Transport Secretary Louise Haigh resigns after fraud revelations

Louise Haigh resigned as transport secretary after it was revealed she had pleaded guilty to fraud she committed a decade ago.

There is Downing Street The name of Minister of Justice Heidi Alexander was announced instead.

Haigh admitted to police that he lost his work mobile phone in a mugging in 2013, but later learned it had not been stolen.

Due to the incident that took place before he became a member of parliament, the judges gave him a conditional release decision.

First resignation from Haigh Sir Keir Starmer’s government The 37-year-old said her appointment as the “youngest ever” female cabinet minister “remains one of the proudest achievements of my life”.

New transport minister Heidi Alexander returned to the House of Commons as an MP for a second time in July this year after leaving her post in 2018.

He served as London’s deputy mayor for transport under Sadiq Khan for over three years and was also deputy mayor for London Transport.

News of Haigh’s conviction emerged in Times and Sky News reports on Thursday evening.

Haigh released a statement describing his version of the incident, which occurred in 2013 while he was working as a public policy manager at insurance company Aviva.

He reported a “horrific” mugging to police in London, telling them his mobile phone at work was among the stolen items, but he later found the mobile phone in a drawer at home.

Stating that answering the phone “drew the attention of the police”, the woman said that she was summoned for questioning and that her lawyer advised her not to comment before the matter was taken to the court of peace on the grounds that she had made a false report to the police.

Haigh said: “I pleaded guilty on the advice of my solicitor – although this was a genuine mistake and I did not gain anything from it.”

Judges had granted him conditional release six months before he became an MP in the 2015 general election – “the lowest possible outcome”.

However, the Times claims that this controversy involved the theft or loss of multiple cell phones.

The BBC understands Haigh was unaware that his former employer Aviva was carrying out any investigation into multiple mobile phones.

Aviva is not commenting on the story.

on Friday, Haigh sent a resignation letter He told Sir Keir he did not want to be a distraction and that Labor would be “best served by me supporting you from outside government”.

In response, Sir Keir said Haigh had made “major progress” as transport minister to bring the rail system back into public ownership and thanked him for his work.

Whitehall sources told BBC transport secretary D.Sir Keir announces end to conviction as he appoints him to his shadow cabinet In 2020, when Labor was in opposition.

He did not mention this to the government’s etiquette team when he became a cabinet member after Labor won the general election in July.

He believed it was enough to explain his conviction to Sir Keir while Labor was in opposition, the BBC was told.

But Downing Street refused to say what Sir Keir knew about Haigh’s conviction before media reports about it emerged on Thursday evening.

Questioned for 25 minutes by reporters, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Sir Keir had only accepted Haigh’s resignation after “further information” emerged.

Spent convictions remain on the individual’s criminal record for life, but they are not required to disclose them on job applications under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Louise Haigh did the right thing by resigning. “It is clear that she did not conduct herself to the standards expected of an MP.

“The resignation letter states that Keir Starmer was already aware of the fraud conviction, which raises questions about why the prime minister appointed Ms Haigh to the Cabinet with responsibility for a £30bn budget.

“The onus is now on Keir Starmer to explain this apparent failure of judgment to the British public.”

Haigh was responsible for one of the government’s most important policies, the renationalization of the country’s railway network under Great British Railways.

But he was also the first cabinet minister publicly rebuked by the Prime Minister for his remarks about P&O Ferries last month.

Haigh describes P&O Ferries as ‘rogue operator’ and sparked a row with the ferry company’s parent business, DP World, by urging people to boycott the company.

When threatened to boycott a major investment summit in response, Sir Keir said Haigh’s comments were “not the view of the government”.

Born in Sheffield in 1987, Haigh studied politics at the University of Nottingham and law at Birkbeck, University of London.

Before entering politics, he worked as a shop steward for the Unite union and as a Metropolitan Police officer in the London borough of Lambeth.

He has been MP for Sheffield Heeley since 2015 and held a series of shadow ministerial and shadow cabinet posts before becoming transport minister when Labor won the election nearly five months ago.