Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to tackle period poverty.

Since 2019 the National Health Service has made free period products available to every hospital patient who needs them, including long-term in-patients. The Department for Education’s period product scheme provides access to free period products for all state-funded primary and secondary schools, as well as Government funded 16- to 19-year-old education organisations in England. Since 1 January 2021, a zero rate of VAT has applied to sanitary products, and in January 2024 this was extended to include period pants.