated with menstrual blood; it is not like anything else.

There is a great deal more that we should do. Young boys need to hear about menstruation in the same way that young girls do, but I also feel strongly that young girls need an opportunity to have structured discussions on their own, without boys present, for the simple reason that someone going through puberty might feel very uncomfortable discussing things in front of people of a different gender.

I thank you again, Mr Sharma, for your excellent chairmanship, and for bearing with me when I produced an item in the Chamber. I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon for securing this debate and everyone for their contributions.

Question put and agreed to.