Kirsty Blackman MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 3 Mar 2026 · Spring Forecast · Hansard source

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  It is not just an uncertain period for North sea workers; it is a crisis, and it has been a crisis for years. Investment has completely disappeared, jobs are being haemorrhaged and events make it even more clear why we need a home-grown energy supply and why we cannot rely on importing from overseas. Will the Chancellor, as she meets North sea leaders tomorrow, listen to their calls on the energy profits levy, give confidence on the future of the industry and ensure that my constituency and those across the UK do not continue to haemorrhage these jobs?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Grenfell Tower Annual Report · Hansard source

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  Nothing can ever undo the harm caused at Grenfell. I was in Parliament on that day, swearing in, when we saw everything that had unfolded. Nobody in my city of Aberdeen can ever get over the Piper Alpha disaster of 1988, but the resulting safety case produced by the Cullen inquiry meant that we had a much safer North sea and such a tragedy could never happen again, which brought people some solace. Will the Minister join me in urging stakeholders in Scotland to respond to the Scottish Government’s consultation on fire safety guidance, as we update the Scottish building standards to ensure that that guidance is as good as possible and all those working in that area can comply with it?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Post Office Green Paper · Hansard source

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  In rural areas, the loss of post offices is an issue, but it is also an issue in cities, particularly when the local transport network does not necessarily link people with the post office. My community is still reeling from Spar closing the post offices in its shops. Will the Minister give us some comfort by saying that he believes that the remuneration package being offered will not just keep postmasters in the job, but encourage new postmasters to take up the job, particularly given that, as has been stated, we face another round of Bank of Scotland closures?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  This makes me more frustrated than just about anything else in this place: the levels of ignorance, stupidity and hypocrisy from so many people in here, specifically about children’s access to social media. I fully intended to support the Lib Dems’ position, but the longer their spokesperson, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), spoke, the less I wanted to do so. I do not believe that the Government’s position on this is 100% right. I am glad that they are having a consultation, but I do not like the way that they are amending the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is a devolved Bill, to change the territorial extent to bring that into scope. A Bill that we have not scrutinised, because it is a devolved Bill, will now have a reserved section in it. At the moment, the Bill does not apply to Scotland, apart from one clause; now, it will apply to Scotland, because it will include this. As we have not had the opportunity to scrutinise it, we have not been involved in that process. I do not think it is right that the proposed amendment should come forward in this way, although I appreciate why the Government are doing it. That is why I am asking for the amendment to be shared with us as soon as possible so that we can see it, because we have not had a chance to look at the Bill as it has gone along. The Lib Dems have said that they have made their position clear. I have so far been able to find three amendments and new clauses to the Online Safety Act put forward by Lib Dems during its passage through the House. One of them was put forward by the Lib Dem spokesperson, who asked for an independent evaluation within 12 months of whether more platforms should be subject to child safety duties—this is the same party that is currently accusing the Government of kicking the can down the road, despite asking for a 12-month independent evaluation. There is hardly anything in the Lib Dems’ previous positions that helps me to understand their current position. The Tory party’s position is totally incoherent, too. The Tories refused my amendment on reducing habit-forming and algorithmic features. They also refused my amendments on livestreaming. By the way, before the Minister’s “Dear colleague” letter, livestreaming had been mentioned 53 times across the two Houses. A third of those mentions were me talking about how livestreaming for children should be banned. Before today, Roblox had been mentioned 32 times across both Houses—15 of those mentions were me saying that Roblox is not a safe platform for children. I am massively in favour of improving the online world for children. I think social media should be about looking at videos of cats. I love videos of cats—they are absolutely brilliant. That is what it should be for. I also think it is a great place for children to interact with one another. Like some others in the Chamber, I have been making the case that there are dangers on social media that can be easily tackled by changing the Online Safety Act. We could have got rid of those algorithmic features for children, for example. We could have got rid of livestreaming for children through the amendment I tabled. We could have got rid of children’s access to private messaging features with people they do not know, through another amendment that I tabled to the Online Safety Act. I do not like the way the Government are doing this, though. They are proposing an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and then we will have secondary legislation that will, possibly, amend the Online Safety Act—I am not 100% clear on how it is going to go. I appreciate that there needs to be a consultation. Before the 2024 Parliament, there were about three people in this entire place who had any grip of what the online world might have been like for children. One of them was