Nearly eight out of 10 voters are now backing the Sunday Mirror’s campaign to end period poverty throughout the UK, a poll reveals.
Our survey of 1,500 people in England and Wales last week showed 77% questioned think sanitary products should be free for those in need. Only six in 100 were staunchly against such a move.
It comes after Scotland became the first country in the world to eradicate period poverty when Labour MSP Monica Lennon’s parliamentary Bill made it law in 2021.
Her battle inspired many campaigns throughout the country – including a ‘Code Red’ one started by pupils at Denny High School in Falkirk in 2020.
This week we visited the school where tampons and sanitary pads are now handed out by teenage boys in classrooms and toilets are regularly restocked.
Tannoy announcements remind pupils of the free products. During lockdown the students ran an at-home delivery service supplying families when schools were shut.
Now Falkirk council funding ensures pupils can take sanitary products home amid the cost-of-living crisis in an area of Scotland where child poverty rose to 25% last year.
But the reality is very different for girls in England and Wales, where the poorest miss school and avoid socialising simply because they don’t have adequate protection. Some pupils even resort to using socks, tea towels and newspapers during menstruation.
Denny High teacher Rachael Dickson, 27 – who helped launch Code Red – told us the campaign made a big difference to school attendances, returning them to normal levels.
“Pupils were taking mornings or afternoons off because they were caught by surprise, and we wanted to change that,” she says. “But we wanted to ensure the products were available for all pupils not just those who are in poverty, which only perpetuates the stigma.”
The UK Government launched a period product scheme for schools in England earlier this year – but it is not law and is up to individual schools to use it or not.
Girls and women in higher education are not eligible.
A government period poverty taskforce was launched in 2020, but suspended during the pandemic. New Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has not yet decided whether to re-establish it.
Meanwhile pupils at Denny High say Scotland’s Period Products Act has “transformed” their education. Abi Kelly, 16, reckons the law has also made boys at the school “more understanding” and adds: “It’s so nice the products are just everywhere now.”
Bethany Ford, 14, finds it “incredibly sad” her English cousins down in Lincolnshire cannot access period products at school.
“I really hope a bill can get passed in England. Whenever I visit them they ask me about all this and it breaks my heart. I just wish they could have the same thing.”
MSP Monica’s victory means Scotland’s 32 councils must ensure anyone who needs period products can obtain them for free.
She said: “There is no reason why girls and women in England and Wales shouldn’t benefit in the same way. It’s about basic dignity.”
In the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood, where I meet Monica and Scotland’s leading period poverty and dignity campaigners, well-stocked boxes of tampons and sanitary towels can be found in all the women’s toilets. There is even a notice on the boxes with a phone number you can ring if there aren’t enough products.
In contrast, the Sunday Mirror found that period products were only available in a handful of disabled toilets in Westminster.
In addition to making period products widely available - Scotland's top football club, Celtic FC, even got involved, becoming the first in the UK to provide free menstrual products in its stadium - the Scottish Government has launched a PickUpMyPeriod app that connects people to more than 1,000 locations across the country where products are available, even in the most remote areas.
In a small village in Lanarkshire, I am able to access five different places offering period products within a four-mile radius.
One of the campaigners who helped Monica campaign for the bill was Claire Stanley, a manager at Scotland’s British Medical Association.
She says the bill has “transformed” the way doctors and nurses work in hospitals.
She tells the Sunday Mirror: “A doctor approached me about the fact that if she or one of her colleagues was on her period or came on her period in the operating theatre, they would quite often bleed through their scrubs or have to run to the nearest toilet and just stuff down toilet paper because there was nothing available for staff.
“That obviously has a big impact, not just on them, but patients as well. They constantly had that on their minds and it’s embarrassing for them.”
Monica says it’s anecdotes like this which prove making period products free for all will not just improve women and girls’ education, but boost the economy.
“When a lack of access to period products is impacting the workforce, the whole economy is affected because women don't have access to free period products,” she says.
“The legislation in Scotland was a long-time coming and it’s now high time our colleagues in Westminster followed suit.”
Poll by Redfield & Wilton Strategies
