Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

The Government have taken several important steps to ensure women are able to access the sanitary products they need. From 1 January 2021 the tampon tax has been abolished, with a zero rate of VAT applied to women’s sanitary products coming into effect. The Department for Education is leading a scheme to provide access to free period products in schools and colleges in England, NHS England announced in March 2019 that it will offer free period products to every hospital patient who needs them, including long-term patients, and the Home Office has changed the law to ensure that all people in custody are provided with free health and hygiene products, including period products.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]]

In lockdown, we have all become much more dependent on technology, yet that technology is not designed to treat us equally, with video-conferencing and photo-sharing apps that do not recognise black faces, recruitment algorithms that discriminate on ethnicity, and the Home Office’s own visa application algorithm withdrawn because of bias. In this week of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, what is the Minister doing to prevent structural racism from being further entrenched by new technologies?

[Kemi Badenoch]

The hon. Lady raises a very interesting question, and this is something the Government are aware of and are looking into. Yesterday, I spoke to Dr Tony Sewell, who is chairing the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities; I am aware that it has researched this extensively and I look forward to seeing what its report says on it.