Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 25 February 2020.
I a m delighted to speak in the debate and to continue to offer my support to Monica Lennon’s bill. I have supported it from day 1, as have a number of colleagues across the chamber.
This is a very important bill. It is about health and wellbeing, women and girls, men and boys, equality, education, dignity, decency, and the type of society that I want to live in and that I want us all to live in.
Since coming into the Parliament, I have been astonished by how we deal with issues to do with our personal health, reproductive health and women’s health. When I got involved with the mesh campaigners, we could get not get anyone, including journalists, to listen to what the women were saying. Back in the early days of the campaign, I remember calling a press conference that two journalists turned up to. When I asked a senior journalist why they did not come, they said, “Well, we just don’t want to talk about women’s bits.” Actually, they did not use those words—I am too polite to say how they described it. That was in 2012.
One thing that the bill has done is break down the barrier of our inability to discuss such serious issues about our health and wellbeing in the media or in public without embarrassment, reticence and discomfort. It has allowed people to talk about the issues without embarrassment or stigma, which is a very good thing.
It was absolutely fantastic to see male industrial workers from Unite the union—members of my own union; I see some of them in the gallery—out there campaigning on period poverty. Long may that continue. They have been joined by a wide range of organisations, including football clubs and supporters groups, Engender, the Scottish Youth Parliament, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and NUS Scotland, building a very broad, very effective coalition in support of the bill.
Progressing a member’s bill is a big task. A number of us have done it, so we know how hugely time consuming it is. I recall that, way back, my then researcher Tommy Kane and I had a conversation with Monica Lennon, in which we encouraged her to take the matter forward as a member’s bill. As we move forward today, I am pleased that we had that conversation. Her parliamentary team—Kirsty-Louise Hunt, Alyson Laird, Lynsey Hamilton and Correne Fulton—must be given great credit. We all know that parliamentary teams do tremendous work behind the scenes, but getting a member’s bill to this stage is a very big task, and they have played a blinder.
I am pleased that political realities kicked in last week and that the Tories and the Scottish National Party have come on board. When I heard arguments about cross-border tampon raids, I knew that the case against the bill had evaporated—I am pleased that it has.