Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsteen Sullivan Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I agree with the hon. Member’s characterisation of the degree of commitment and sacrifice being made by very large numbers of carers right across the country. As he has said, the report, which we commissioned from Liz Sayce, will be published by the end of the year, together with the Government’s response—and his question will be addressed in that response.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What steps he is taking to support young people into employment, education or training.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Pat McFadden)]

When we came to office, almost 1 million young people were not in education, employment or training. This Government are determined to offer young people proper opportunities. Our youth guarantee will ensure that 18 to 21-year-olds are learning or earning, helping to prevent them from becoming economically inactive almost before their careers have even begun. As my hon. Friend might have seen, the Chancellor has announced that a jobs guarantee scheme will be a future part of this work.

[Kirsteen Sullivan]

With one in six young Scots not in education, employment or training, including hundreds across my constituency, I welcome the Government’s youth guarantee to give young people the training or job support they need. However, with stubborn youth unemployment, the Scottish Government’s swingeing cuts to the college sector and employers warning that Scottish apprenticeships are less favourable than those in England, how will the Secretary of State work to ensure that young people across the UK can benefit from this Government’s ambition?

World Menopause Day

Kirsteen Sullivan Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ms Minns]

I agree entirely. Menopause remains an area where many employers are still failing to support their staff in the way that they need. As my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East said, one in 10 women who works during the menopause will leave their job due to their symptoms, and nearly a quarter more will have considered quitting because of its impact on their working lives. That is hundreds of thousands of experienced professionals walking away not because they want to, but because they have not been properly supported or have been made to feel that the workplace is no longer somewhere that they can function.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this issue not only has an impact on a woman’s feeling of self-worth and value, and on her career progression, but can have a severe economic impact on her family?

[Ms Minns]

Absolutely. I am a single parent, and the impact of my menopause was quite severe for my family, and for my financial situation at the time, because it forced me to make some unfortunate decisions about my work.

We are lucky in Carlisle to have excellent community groups such as Cumbria Radical Birds, where women can come together to support each other. However, not every community is so lucky. It is my profound belief that women should be able to find some of that support in their workplace, not just in their community. Supporting employees through menopause is not just the right thing to do; it makes business sense. When we create environments where people feel safe, respected and supported, we unlock their potential. That means flexible working, access to information, open conversations and policies that reflect real-life experiences.

Those are not idealistic goals; for decades they have been the standard for women going through pregnancy. I therefore invite the Minister to consider how we can protect women experiencing menopause in the workplace in the same way that our colleagues who are pregnant are supported by not only the Equality Act 2010 but health and safety regulation. We can and must normalise talking about menopause. That is why debates such as today’s are so important. Let us listen, learn and lead with empathy. When we support women through every stage of life, we build stronger, more resilient workplaces for everyone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this important debate.

I wish to start my remarks on World Menopause Day with a tribute to a simple yet powerful initiative: the menopause APPG, diligently chaired by my hon. Friend, has designed easily distributable bookmarks. They are so easily distributable that I searched high and low for one to bring along with me today and found that I have given them all away. These bookmarks list an A to Z of menopause symptoms, which I am sure that some of us in the room will recognise. They do more than mark a page; they give visibility to a natural stage in a woman's life. With half the population facing this transition, you would think that it would be better understood, but from doctors’ surgeries through to prisons, women face confusion and dismissal when they try to explain their symptoms. I commend my hon. Friend on her tireless efforts to extend awareness and education into spaces where women’s voices are rarely heard.

Menopause is not just a single symptom. It is not just hot flushes or mood swings; it is a pattern of physical, emotional and cognitive changes that can impact every aspect of a woman’s life. Yet all too often, in many medical settings, symptoms are treated in isolation. A woman may be prescribed or offered antidepressants for low mood. I have been there myself. “No—I just want to be able to sleep at night.” Painkillers are given for joint aches or sleeping pills for insomnia, but nobody actually joins the dots. Medical professionals need the tools, the training and the time to recognise menopause as a whole-body experience. We have to start treating menopause holistically.

If we improve the health outcomes, we will restore dignity, agency and quality of life, because all too often women feel as if their power is being taken away from them. That really has to change. This debate is critical to give the message that we, as parliamentarians, and in wider society, recognise that every woman deserves to be seen, heard and supported through this transition. Let us use those bookmarks to continue to guide us through this next chapter of change.