the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah), who talked about some of these things. I asked the Minister at the time whether Fortnite would be included in the scope of the Online Safety Act, and they said, “If there’s text chat.” Text chat in Fortnite—it is an online game! There is not enough expertise in this place. Much as I hugely appreciate the people who work on writing Bills and the work of some of the experts at Ofcom, they are not experiencing the online world that children are experiencing. That is why we need to listen to ensure that any changes that are made tackle the most harmful behaviours, places and functionalities on the internet. I appreciate that the Government are trying to take action on this now. However, one of the few things that has made me cry in frustration in this place was one of the first things this Government did when they came in, when they brought in secondary legislation to categorise platforms and refused to include the small, high-risk platforms that had been added in the House of Lords. They said they were categorising as category 1 only platforms like Facebook, which meet a certain threshold. I was so frustrated by that choice by the Government. There needs to be more listening and learning about where the actual dangers are, and taking action on them. Please, do that in consultation with those of us who do understand this. Please, listen to experts on this.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  The Minister has just said that the Government have already sought permissive powers. I understand that they are going to move an amendment in lieu to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, but I am not aware that that amendment has been published yet, much less agreement sought from the House. When will that be published, so that we can see what those permissive powers are supposed to be?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  I am glad that the hon. Member has been very clear that her position is that she supports the Lords amendment that seeks to ban social media for children. Is she aware that it would not apply in Scotland? The Lords amendment would not apply in Scotland, because the territorial extent of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, apart from one clause, does not include Scotland. I take it that her position is that she only wants a social media ban for children who do not live in Scotland.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  I asked the hon. Lady’s Government to ban suicide forums that encourage young people to harm themselves. I asked her Government to ban eating disorder forums that encourage eating disorders. Her Government refused to do that in the Online Safety Act 2023, despite our asking for it to happen. How can she stand there now and take the moral high ground when her Government refused to ban the worst, most egregious, most harmful platforms? The Conservatives do not have a moral high ground on this issue.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  If this is the Conservative’s stance, why when consideration of the Online Safety Bill lasted for so long—it was even referred back into Committee, which no Bill had been in 20 years—did the Conservatives not ban social media for under-16s through that Bill when they were in government?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  A local organisation in my constituency, CyberSafe Scotland, surveyed children about what they were being fed on TikTok. There is a road in my constituency called North Anderson Drive, and children on one side of North Anderson Drive were being fed different content to the children on the other side of it. It is not just an age thing; it is really specific, and we cannot understand what each individual person is seeing because it is different for everybody.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  I am confused about what the Liberal Democrats’ proposals are. The proposals laid out by the hon. Lady are not those introduced in the House of Lords. In the House of Lords, only user-to-user services were talked about, not addictive online gaming, for example. Are we discussing a Bill containing the proposals laid out in the House of Lords, or is the hon. Member putting forward new, ethereal proposals? I do not understand what this Bill is going to be. I was expecting to actually see it so that we could discuss it today.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Online Harm: Child Protection · Hansard source

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  Australia just bans children from holding accounts; it does not ban them from using any of the platforms. They can still use YouTube; they just cannot have an account.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Is the hon. Lady aware of what percentage of people currently subject to the two-child cap are in work? Is she aware that 22% of people on universal credit earn more money than the personal allowance and therefore pay income tax?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  The SNP has been at the forefront of opposing this policy since the very first day it came in. Since the very first day that we spotted in the legislation the rape clause, which meant that people were going to have to tell the Department for Work and Pensions that they had been raped in order to get an exemption from the two-child limit. Women had to go through that cruel, inhumane system just to ensure that their children were eligible for the social security payments. From day one, this was a cruel policy from the nasty party. This is not a debate about whether people should be working or not. This is not an issue that pits the workers against the workless. This is about children. This is about kids being able to afford to eat. This is about their parents being able to ensure that they can grow up in a house that is warm; that they can have food in their tummies before they go to school; that they can have shoes that fit. This is about ensuring that kids are looked after and have the best possible life chances. This is about ensuring that poverty is reduced. No child should be growing up in