THE Scottish parliament has just published the final draft of a Bill to provide the ‘right’ to free ‘period products’.

One can only assume this means sanitary pads and tampons – items that menstruating women alone have need of.

This entitlement doesn’t however just raise the question of how women coped before – and at times of far worse austerity than now – but of who will be eligible.

I am not suggesting that any category of girl or women should be excluded from Scotland’s unique beneficence, which is thanks to the generous ‘Barnett formula’ that Nicola Sturgeon always so conveniently forgets about. No. It raises the question of whether there is anyone who will not be eligible to claim their right to these free products.

Although the fact of menstruating could not be more biologically unique to women or more symptomatic of the female sex, nowhere in the entire Bill are the words ‘woman’ or ‘female’ mentioned. Only ‘person’.

A transition too far?