Welfare Reform

Kirsteen Sullivan Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

I gently say to my hon. Friend that we will protect existing claimants. That is the very purpose of the announcements we have made today. No existing PIP claimants, or people receiving universal credit and the health top-up, will be put into poverty as a result of this Bill—far from it. We are changing the system so that many more sick and disabled people who want to work can actually get work. That is about building a better life in future. This Labour Government believe that if someone can work and wants to work, they should have the chance and choice to do so. Some 200,000 sick and disabled people say that they would work right now with the right help and support. We are not cutting the support for that; we are actually increasing it, because we believe that work is the key to a better life.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement, and for the recent move to protect existing claimants. I appreciate that the adult disability payment is devolved to the Scottish Government. However, my constituents are really concerned about the potential for different qualifying criteria across the nations, which may result in limited access to passported benefits from November 2026. What assurances can the Secretary of State give my constituents that they will not lose the benefits to which they currently have access, and the vital support on which their households rely?

Following the Secretary of State’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), it is really unclear whether the House is being asked to agree to a four-point assessment without knowing the outcome of the Timms review with regard to descriptors—or could that review result in more fundamental reforms that would rip up the current PIP system?

[Liz Kendall]

On my hon. Friend’s first point, she will know that PIP is devolved to Scotland. I believe that the Scottish Government are reviewing the ADP at the minute, including the eligibility criteria. That will be a matter for them, but I want to be clear to the House that the new four-point minimum requirement will come into force in November 2026 for new claims, and existing claimants will be protected. Of course, the Timms review will look at the different descriptors and the points for them in future, but the four-point minimum and the daily living component for new claimants will remain.

Winter Fuel Payment

Kirsteen Sullivan Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

I have just explained why we are making this announcement now: we want to ensure that the payments can be made in time for the winter. I have not hidden from the fact that last year we made the difficult decision to means-test the winter fuel payment, and that was the right choice to make, but we have listened, which is why we have announced a higher means test. I have directly answered the hon. Member’s question.

This is important, but we do need to make some tough decisions. I know that the Liberal Democrats want a universal winter fuel payment, because they think it right to pay hundreds of pounds to millionaires, but I take a different view. I think it is that kind of wishful thinking that created, in 2010, a Liberal Democrat Government who promised to scrap tuition fees and ended up trebling them.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, which I know will be greatly welcomed by my constituents. Over 14 years, we became used to a Government who did not listen and did not change course when circumstances changed, so I for one am grateful for a Labour Government who do so.

While there was an uptick in pension credit—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Question!

[Kirsteen Sullivan]

Will the Minister commit himself again to working with local government and devolved Administrations to increase the number of people receiving pension credit, so that pensioners on the lowest incomes do not lose out but receive the support that they need?

[Torsten Bell]

That is a very important point. Whatever the views expressed in the House today, I say to all Members that if any of them want to suggest ways in which we can continue to drive up pension credit and ensure that the poorest pensioners receive the support to which they are entitled, I will always be happy to talk to them.

Poverty: Glasgow North East

Kirsteen Sullivan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke), who is my neighbour, for securing this important debate. Glasgow has disgraceful levels of absolute poverty, with families who cannot afford the essentials to live: food, heat, school uniforms and clothes.

We do not help those in desperate poverty by making unaffordable promises. But despite the constrained public finances, our Government have taken action. Our last Budget raised billions in extra taxes to fight poverty. In Scotland, that means an extra £4.9 billion for the Scottish Government, so that they can tackle record NHS waiting lists and arrest the alarming decline of Scottish education. Our Employment Rights Bill tackles the evil of in-work poverty, with the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation. Our Government have increased the living wage well above inflation.

Our Government have been in power for 10 months; the Tories were in power for 10 years and the SNP have been in power for 18 years—at the helm of an incredibly powerful devolved Administration blessed with significant powers. The SNP have run Glasgow city council for eight years.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many of the essential services that families rely on are delivered by local authorities, and that local authorities have had their budgets slashed year on year by the Scottish Government, which impacts their ability to protect and support the most vulnerable people in our societies?

[John Grady]

I agree. Local government has been emasculated by the Tory Governments in England and Wales and the SNP Government in Scotland. I must say that they are pretty non-discriminatory in their emasculation, because they have failed to properly fund the SNP council in Glasgow for years.

