Louise Haigh was advised to resign by No 10 for a possible breach of the ministerial code, after she did not declare her spent conviction for fraud to the government when she became a cabinet minister.
Multiple sources said Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, delivered the message to the UK transport secretary on Thursday night that it would be best for her to resign.
They said Haigh had not declared the 2014 conviction for wrongly reporting a mobile phone stolen to the police, because she was asked only about unspent offences. She had pleaded guilty to fraud by misrepresentation and received a conditional discharge.
Three sources said Haigh had told Starmer about the conviction when she became shadow Northern Ireland secretary in 2020.
However, Starmer’s official spokesperson refused to confirm on Friday whether the prime minister knew about the conviction at any point.
In a briefing with reporters, the spokesperson repeated the same line that “following further information emerging, the prime minister has accepted Louise Haigh’s resignation”.
In a series of bizarre exchanges, the spokesperson gave the same scripted line when asked what the prime minister knew about Haigh’s spent conviction, what further information had emerged, and why he had appointed her to cabinet if he knew about the offence.
Pressed on what she declared, the spokesperson said there were “clear rules around declarations” that meant ministers must give a full account in writing of private interests that might give rise to a conflict, actual or perceived. He also stressed that ministers must adhere to the seven Nolan principles of ethical standards in public life.
A No 10 source said they did not feel that Haigh disclosed the full details to Starmer in opposition, and that it was not declared to the government when she became a minister. Her departure was more to do with a failure to be fully open than the original offence, they said.
Sky News had reported on Thursday two sources saying Haigh had made the report to police in order to gain an upgraded mobile phone from her employer, while the Times reported that Haigh was put under investigation by her then employer, Aviva, over another phone reported missing.
However, a source close to Haigh said it was “absolute nonsense” that she had reported it missing to get an upgrade, and that it had been an honest mistake.
They said she had come fully clean to Starmer about the episode when he appointed her as shadow Northern Ireland secretary and he was very supportive of her at that point.
However, she did not declare it to the government when she became transport secretary, because she was asked only about unspent convictions.
She is understood to have spoken to Starmer on Thursday night before McSweeney made clear to her it was best for her to resign.
Haigh quit the cabinet on Friday morning with a letter to Starmer saying that “whatever the facts of the matter, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from delivering the work of this government”.
In a statement, Haigh said that while she was working for Aviva in her mid-20s, she was mugged while on a night out. She gave police a list of items missing from her handbag, including her work phone, which she thought had been stolen.
Haigh was issued with a new phone but when she subsequently found her old work phone and turned it on, the police called her in for questioning.
In her letter to the prime minister published on Friday morning, Haigh said not informing Aviva straight away that she had found her missing work phone “was a mistake”.
Accepting her resignation, Starmer thanked Haigh for her work and “huge strides to take our rail system back into public ownership”. “I know you still have a huge contribution to make in the future,” he wrote. Downing Street later named the Swindon South MP Heidi Alexander as the new transport secretary, replacing Haigh.
Haigh, 37, who was the youngest person appointed to Starmer’s cabinet, has become the first person to leave it five months after Labour’s election landslide.
She thanked Starmer for his support in her resignation letter and said she took “great pride” in what Labour had achieved since the election.
She said she was “totally committed to our political project” but believed “it will be best served by my supporting you from outside government”.
“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,” she wrote.
