Sanitary Products

Debate between Paula Sherriff and Jason McCartney

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I will be coming to the issue of toxic shock syndrome and other associated health conditions, but she makes that crucial point very well.

The horror of these choices cannot be overstated, and they are choices that women in one of the most advanced industrial nations on earth should not face. Period poverty represents nothing less than the affected women being robbed of their human dignity. As an illustration of this, the Salvation Army has relayed to me the experiences at its Darlington Citadel food bank, where women have turned up literally begging for sanitary products. With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will quote its commanding officer in full, because I believe that the House really needs to hear this:

“Since we have started supplying”

sanitary products,

“with tears in their eyes many women have told us what they do when they can’t afford them. They use rolled up socks, they rip up clothing, they even use newspaper, they stuff these into their underwear as makeshift sanitary wear—or they simply have to free bleed. These women however, struggle to pay for electricity and so doing laundry to a sufficient level to kill any bacteria is a problem and they are putting themselves and their daughters at risk of infection resulting in possible medical treatment with antibiotics or even hospitalization. Some women have informed us that they have needed dilation and curettage treatment and courses of antibiotics for infections, costing the NHS money and resources.”

Unfortunately, this testimony does not stand alone. An investigation by Amanda Ternblad of Goldsmiths University into period poverty in London has found that some women resort to using toilet roll, which can pose a risk of thrush infection, or using sanitary products for longer than they should be used—that follows on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins)—which can lead to fatal toxic shock syndrome and the risk of further long-standing health problems. Of course, that costs the NHS in the long run, but that should be as nothing compared with the desperation, indignity, humiliation and degradation visited on those women, who are already among the most vulnerable in our society. That should beggar belief in one of the wealthiest nations on the planet.

The problem is most pronounced for women who are homeless, who typically have no stable source of income with which to buy sanitary products. In the debate on homelessness on 14 December 2016, I mentioned that homeless shelters get an allowance from the Government to provide items such as condoms and razors, but they have no such allowance to buy sanitary products, leaving them reliant on charity donations instead.

When I last raised that point in the House, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), said that the Government provide funding for outreach services for homeless people, meaning that such facilities would ultimately be funded anyway. Unfortunately, the point is that there appears to be a shortfall in toiletries such as sanitary protection for women. In many places in the UK, condoms are given away for free, and there is a clear and well-understood public argument for that. Why, then, is that not commonplace for sanitary products, which every woman requires, and the absence of which can have grave health consequences? Although valuable work has been done in the past couple of years by organisations such as St Mungo’s to ensure that homelessness services are gender-appropriate, the Government’s allowance for such products does not appear to have kept pace and speaks to something of a male-dominated view of homelessness.

In reality, women who are homeless face numerous unique challenges, from their personal safety, to vulnerability and falling into prostitution. Those challenges, while grave, have in various ways been targeted before by the good works of homelessness charities. Period poverty, however, is one of the unique challenges for women that has been under-represented, which makes it all the more important that it is now taken seriously.

The reliance on charity is a problem in itself. Donations of sanitary products to food banks and homeless shelters are often not enough to keep up with demand, while supply is variable across the country, meaning that the donations are not always made in the areas with most demand. The Homeless Period campaign is an attempt to gain more attention for the problem and to secure more donations of sanitary items to homeless shelters and food banks so that their stocks are more readily available. I again wish to pay tribute to the incredible work of Laura Coryton, who campaigned so effectively with me on the issue of the tampon tax, for her work in bringing the issue to wider public attention.

As part of my support for the campaign, I have secured a trial of a donation point for toiletries at a Boots store in Dewsbury to go to the Fusion Housing charity, which supports food banks in the Kirklees area. It is a small step, but I hope that many more like it can be achieved in the near future and that they will make a difference.

If, as we sadly now find, the Government are content to let charity supplant welfare in providing for the needy in our society, I will call on other companies to follow the example of Boots. Every area will have similar problems, and similar charities will try to cope with them. Many companies that deal with toiletries could set up similar schemes as part of their wider corporate responsibility to their communities. I was encouraged by an example on a recent trip to Brussels, where a hotel chain was donating surplus toiletries to its local facility for the homeless. With a bit of ingenuity, companies can make a significant difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable—as could this Government.

It is not, however, just homeless women who are vulnerable to period poverty. I was absolutely appalled—actually, I was heartbroken—by the recent BBC Radio Leeds report that a west Yorkshire charity called Freedom4Girls, which usually sends sanitary products to girls in Kenya, had been contacted by a school in Leeds to provide sanitary products to girls there. Concerns were raised after girls were found to be playing truant because they could not afford sanitary protection. I ask everyone to take a moment to consider what is happening in one of the richest nations in the world.