poverty. No child, whether their parents are working or not, should be growing up in poverty. The Conservatives talk about making work pay. Well, they could have put in a real living wage, but they did not; they put in a pretendy living wage and called it the living wage, knowing that people could not actually live on it, so I am not sure they have a huge amount of high ground when it comes to making work pay. In fact, the system we have had until now has been the system the Conservatives created, so they do not have a great amount of high ground over the size of the social security system that Labour has been working with either, because that is the system they made. I am pleased that Labour is removing the two-child limit today. I am pleased that it will come in from April. I am not terribly happy that it has taken us this long to get to that point. Before I sit down, I want to commend every person across this House who has supported the removal of the two-child limit, and particularly those who have chosen to do so when their party did not want them to—that is the worst and most difficult position to be in. I really appreciate those who were willing to stick their head above the parapet and do what was right on this. I know it is incredibly hard to take that step. We have heard lots of criticism today, with lots of people saying that the Bill could go further and that there is more that could be done. There is, inevitably, more that could be done; there is always more that could be done to keep children out of poverty. However, this is a good step. Children will be better off as a result. Children will have improved life chances. What are we all here for, if not that? Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is great to get a chance to speak in Committee on the two-child limit Bill. I am so pleased that this Bill is progressing and that this has happened. This is something we have stood from these Benches and argued about for so many years. It finally seems that it will be real. I got into trouble with a Government Minister for not welcoming the Bill—I have welcomed it at every opportunity and am pleased that the two-child limit is being removed. In fact, I had my own Bill to remove the limit, so I could hardly do anything but welcome this Bill. I stand to talk about the amendments. We support all three new clauses that have been put forward. New clause 1 would ensure that we look at the benefit cap, and I agree with the points that have been put forward about that. I particularly enjoyed the speech by the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) just now. It was spot on in talking about the impacts of poverty on the life chances of children forever. It is not just the two-child limit that has caused this. It is one element that has increased and exacerbated child poverty, but so has the benefit cap. Of the families covered by the two-child limit, 40% have a disabled family member in the household, whether it is one of the children or one of the parents. The benefit cap overwhelmingly hits people with disabled family members. If we are saying that personal independence payment and the additional payments made through the universal credit system, whether it is the child element or the limited capability for work element, are paid to recognise the additional costs of disability and the complex circumstances people face that contribute to their poverty, inability to work more hours, illness or ill health, why are we putting a cap on it? Why are we saying, “We believe that children cost more money and that people on universal credit deserve more money depending on how many children they have because children should not go hungry”, which I believe is what the Government are saying here, but then capping it? Why are we saying, “Children should not go hungry—unless you hit the benefit cap, can’t take on additional hours because of a set of complex circumstances or have complex health needs that require an adapted house that costs more to rent”, for example? Why are we saying that those additional payments are reasonable, but only for some people? The Government need to look at the benefit cap again. That is covered by new clause 1. There are a number of things the Government need to look at again, which are covered by the other new clauses. The Government have made welcome moves on clawbacks and universal credit repayments. They have reduced the percentage that people can pay back in clawbacks. However, they have not taken any steps to look at the affordability of clawbacks. They are just set at a percentage without taking into account whether people can afford to pay back universal credit that has been overpaid or paid as an advance. That means that some families are significantly disadvantaged. They may have more outgoings because they live somewhere like Brighton, where rents are absolutely through the roof, or like the north of Scotland, where heating costs a fortune because it is freezing more often than it is down here. None of the repayment schemes look at these additional issues or at whether people can afford them. I also urge the Government to look at whether that is contributing to child poverty. The hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) said something along the lines of, “We don’t solve poverty by ensuring that people have money,” but we literally do. We literally solve poverty by ensuring that people have enough money. That is the solution. The cure for poverty is to have enough money to pay for the heating, the food your children need, or a pair of shoes when your child needs them. It is incredible how fast they grow, by the way. I think my son went through about five sizes in the space of a year and a half. It is impossible to keep children in shoes that quick, or even to get to the shops that quick. Children grow really quickly and it costs an awful lot of money. It is therefore really important that the Government’s child poverty measures are monitored correctly to ensure that they make all the differences the Government are proposing. We need to see whether enough of a difference is being made and whether the measures are having the effect on