MPs, retailers and charities have written to the government urging it to axe the 20% VAT on period pants, the absorbent underwear designed to be worn as an alternative to tampons and sanitary towels.
Period pants are classed as garments but campaigners are asking Victoria Atkins, who as financial secretary to the Treasury is the minister responsible for VAT, to get them reclassified as period products in the chancellor’s autumn statement later this year.
As the knickers are reusable, they can save customers money in the long-term and help to reduce plastic waste. The reclassification would bring them in line with single-use items such as tampons and sanitary towels, as well as multiple-use menstrual cups, which have all been exempt from VAT since 2021.
The rise of period pants: are they the answer to menstrual landfill – and women’s prayers?Read more
However, despite the removal of the “tampon tax”, concerns have been raised that the saving has not resulted in lower prices for women. The Guardian reported last year a study by the not-for-profit advisory firm Tax Policy Associates, which claimed companies had pocketed £10m a year after the change that they could have passed on to consumers.
Marks & Spencer has launched the new Say Pants to the Tax campaign with the period underwear brand Wuka, promising to pass on 100% of any cost savings to shoppers if it is successful. A five-pack bundle of period pants at M&S costs £35, but would be £29.17 without VAT, while a pack of three – currently £20 – would drop to £16.67.
M&S and Wuka calculated that their customers combined had paid more than £3m in VAT on period pants. A survey of 268 women aged 18 to 54, conducted last month, found that 23% of respondents cited cost as a reason for not using period pants, with 83% in favour of dropping VAT from the products.
The open letter in support of the campaign has been signed by 35 MPs and peers, the chief executives of M&S and Ocado, the publisher of Hello! magazine and several charities and non-profit organisations, including Breast Cancer Now, the Marine Conservation Society and Forum for the Future. Campaigners have also set up a petition for members of the public to show their support.
Victoria McKenzie-Gould, corporate affairs director at M&S, said: “The government made a brilliant start by removing VAT from disposable period products but we need them to finish the job and level the playing field so that whatever period product someone chooses to use, it is VAT free.
“Nearly 25% of women cite cost as a barrier to using period pants. If they were classified as they should be – as a period product – the government can make this brilliant alternative to disposable products a more cost effective option for UK consumers.”
In May, the Treasury said it would analyse whether the removal of the “tampon tax” has helped lower prices. Responding to a written question from the Labour MP Ruth Cadbury, the government said a tax reduction was able to “contribute to the conditions for price reductions” and it was “looking into whether this important zero-rating is being passed on by retailers to women as intended”.
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Sunak scrapped the 5% VAT rate on tampons from 1 January 2021 when he was chancellor.
Laura Coryton, who started the Stop Taxing Periods campaign that helped bring about the policy change, said the 300,000 people who signed her petition to end tampon tax “wanted to make period products more accessible … They didn’t want to make supermarkets richer”.
She has started a new petition calling on retailers to pass on any savings from the tampon tax to women, which has been signed by more than 150,000 people.
This article was amended on 17 August 2023. An earlier version had the incorrect prices for the M&S examples without VAT – 20% had been subtracted from the final figure rather than working out what a 20% increase of the original figure was.
