Free Sanitary Products in Schools

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is my honour to have what might be the last debate in this parliamentary year, and I thank Mr Speaker for granting it.

Over half the population expect to have periods most months from roughly their early teens until some point in their 40s or 50s. If you are lucky, you know when to expect your period and what it will be like. You can have the pads, tampons or whatever you use ready to hand. If you are lucky, you can afford to buy supplies or have supportive parents to ensure that you do. If you are lucky as a young person, particularly when you have your first period, you will have someone supportive who you can trust to go to with all your questions.

But that is not true for everyone, particularly for too many school students, and this debate is about them. They need to have access to free menstrual supplies that are easily accessible when they need them, so that they do not miss school either through embarrassment or because they are not prepared to spend the rest of their day relying on toilet paper in their underpants.

I would like to start by thanking Members who attended the inaugural meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on period equality on 1 December. I was pleased to be elected as chair, and I thank the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), as well as my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), who all agreed to be officers of the APPG.

I pay tribute to the amazing work done in this place on the issue of period poverty by my friend, the former Member for Dewsbury, Paula Sherriff. In considering the Government’s free period products scheme, I would like to pay tribute to those who have got us and the Government to where we are. There have there been so many activists, but I pay particular tribute to the charity Free Periods, including its founder, Amika George, and Gemma and Hannah, who have been campaigning tirelessly on this issue. I would also like to thank all the other groups across the country, often local and community-based groups. Yeliz Kazim, the lead volunteer with Hounslow Red Box project, worked tirelessly to ensure that schools and others local centres across the borough of Hounslow had access to period products from 2017 until last year when the Government scheme came in.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing such an important debate. Several campaigns were started some years ago, before the schemes from the Governments in Scotland and Wales, and indeed the UK Government, came in, and they included one called Wings Cymru in my constituency, which was led by several of my constituents. One who springs to mind is Ceri Reeves, who collected sanitary products and distributed them around schools. Wings Cymru became such a large organisation that it started to distribute them around the further education colleges as well. Those community campaigns—in Wings Cymru’s case, all women—have been out there collecting, delivering and ensuring that young women and girls have that security to be able to carry on their education, and it is those organisations and people who have made the difference, and who have made Ministers listen and ensured that we have the funding to support them.

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend gives a brilliant description of a project in his constituency, and I know there are many others across the UK that, like the Hounslow Red Box scheme and Wings Cymru, are run by volunteers. They raise money, buy period products and deliver them in their distinctive red boxes, often with valuable and informative health leaflets. Hounslow Red Box also included clean new pants, tights and deodorant.