outcomes that we want to see. The Government put forward a child poverty strategy that I felt was deeply unambitious. Other than the two-child limit stuff, it mostly laid out things that the Government had already announced. It was also almost entirely about only England or England and Wales and did not apply in Scotland, other than the universal credit stuff. For example, none of the childcare, free school meals or school uniforms stuff applies in Scotland. I still feel that we do not have enough information about monitoring, so the three new clauses, which would provide for additional monitoring of the reduction in child poverty, are incredibly important. The Government will not produce their baseline monitoring and evaluation report on the child poverty strategy until summer 2026, so we do not yet have enough information about how they will measure that. I would love it if we had Governments who were absolutely up front and honest about which measures are working and which are not, but we have consistently had Governments who introduce primary and secondary legislation but fail to do post-implementation reviews of it. They fail to tell us whether the legislation has had the intended consequence. Did it make £30,000? Did it make £30 million? That is perhaps what the Government told us the legislation would make, but because a post-implementation review does not happen, we do not see whether it was effective.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Specifically on that point, does the Department have good enough data on subsequent children? Have people provided the information that the Department needs to ensure that the extra payments can be made timeously?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  That is absolutely true. I accept the rebuke, which is completely reasonable. It is not the parents’ fault—I should have been far clearer about that. I tend to think that poverty and a lack of privilege are caused by a lack of choices. Poverty means that people cannot make mistakes, while privilege means that they can. I can make mistakes because I have enough of a financial cushion and family support. For people who live in poverty, without family support or with poor mental health, one mistake can mean very quickly spiralling into an un-rescuable situation. That is how I think about privilege: those situations are not anybody’s fault. Just because I am lucky enough to be in a more privileged position, I am allowed to make far more mistakes than someone who is struggling on the breadline. How is that fair? Conservative Members made comments about people working hard. A lot of the people who are on universal credit while working are in the jobs that we really need people to do. They work as carers, shopworkers and all sorts of other jobs that not one of us would say are easy. I do not know if any Members have worked as care workers. The hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) has been a carer and knows how physically and emotionally demanding that is. Someone working in care and being paid the minimum wage is doing a physically demanding, very necessary and hard job, yet they might still be in receipt of universal credit because they earn so little. I hate the distinction made between people who work hard and people who do not, when that is based simply on salary—not the fact that lots and lots of people work hard for very little money, because the minimum wage is not a real living wage but just a minimum wage. I think I have been clear about some of the issues raised in the debate, including the benefit cap, issues faced by disabled family members and disabled children, and the effect of these measures on child poverty, destitution and wider social outcomes. On that last point, all of us, and particularly Governments, could probably do more about the impacts of poverty and ensuring that those are also measured. Some of the monitoring and evaluation suggestions for the child poverty strategy look at the cold, hard measure of how many children are in poverty, and at how those numbers are reduced or increased as things go on, but they look less at some of the impacts. To be fair to the hon. Member for South West Devon, how do such measures impact on school readiness? Can we see more information on whether the Government’s plans have had an impact on school readiness? Has there been an improvement in the mental health of young people as a result of these measures on child poverty? I still think that the Government are deeply unambitious and they could do more on the benefit cap. They could also do more, for example, to match the Scottish child payment; child poverty has been reducing in Scotland because that is the key mission of our SNP Government. It is worth looking at what works anywhere in these islands, and seeing whether it could or should be replicated to ensure that we reduce poverty and protect children, and that everybody has those opportunities—no matter how much their parents earn, how many children are in the family and whether there is a disabled family member. It is important that every one of us champions every child in our constituencies, and tries to ensure that they get the best possible start in life.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Those statistics will show the number of households that are capped, but they will not show how many have come into the benefit cap as a result of the removal of the two-child limit. Will the Minister be able to show a link between how many new families are being capped as a result of the two-child limit, meaning that those households are now disadvantaged again, even though the two-child limit has been removed?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Iran · Hansard source

