Business of the House

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank the hon. Lady on behalf of the whole House for her assiduous work. She will realise that the Bill has cross-House support, and the Government were pleased to bring it forward in Government time as urgently as possible. As for her specific question, I will write to her with an indication of when we expect the Bill to achieve all its stages.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I draw the Leader of the House’s attention to my early-day motion 1401.

[That this House congratulates the Year 6 students of South Hetton Primary School for using their Go Givers class project to create a PPP Campaign to raise the issue of period problems and poverty; commends the Year 6 students at that school for collecting donations of sanitary items to create pants packs to help women and girls who are homeless or in poverty to meet their sanitary needs; also thanks the local community for donating to the campaign that will continue until the end of the summer term; believes access to sanitary products is a basic human right and welcomes the initiatives in Scotland and Wales to provide free sanitary products to low income families; and calls on the Government to adopt a similar initiative for England to end period poverty in the UK.]

Does the Leader of the House agree that the Government should be doing more to address period poverty? Will she join me in commending the work of year 6 staff and students at South Hetton Primary School in my constituency and their efforts at raising awareness of the issue by creating “pants packs” to help families who are unable to afford proper sanitary products?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising an issue that does not often get mentioned in the Chamber. It is vital that all girls and young women are able to provide themselves with proper sanitary protection, and being unable to deal with menstruation is humiliating for a young person. I encourage him to seek an Adjournment debate to ask Ministers directly what more we can do to ensure that no girl or young woman needs to suffer the absolute embarrassment of being unable to afford sanitary protection.