Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has resigned after news broke last night she was convicted of an offence in 2015.
In a resignation letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer dated last night, the MP for Sheffield Heeley confirms details of the incident 11 years ago which led to her pleading guilty to making a false report to police.
She writes: “I am sorry to leave under these circumstances, but I take pride in what we have done. I will continue to fight every day for the people of Sheffield Heeley who I was first and foremost elected to represent and to ensure that the rest of our programme is delivered in full.”
Ms Haigh, who was among the first batch of ministerial appointments in the new Labour government Cabinet in July, explained she was mugged in London in 2013. She says: “I gave the police a list of my possessions that I believed had been stolen, including my work phone. Some time later, I discovered that the handset in question was still in my house. I should have immediately informed my employer and not doing so straight away was a mistake.”
In 2014, six months before becoming an MP, Ms Haigh was given a discharge after pleading guilty to a minor offence at Camberwell Magistrates’ Court.
She adds: “I appreciate that whatever the facts of the matter, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from delivering on the work of this government and the policies to which we are both committed.”
In the letter, Ms Haigh alludes to the bill to bring railways back into public ownership, which became an Act of Parliament yesterday, and adds: “I am proud that we have also taken the first steps to putting buses back in the hands of passengers and local people, work which will be completed by the Buses Bill when it is laid next month.”
The former minister’s plans for a “bus revolution” in the coming years centred on giving local authorities the powers to take greater control over bus services. This included expediting franchising and remove the ban on new municipal operators.
The 37-year-old became the youngest ever woman Cabinet minister, after having been Shadow Secretary of State for Transport since November 2021 when Labour were in opposition.
