Kirsteen Sullivan reached Westminster through local government rather than party headquarters. She had been deputy leader of West Lothian Council since 2017, giving her experience inside a Labour-led administration before she won Bathgate and Linlithgow in Labour's 2024 Scottish revival. She took 47 per cent of the vote and an 8,323 majority, defeating the SNP incumbent from the predecessor constituency.

Her council leadership coincided with sustained financial retrenchment. The administration's 2024-25 budget required further savings, staff reductions and a charge for garden-waste collection, although it retained free instrumental-music provision and froze council tax. Sullivan shared responsibility for those choices as deputy leader, but the published record does not isolate a substantial reform or measurable improvement attributable to her personally.

What she stands for

Her politics are broadly loyalist Labour and Co-operative: stronger public services, employment protection, infrastructure investment and redistribution through government rather than Scottish independence. She has repeatedly blamed both Conservative austerity and the SNP government's funding decisions for pressure on West Lothian services.

Women's health has become her clearest individual cause. As chair of the parliamentary group on endometriosis, she pressed for shorter diagnosis times, better clinical recognition and workplace support. She also backed a parliamentary inquiry into endometriosis at work after research put the average UK diagnosis time at nine years and four months.

She showed limited independence from the government over disability benefits. In July 2025 she supported a rebel amendment intended to protect people with fluctuating medical conditions. The amendment was defeated 334 to 149. She did not join the 47 Labour MPs who then voted against the welfare bill at third reading.

What she actually delivered

Sullivan identified two practical gaps: workplaces ill-equipped for menstrual conditions and personal protective equipment designed around a narrow range of bodies. Her office adopted Endometriosis UK's employer scheme, and she urged local councils and businesses to follow it. She also promoted the new inclusive PPE standard, arguing that badly fitting equipment particularly endangered women and disabled workers.

These were campaigns, not completed reforms. Her PPE bill reached only first reading and did not become law. The endometriosis workplace inquiry had been launched but had not produced a completed policy change. Government figures obtained through her questioning showed a modest improvement in English gynaecology 18-week waits over the following year, but that was a national departmental result and cannot reasonably be credited to her.

Local promises were similarly unfinished. During the election she pledged to pursue a Winchburgh railway station, road improvements at Avon Gorge and Burghmuir, and community-energy projects. No completed result behind those promises had been demonstrated.

Capability judgement

Sullivan has shown that she can identify neglected problems, organise cross-party campaigning and use parliamentary mechanisms competently. Her work on endometriosis and inclusive PPE is coherent and grounded in affected workers' experience.

She has not yet shown that she can convert that advocacy into law, funding or a measurable public result. Nor does her seven-year period in West Lothian's leadership provide a clearly attributable administrative achievement. The evidence supports describing her as an active, occasionally independent campaigner, but not yet as a proven legislative or executive operator.