unwanted whitespace in Android Options Menu

Question

Is there a way to remove the whitespace at the top and bottom of the Options menu ?

I've set the menu background colour by setting the activities style item background attribute;

<item name="android:itemBackground">@color/bg_black</item>

and my style.xml for the activity is;

<style name="AppTheme.NoActionBar" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
    <item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
    <item name="android:windowFullscreen">true</item>
    <item name="android:windowContentOverlay">@null</item>
    <!-- Bottom Home etc nav bar color-->
    <item name="android:navigationBarColor">@color/md_black_1000</item>
    <!-- menu background color -->
    <item name="android:itemBackground">@color/md_black_1000</item>
    <item name="android:fontFamily">@font/cairo_semibold</item>
    <!-- Edit text color - like add to playlist -->
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/md_grey_50</item>
</style>