This petition was submitted during the 2017–2019 Conservative government
Rejected petition Remove the luxury tax on women’s sanitary products - pads, tampons etc.
Women’s sanitary products are still taxed as ‘luxury’ items. How can the government tax these items as ‘luxury’ when they are essential to each and every woman, and then not have the audacity to tax men’s products? Menstruating every month is not in our control, so do we deserve to pay so much?
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The men who signed the UK up to the European economic community in 1973 and approved tampons as non essential items would not have the courage to say that to us women today. One article in the telegraph reported that in 2015, male MPs struggled to say ‘tampon’ in a debate about the “tampon tax” - can that even be declared as a ‘debate’? The 5% VAT that remains on all period products, with the European Commission deeming tampons as non essential, is just ludicrous. The tampon tax is a clear sign of what happens when there are no women at the top table and things need to change.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
We think that this petition is similar:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/215003
EU rules prevent the tax on sanitary products being reduced below the current 5% rate.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.