which are always represented in the House of Lords. The Act was passed shortly after the Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure 2014 authorised the Church of England to appoint women as bishops. 2016-2017: In 2016, a British receptionist was dismissed for not wearing high heels and she then started a petition which attracted sufficient support to be considered by the UK Parliament. Outsourcing firm Portico stated that Nicola Thorp "had signed the appearance guidelines" but after Thorp launched her online petition—"Make it illegal for a company to require women to wear high heels at work"—the firm changed their policy. The new guideline states that all female employees "can wear plain flat shoes or plain court shoes as they prefer." The petition gained widespread support from public figures such as Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and MPs Caroline Dinenage, Margot James and Tulip Siddiq. Two parliamentary committees in January 2017 decided that Portico had broken the law; the company had already changed its terms of employment. The petition gained over 130,000 signatures, sufficient for a debate in the British parliament. This took place on 6 March 2017, when MPs decided the UK government should change the law to prevent the demand being made by employers. However, this was rejected by the government in April 2017 as they stated that existing legislation was "adequate". 2020: Scotland became the first nation to pass a law (the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act 2021) making period products, including tampons and pads, free and available to access in public buildings. 2021–2030 2021: Britain abolished the tampon tax, meaning there is now a zero rate of VAT applying to women's sanitary products. See also First-wave feminism History of feminism History of women in the United Kingdom New Left New social movements Post-war Britain Pro-life feminism Second-wave feminism Sex-positive feminism The left and feminism The Women's Library (London) Third-wave feminism Timeline of women's rights (other than voting) Mary Wollstonecraft References Further reading Also available as: Bullough, Vera L. (1987), "Prostitution and reform in eighteenth-century England", in Social history of the United Kingdom Feminism and history United Kingdom