What we know as Louise Haigh quits over mobile phone conviction
Haigh quit after it emerged she pleaded guilty to a criminal offence related to incorrectly telling police that a work mobile phone was stolen in 2013.
Louise Haigh has resigned as transport secretary after pleading guilty to a criminal offence related to incorrectly telling police that a work mobile phone was stolen in 2013.
In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, she said she is “totally committed to our political project” but believes “it will be best served by my supporting you from outside government”.
On Thursday, Sky News and The Times reported Haigh had admitted an offence in 2014 following the incident. She had reported to police the device was stolen when she was “mugged” in 2013. According to the Times, Haigh pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation in 2014 after an internal investigation by her employer Aviva.
Haigh said she discovered “some time later” that the phone had not been taken.
She said the matter was a “genuine mistake” from which she “did not make any gain”, and that magistrates gave her the “lowest possible outcome”.
Why did Louise Haigh resign?
In her letter to Starmer, Haigh said: "As you know, in 2013 I was mugged in London. As a 24-year-old woman, the experience was terrifying. In the immediate aftermath, I reported the incident to the police.
"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."
According to The Times, Aviva launched an internal investigation into missing mobile phones and when it was found that Haigh still had the original device, she was contacted by the police and asked to go in for questioning, to which she made no comment.
“The police referred the matter to the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] and I appeared before Southwark magistrates," Haigh told the newspaper. "Under the advice of my solicitor I pleaded guilty — despite the fact this was a genuine mistake from which I did not make any gain."
Haigh pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation in 2014 and was given a discharge - the lowest possible outcome. The conviction is now spent, and has been removed from her criminal record.
It has been reported Haigh declared her conviction "in full" to Labour on her appointment as Northern Ireland secretary in 2020.
Who is Louise Haigh?
Before entering politics, Haigh was in the Metropolitan Special Constabulary from 2009 to 2011.
She went on to become public policy manager at Aviva between 2012 and 2015 - during which time the mobile phone incident happened.
She was elected as Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley in May 2015, and at the time was the youngest Labour member of that parliament.
Then-House speaker John Bercow described her as having “terrier-like intensity” in her campaigning against the closure of tax offices. The following year she was deemed the most hard-working of new MPs by the Yorkshire Post, based on the volume of her parliamentary questions and speeches.
She was made shadow secretary for Northern Ireland in 2020, before taking up the shadow transport secretary post in 2021 and until her resignation was the youngest member of the cabinet.
In October, she found herself at the centre of a row over comments she made about P&O Ferries amid fears it would jeopardise a £1bn investment in the UK.
Haigh attacked the firm for its decision in 2022 to sack 800 workers and employ agency staff on lower pay, describing it as a “cowboy operator” and later saying she had been boycotting it for years “and I encourage consumers to do the same”.
The criticism triggered a row with P&O’s Dubai-based parent company DP World in the run-up to a major UK business summit, leaving ministers scrambling to salvage a key investment for the London Gateway container port.