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  There is a very real human cost to the violence used by the Iranian authorities. As many as 6,000 protesters—people like me and you, Mr Speaker—have been killed and murdered and more than 10,000 have been arrested. There is a real risk of extrajudicial execution. Political prisoners, including children, are being tortured in prison. Will the Government reassure us that they are having conversations with the US authorities ahead of the US-Iran talks, and making it clear to them that the lives and safety of those protesters, particularly the ones who are currently in prison, is of immense importance in the negotiations as they go forward?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  I said I would not give way. Let me turn to where we are today. The Labour party is being a bit smug about the position we are in. The SNP has been absolutely consistent in calling for the removal of the two-child cap. Alison Thewliss stood in this Chamber and highlighted the rape clause at every possible opportunity; I think people got fed up with her talking about it so much, but she was one of the people leading the charge. On that note, I thank those Labour Members who did back removing the two-child cap at the earliest opportunity. I understand how difficult it is to do that, and I appreciate that they were willing to put their principles first. Today is a good day because the two-child cap is being cancelled. I am sad, though, that the Secretary of State said that he does not regret anything he has said before on this. That means he does not regret saying that it is “open to debate” whether the two-child cap causes harm, despite the fact that he is now saying absolutely the opposite. I am glad that the Government are finally scrapping this policy. Children should not be at the sharp end of Government decisions, just as older people whose winter fuel payment was scrapped should not be at the sharp end. None of them is able to take these decisions on their finances. None of them can work a few more hours: a six-year-old cannot do that; a pensioner cannot just work a few more hours, because they may be significantly over the pension age and unable to work. We need to recognise what has been said by a significant number of Members today, which is that so many of these families are in work. People are working hard; it is just that work does not pay—it does not pay enough. If we look at the stats, we see that people feel that the social security system should provide enough support for people to be able to live. We know that people living on universal credit—particularly large families—cannot afford the essentials, even if they are working. That is what this debate is about: giving people the best chance in life. The Government, however, are not going far enough yet. The strategy that came out of their child poverty taskforce was simply a reiteration of many things that had already been announced. It was a summary: “Here we are. Here are all the things we have announced already as a Government.” It does not have the ambition we need in order to see child poverty tackled. If we look at the stats, we see that the rate of children in poverty by the end of this Parliament will be exactly the same as it is now. This measure will not reduce child poverty over the piece; the same percentage of children will be in poverty as are in poverty now, because the Government are failing to have ambition. The UK Government should look at the Scottish child payment, as I asked them to do the other day. They should look at the amount of additional money being provided, particularly as of next year, to families with children under one, in recognition of the difficulty and importance of those first 1,000 days. They should look at those uplifts to ensure that people are taken out of poverty, at the baby box, at the Best Start grants being provided to families, and at the tackling child poverty delivery plan that the Scottish Government will bring out in March. Unlike the UK Government’s paper, which simply lays out a number of great things that the Government say they are doing, we have targets in our plan; We are looking at the actual difference that each of our policies make. I urge the UK Government to look at what is being done in Scotland and at the fact that child poverty is lower in Scotland than in any other part of the UK, and to consider what can be done to ensure that children have the best possible start in life, whether they live in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not. The reality is that the Conservatives’ position is a very entitled, privileged one, and it does not reflect the majority of our constituents.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State regret saying that whether the two-child cap on benefits causes harm is “open to debate”?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will touch briefly on the Conservatives’ position and then turn to the Bill itself. The Conservatives have at least been consistent on this policy—consistently cruel. I would point out the level of detachment with the reality faced by so many families in my constituency. The reality for such a high percentage of families is they do not choose whether to have children. They do not sit down and work out whether the money adds up. The reason that the rape clause is in place is because so many people are not able to make those choices. People do not set out with an intention to have a certain number of children; it is about what happens in the circumstances that are created.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member share my concerns that the arguments that are being made by the Labour Government in cancelling the two-child cap were applicable 19 months ago, and that 61,000 children could have been kept out of poverty if the Government had agreed with us in debates on the King’s Speech, rather than waiting until now?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Point of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. A number of news outlets are reporting, alongside comment from Downing Street, that the Cabinet Office has sent unredacted correspondence to the police regarding Peter Mandelson’s leaks of market-sensitive information to the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Have you or the Speaker’s Office received any notification from the Prime Minister that he intends to give a statement to update the House on this matter? If you have, will you ensure that time is made for the Prime Minister to give that statement today?