Jersey chief minister defends reversing tampon tax proposition

Deputy Kristina Moore has defended her decision to call for a reverse of her proposition of removing GST from sanitary products

Jersey's chief minister has responded to criticism for backing calls to not remove GST on period products.

The States approved Chief Minister Kristina Moore's proposition to remove the 5% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on sanitary products in April 2022.

The treasury and resources minister has lodged a proposition to reverse the move, which Deputy Moore has backed.

She said GST no longer needed to be removed as products had been made free at 14 locations across Jersey.

'Widen the scheme'

In March 2022, when Ms Moore spoke on her proposed proposition, she said: "Prescription medication is not that far away from sanitary products, and therefore there could be some potential for a future treasury minister to expand that to encompass period products."

However, now Ms Moore has said providing the products for free instead meant the removal was no longer warranted.

She said: "We have supplied more than 110,000 to islanders so far, and we are continuing to increase the supply as we widen the scheme to include public loos from late August.

"That is a more effective way to address period poverty than removing GST - a saving which experience shows retailers might never pass on to islanders."

Ms Moore said with her proposition she wanted to "address period poverty and the inequality women faced in paying for period products".

Even though the removal of GST was approved in May 2022, the government have not actually removed it yet.

Deputy Elaine Millar, one of the three female politicians who backed the U-turn, said free products now outweighed a tax removal.

She said: "You can go in and pick up period products if you need them now, that's if you need your entire supply because you can't afford them at all, or if you just have an immediate need because you've run out, you can go and pick up whatever you need at that point, so that is much more effective.

"We have to do more to take the GST off, what retailers will probably say is well we charge GST on everything apart from this one product, so the time we do separate invoicing and separate administration around that product, our cost goes up therefore we maintain the price because of the extra admin work."

Free sanitary products can be found at the library in St Helier, Fort Regent and Les Quennevais sports centres, La Motte Street's customer and local services, Communicare libraries, the Salvation Army, the Youth Enquiry Service and the St James Centre.

Deputy Elaine Millar said free sanitary products outweighed a tax removal

Kate Wright, from the Jersey Community Relations Trust, said it was "quite a significant u-turn".

"It's interesting because as I understood it, the removal of tax on sanitary products was brought in because it was supportive of equality and it's almost exclusively women who purchase these products and having a period can hardly be seen as a luxury, it was perceived to be a rather unjust tax," she said.

In the proposition, treasury minister Ian Gorst used evidence from the UK to show the financial benefit of removing tax from sanitary products only benefitted the companies selling them, rather than the buyer.

Ms Wright said she wanted to see evidence for Jersey before the government potentially reversed its decision.

She said: "It's all very well saying well in the UK or in Australia this has happened, but what is the impact in Jersey, is the policy to provide free products working, is it broad enough, are the products accessible enough?

"If this is because it is an economic decision or because it is too complex for our tax system or we're worried about setting precedents then I do not think in itself that is a sufficient argument, we need to have the data and the evidence that is pertinent to Jersey before we make a U-turn in policy."

If the reversal is approved, Jersey will remain the only place in the British Isles to charge tax on sanitary products.

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