Laura Coryton MBE (born 1993)
[ is a British campaigner, ]feminist activist
The feminist movement, also known as the women's movement, refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by inequality between men and women. Such issues are women's l ...
and author. She is the founder of Stop Taxing Periods, a campaign to abolish the tampon tax
Tampon tax (or period tax) is a popular term used to call attention to tampons, and other feminine hygiene products, being subject to value-added tax (VAT) or sales tax, unlike the tax exemption status granted to other products considered basi ...
in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and make menstrual products
Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) or menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) is the access to menstrual hygiene products to absorb or collect the flow of blood during menstruation, privacy to change the materials, and access to facilities to dispose ...
exempt from VAT
A value-added tax (VAT or goods and services tax (GST), general consumption tax (GCT)) is a consumption tax that is levied on the value added at each stage of a product's production and distribution. VAT is similar to, and is often compared wi ...
. Coryton's online petition successfully lobbied the UK Parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of ...
into establishing the Tampon Tax Fund in 2016, through which almost £100m was donated to female-focused charities. Her campaign succeeded in 2021 when the tax on all period products was axed.
Coryton also runs the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) social enterpris
Sex Ed Matters
dedicated to making quality and confidence-building sex education accessible to everyone, for which she won UKRI's Young Innovator Award 2023 and Women in Innovation Award 2024. In the 2024 UK general election
The 2024 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 4 July 2024 to elect all 650 members of the House of Commons. The opposition Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, won a landslide victory over the governing Conservative Party unde ...
, she stood as the Labour Party parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park. Her first book ''Speak Up!'' was published by Harper Collins UK in 2019, translated int
French
in 2021 and in the USA in 2022.
For her work, she was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
(MBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours
The 2024 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms to Orders and decorations of the Commonwealth realms, various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Hono ...
for services to Charitable Campaigning. Coryton also joined th
Obama Foundation
as a European Leader in 2022, joined the Department for Education's Period Poverty Taskforce in 2020, and was named one of ''The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
s and Nesta
Nesta (formerly NESTA, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) is a British foundation, registered as a charity, which supports innovation.
Nesta was originally funded by a £250 million endowment from the UK National Lotter ...
's 2016 New Radicals.BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
included her in their list of ''Five women who aren't on Wikipedia but should be''.
Education and career
Coryton was born on 28 May 1993. She grew up and went to school in Devon
Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...
.Goldsmiths, University of London
Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by ...
in 2015 and worked for the Labour Party,University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
, for which she gained a Distinction. She started he
PhD in Philosophy at Royal Holloway
University of London, in 2025, dedicated to 'reimagining the Relationships and Sex Education Curriculum in England through a feminist philosophical and legal lens'.
Coryton then worked for Harper Collins when she wrote her book, before founding her social enterprise. She is also an ambassador for The Eve Appeal, a British charity that raises awareness of and funds research into gynaecological cancer
Gynaecology or gynecology (see American and British English spelling differences) is the area of medicine concerned with conditions affecting the female reproductive system. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, which focuses on pre ...
s.
Stop Taxing Periods campaign
Coryton started the Stop Taxing Periods campaign in May 2014 while a student at Goldsmiths. The campaign was centred around an online petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication.
In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to an officia ...
on campaign hosting website Change.org
Change.org is a website which allows users to create and sign petitions in an attempt to advance various social causes by raising awareness and influencing decision-makers. The site is a US-based for-profit company and claims to have 551 million ...
. By early 2016 the petition had gained more than 320,000 signatures and global recognition.Prime Minister
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...
, who said "I wish we could get rid of this… utthere's a problem with getting rid of VAT on certain individual issues because of the way this tax is regulated and set in Europe."Parliament
In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
accepted a Tampon Tax
Tampon tax (or period tax) is a popular term used to call attention to tampons, and other feminine hygiene products, being subject to value-added tax (VAT) or sales tax, unlike the tax exemption status granted to other products considered basi ...
amendment proposed by Paula Sherriff
Paula Michelle Sherriff (born 16 April 1975) is a British Labour politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dewsbury from 2015 to 2019.
Early life
Prior to her election to Parliament, Sherriff worked in the police force, pro ...
MP, the then Chancellor
Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...
George Osborne
George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born 23 May 1971) is a British retired politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the Cameron government. A ...
pledged in his budget to make menstrual products exempt from sales tax.
Sex Ed Matters
Coryton co-founded 'Sex Ed Matters', a Relationship and Sex Education social enterprise, in 2019. The organisation, which she runs with her twin sister Julia, is designed to help schools deliver sex education material, including period education, consent and LGBT rights, through the means of workshops and resources.
For her social enterprise, Coryton won Innovate UK's £12,000 Young Innovator Award in 2023 and its £50,000 Unlocking Potential Award] in 2024. She has also spoken about the importance of sex education in tackling incel
Incel ( ; a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate") is a term associated with an online subculture of mostly male and heterosexual people who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. They ofte ...
culture and empowering young people at events including London Labour's Equalities Conference, Harvard University and the Women of the World Festival in London.
Richmond Park candidature
On 20 April 2024, she became the Labour Party candidate for Richmond Park
Richmond Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is the largest of Royal Parks of London, London's Royal Parks and is of national and international importance for wildlife conservation. It was created by Charles I of England, Cha ...
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References
External links
periodwatch.org
official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coryton, Laura
1993 births
Living people
Reproductive rights activists
Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London
British feminist writers
British women activists
Members of the Order of the British Empire
People from Devon
Tax reform
Value-added tax in the United Kingdom
Women's health in the United Kingdom