As with the homeless women in the examples I mentioned earlier, the same makeshift and risky remedies had been tried. We heard about 15-year-old girls sellotaping toilet roll to their knickers because they could not afford tampons or sanitary towels. Girls would rather not attend school than go through the indignity of doing so in a vulnerable state. There are related reports of teachers having to pay for sanitary products for their pupils. That, too, beggars belief. Schools are the perfect place for the Government to enact early intervention on matters relating to women’s health, as has been borne out by the valuable human papilloma virus vaccination programme. I urge the Government to investigate how the problem of period poverty can be tackled in schools, for example by including menstrual health in sex and relationships education and by looking at the possibility of using eligibility for free school meals for the provision of sanitary products to vulnerable young girls.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate and praise her for the passionate way in which she speaks about the issue, on which she has campaigned for a long time. I have heard the BBC Radio Leeds report about the girls in school. I am a father to young girls, as she knows, so it was something that hit me. Has she thought about whether the tampon tax funds that are being distributed at the moment could be directed to support girls from low-income backgrounds with tampons and sanitary towels? Perhaps pupil premium money could be used, or boosted, to help to provide those much-needed products to girls so that they do not have to go through the horrible situation that the west Yorkshire girls faced.

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I note that the first time we debated the tampon tax in this House, he chose to vote to keep it, but I do take on board what he says about the tampon tax funds. I would much rather see the tax removed from sanitary products, but while it is still there—I appreciate that Brexit causes complications—I would absolutely support some of the money going towards schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jason McCartney]

I remember the night when the hon. Lady forced a vote on the tampon tax. As she is well aware, it is due to EU regulation. She had a lot of cross-party support, and this is not party political—it is about coming together to look after young, vulnerable girls, and homeless people. The Government are trying to address that with their approach on the tampon tax. As she knows, through cross-party working, we can help those vulnerable women, rather than scoring puerile, partisan points.

[Paula Sherriff]

The existence of this problem in our schools speaks to my grave concern that we are seeing just the tip of the iceberg. I dare say that if we looked hard enough, up and down the country, we would find examples of similar schools whose girls face the same problem. Leeds City Council has the same concern. It notes:

“This issue has happened in Leeds—a city where services for children are judged to be ‘Good’ and over 90% of schools are judged to be ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted—and as such could be happening in towns and cities right across the UK.”

The Salvation Army has said that

“it appears that this phenomenon may be more widespread”.

We need to ask ourselves what is so fundamentally broken with our society that the poorest families, even those in work and secure housing, cannot afford sanitary protection for their daughters.

When the House returns from the recess, the two-child cap under the Government’s universal credit will have come into effect. The poverty that led the girls in Leeds into this position existed even before that, but I ask the Government whether they honestly believe that their changes will not make the situation even worse. The Opposition have repeatedly said that any such limit to child tax credit will serve only to punish unjustly the children involved. I fear that we may be setting a time bomb of poverty, misery and indignity for the underprivileged girls of the future if we do not act now to ensure that period poverty goes no further.

My sense of sadness about this issue comes not only from the assault on the health and dignity of the women involved—as I have repeatedly said, they are some of the most vulnerable in our society—but from the fact that the whole situation is absolutely avoidable. It is no accident of history that these women are being left in such a vulnerable situation; it is a direct result of the obsession with austerity of this Government and their coalition predecessor, which is disproportionately hitting the poorest in society. Many families now experience in-work poverty because of increasingly insecure jobs and hours. That leaves thousands of women at risk of being unable to afford sanitary products, with many on the precipice of rent arrears or in danger of losing their home altogether.

This sorry state of affairs was not always the case. Under the previous Labour Government, rough sleeping was nearly eliminated, but last year it increased by 16%—the sixth successive annual rise. In the final year of the previous Labour Government, 41,000 people were given aid by Trussell Trust food banks, compared with over 1.1 million in 2015-16. It should go without saying that when more women are homeless and more are relying on food banks just to get by, period poverty is going to be an increasing problem.

I implore the Government today—I beg the Minister—to find the political will to ensure that these horrors are not visited on any more women in our country. In the words of Tina Leslie of Freedom4Girls,

“we need to give these girls their dignity back.”

May I finish by taking this opportunity, Madam Deputy Speaker, to wish you, the other Deputy Speakers and Mr Speaker a very happy Easter? I thank all the staff of the House who, particularly during the past seven or eight days, have performed their jobs at the most incredible level. I also pay tribute to those affected by last week’s horrendous Westminster attack, especially the families of the bereaved.