Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the Women’s Environmental Network's report entitled Blood, Sweat and Pesticides, published in May 2025; and what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help prevent the use of glyphosate in tampons.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department and regulates medicine, medical devices and blood components for transfusion in the United Kingdom, with responsibility for ensuring medicines meet appropriate standards of safety, quality, and efficacy.

MHRA has not evaluated this report, as period products are not regulated as medical devices and consequently fall outside of MHRA’s remit. Rather, they would fall under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005, which are within the remit of the Office for Product Safety and Standards. Information on how these are regulated is available at the following link:

https://www.ahpma.co.uk/tampon_code_of_practice/