By Ayo Kehinde
PM Starmer
UK Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, has resigned after it emerged she admitted to an offence related to incorrectly telling police that a work mobile phone was stolen in 2013.
In a letter on Friday to Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, she described the incident as a “mistake” but said that “whatever the facts of the matter, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from delivering on the work of this government”.
The incident happened when Haigh was in her 20s and was mugged on a night out while working for the insurer Aviva. She gave police a list of items she thought were missing from her handbag but wrongly included her work phone which at the time 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.
She alluded to Starmer knowing about this in her resignation letter, telling him: “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.
She stated, “I gave the police a list of my possessions that I believed had been stolen, including my work phone. Sometime 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 her letter, Haigh said her appointment to cabinet as the “youngest ever woman remains one of the proudest achievements of my life”.
She added, “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.”
In response, Keir Starmer, said, “Thank you for all you have done to deliver this government’s ambitious transport agenda.
“You have made huge strides to take our rail system back into public ownership through the creation of Great British Railways, investing £1bn in our vital bus services and lowering costs for motorists. I know you still have a huge contribution to make in the future.”