In Scotland, one cause of poverty is the shocking state of the NHS. Record waiting lists do not just delay people getting back to work; the delays mean that their conditions deteriorate to a point where they cannot return to work, and we should be incredibly angry about that. In 2007, the Scottish Government promised to establish a ministerial taskforce on health inequalities, yet Scotland continues to have the worst health inequalities in western and central Europe. On disability health checks, following a successful pilot in 2019-20, the Scottish Government committed to carry out annual health checks for people with learning disabilities in 2022. It was to be completed by 2023, but as of 2023-24, only 6.9% of eligible people had been offered a health check. The SNP’s record in Holyrood on health is absolutely shameful.

Education is an essential pathway out of poverty. However, the attainment gap in Scotland is widening, which means that kids in my constituency and others with large working-class populations have fewer life chances, and they are getting worse—it is an absolute scandal. College education is in crisis. Again, this should be a source of anger.

Glasgow city council has an opportunity to help some of the most vulnerable in Glasgow. Homeless Project Scotland has a food and night shelter in the Merchant City in Glasgow. It serves free hot meals and provides an immaculately clean shelter for homeless people. However, it has had its planning permission refused. The shelter is at serious risk of closing, but I am heartened to hear that Glasgow city council has said:

“We are available to engage...and do whatever we can to help them secure suitable property”.

I hope that the council does that. It has two golden keys to a resolution. It has an extensive property portfolio and it is the planning authority. I cannot think of an organisation better placed to help.

I helped at the shelter on Sunday night. That night, it served over 100 men and women, but because children are also homeless in Glasgow, it serves them too. On Sunday night, there was a boy—just like my boy—with his dad, a teenage boy with his mum, and a girl perhaps the same age as my daughter. If the shelter is closed, where will those children and their mums and dads get a hot meal? Where will the most vulnerable in my city get a safe bed for the night? I hope that Glasgow city council delivers on its promise.

Welfare Reform

Kirsteen Sullivan Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I think I will get everybody in at this rate, thank you.

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I recently held a child poverty roundtable in my constituency, and one of the issues raised repeatedly was that many people who want to work find themselves worse off when they lose benefits and find themselves pushed into hardship. What assurances can my right hon. Friend provide for my constituents that under these changes they will be better off in work and will no longer be penalised for wanting to improve their life’s circumstances and those of their families?

[Liz Kendall]

My hon. Friend raises a really important point, and it would be really good if she talked to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability, who is reviewing universal credit, as we promised in our manifesto, to tackle poverty and make work pay. We have to make that a reality for everybody in this country, and I am sure that, if she talks to him, he will speak more about what we are doing in this regard.

Food Banks

Kirsteen Sullivan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) for introducing this critical debate.

I have no doubt that everyone in the Chamber agrees that it is scandalous that people are forced to go to food banks to ensure they do not go hungry. Two decades ago, it was almost unthinkable that we would see soaring levels of food insecurity and food poverty in our communities. However, as we have just heard, 14 years of austerity and economic chaos have pushed more people into hardship. In my constituency of Bathgate and Linlithgow, we have seen a 77% increase in reliance on food banks over the past five years. That means that stomachs rumble through school lessons and that children have increased vulnerability to illness and fatigue, coupled with inescapable stress about where the next meal is coming from. My thanks to West Lothian and Falkirk food banks and to West Lothian food network for the sterling work they do in providing empathetic and compassionate support to those in need.

Eliminating the need for food banks is about more than charity or words. It is about choices, decisions and actions—having the political will to tackle the drivers of inequality. The Labour Government have already got to work, with wage rises to ensure that the cost of living is incorporated into the lowest pay and the start of free breakfast clubs in England and Wales next year. I hope the First Minister will keep to that commitment in Scotland, so that children are ready to learn, free from the pangs of hunger.

It is a good start, but more has to be done and the Scottish Government have a key role to play. They have received £41 million as a result of the Labour Government’s additional funding to the household support fund, and as yet, that has not been allocated to support those households most in need. Demand for the Scottish welfare fund has soared in recent years without any uplift to meet the increased need. The provision of free school meals for P6s and P7s has been kicked into the long grass again, although that would enable parents to have more money in their pockets. There is much more that has to be done: all Governments must work together and strive for a society in which people can live with dignity and free from the scourge of hunger, which should have no place in our society today.