Speak Up! - Laura Coryton

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there really was a national tax lord that I needed to lobby! This being’s official title is the Chancellor of the Exchequer and in 2014 his name was George Osborne. He was my decision maker.

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      To increase my chances of getting any kind of a response from the chancellor, who is presumably perpetually very busy, I did three things at once: I sent a letter to my local MP asking for his support and advice, I contacted the chancellor directly asking if he would change our taxation policy on period products, and I promoted an online petition via social media to gather as many signatures as possible. This all paid off! I got responses from both my local MP and the chancellor’s office (we’ll talk about this in Step Three).

      Once we hit 10,000

      signatures on the

      petition, politicians

      started to take

      notice of us.

      The first to contact

      change.org to support our petition was

      the amazing Stella Creasy MP, and others soon followed, including the badass Paula Sherriff MP. I was lucky enough to be able to meet with both

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      of these superwomen,

      who gave us unwavering

      support and advice

      throughout the campaign.

      I still meet with Paula

      Sherriff today to plot

      future campaigns! Both

      of these MPs changed the course of our petition.

      Their support was invaluable. Similarly, if an MP

      ever asks to meet with you about your petition, then go for it!

      BuT rEaChInG OUr dEcIsION

      mAkEr wAs nOT QuItE aS

      eASY aS THaT. Oh nO.

      In 2015, I discovered that tampon tax was not just a UK issue. The European Union (EU) influences certain rules in all member states and regulates some taxation across all 28 EU member countries.

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      In 2015 this included the UK,

      and it included the tampon

      tax. My heart broke. For over

      a year we had been trying to

      influence the WRONG decision

      maker! I wondered whether I had

      let down all of the amazing people who

      had signed my campaign and believed that together,

      we could end tampon tax? I worried that I had

      wasted everyone’s time. I felt like a failure.

      Then I thought of

      something my ninja

      twin had told me.

      She said that:

      I soon realized that I needed to embrace this news and follow the new direction we had to move in.

      I began to target my new decision maker, the EU. This change in direction boosted our support base. Maybe these new supporters thought that because

      ‘Whenever I felt

      I had failed I just

      needed to move in

      a new direction.’

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      this was such a weird and complicated issue we needed more support. And

      they were right, we did! Soon wE hIT 200,000 sIGNATuRES! This made a HUGE difference. Finally

      George Osborne announced his

      support for team End Tampon Tax! He was unable to axe tampon tax in the UK, as we discovered this was actually under the EU’s jurisdiction, but that doesn’t mean he gave up. Oh no. Instead he did something AMAZING! In his Autumn Statement of 2015, the chancellor launched the Tampon Tax Fund, which has given £15m (the same amount the government earned annually in tampon tax revenue) a year to female-focused charities ever since. This has funded lots of important projects, including a brilliant drive to improve gynae cancer research by charity, The Eve Appeal. It has changed lives.

      ThAt’s PReTtY kIcK-aSs!

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      Then, something even more BADASS happened.

      ThE tHeN PrImE mInIsTeR

      dEcIdEd tO sUPPoRt Us.

      No wAy, rIgHt? YeS wAy!

      HeRe’s hOw:

      In 2016, the EU referendum was called. The prime minister was under pressure to prove that the EU is progressive and helpful. He must have thought ‘What better way to prove this than by ending tampon tax?’. YES, David Cameron, our thoughts exactly! So he went to the EU and proposed a motion to all 28 of its member states. This motion would allow all EU countries to lower their taxes on period products to their lowest national taxation rate, which means 0 per cent for the likes of the UK. It passed with the unanimous support of all member countries.

      ThIs day was EpIc!

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      A few days later, David Cameron made a speech in the House of Commons. He announced the END of tampon tax! Despite all of the many setbacks we faced and complications over finding our decision makers, we had finally WON! For the first time EVER, a UK prime minister uttered the word ‘tampon’ in Parliament – the unrivalled highlight of my life so far – and we knew we were on the road to success.

      What I learned from this was that mistakes aren’t always as scary or campaign-shattering as they might appear at first. Much to the contrary, mistakes can be fixed and they might even end up strengthening your campaign. Campaigns evolve. They can change if you find you’re lobbying the wrong decision maker.

      YoU jUsT fInD oUt wHo tHe

      rIgHt dEcIsIon mAker Is

      aNd gO aftEr tHeM. RuN!

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      That was our (somewhat bumpy) journey to finding our decision makers. To find out who your decision maker is, you’ll need to decide what kind of campaign you want to run. There are three buckets that campaigns will generally fall into and each needs a different approach, because each will have different decision makers. These buckets are: political, social and commercial change. Here are a few ideas on how to find your campaign focus:

      1) pOlItIcal CamPaIgNs

      Political campaigns are badass. They seek changes to policies, laws and technical things like funding. To find out who your political decision makers are you need to ask yourself what level of political change you’re seeking: local, national or (let’s think big here!) international.

      LOCal

      Lots of campaigns that make local things happen benefit entire communities. Local changes are incredibly impactful. They’re important. If you’re

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      pursuing local changes, such as a change

      in detention policy within your school or

      more mental health support for your

      community, then your decision maker will probably be a local governing organization, like your school governing body or local council. They are the ones who hold the ultimate power to instigate your local change.

      NatIONaL

      If you’re making a campaign that will change a national law or policy (just like my End Tampon Tax campaign), then you will usually lobby the government. More specifically a particular government minister might have the ultimate power to make your change. For example, it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer

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