Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure for me to close this debate. I’m very grateful to Jane Hutt for asking me to do so. Jane started by talking about the stigma related to period poverty, as well as the affordability of hygiene and sanitary products, and of course the motion talks about improving awareness and education with regard to periods, and breaking that taboo. I think the fact that we’re discussing this issue in the Chamber today does start us along that journey of breaking the taboo and challenging the taboo. Leanne doesn’t remember us discussing this in the Chamber before. I haven’t been here that long, but I take it we’ve not had this kind of discussion until now, so we are in the process of challenging the taboo, in discussing the issue as we are today.

Leanne reminded us that a lack of sanitary products in schools, and the fact that girls are finding it difficult to buy these products, is a sign of poverty and that poverty is a feminist issue. We need to get to the root of that issue, and tackle that issue and to tackle poverty as part of that. That’s why we need a holistic strategy to tackle poverty. Leanne also talked about the importance of education and healthy relationships education. This is something that Plaid Cymru has been discussing for so many years, I believe—the importance of that education. And I’m very pleased to hear, this afternoon, from the leader of the house, that there will be a statement on that issue in the coming months, so we look forward to that.

Caroline reinforced the argument, and I agree that it’s difficult to believe that period poverty is happening in 2018. Vikki Howells talked about the research group in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and I would also like to refer to the work of that task group, and also to thank councillor Elyn Stephens and the Plaid Cymru group on Rhondda Cynon Taf council for leading this work throughout Wales from the very beginning. Three years ago, Elyn put forward a motion to the Plaid Cymru conference, after discussing the issue with Plaid Ifanc, while she was a member of it. Now, Elyn herself had suffered period poverty, after being brought up with her two sisters by her mother, who was a single parent, who was dependent on disability benefit to support her family. Elyn said, ‘We would face the choice of buying food, heating the house, buying clothes or sanitary products, and it was the latter of those that lost out every time.' 

After Elyn was elected as a councillor in May of last year, she tried to get a handle on the issue of getting sanitary products free of charge in schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Now, the motion that was put forward at the council wasn’t passed the first time, and indeed she has told me that, that evening, she received messages from fellow councillors telling her that she hadn’t done enough research and that people must be able to afford 50p for a tampon, and that’s the kind of attitude that she came across initially. But she continued, and the council did refer the issue to the scrutiny committee in order for it to undertake some further research. Four Plaid Cymru councillors did this work, sending out questionnaires to young women in schools across the region. Vikki Howells has talked about some of the results of that research. Things like this were being said by the women who took part in the survey: ‘Periods are never discussed in schools’, ‘They don’t tell us that we have a right to have sanitary products unless there’s an accident’, and that they didn’t feel comfortable asking male teachers if they could have products of that kind.