Louise Haigh said her conviction for claiming her mobile phone was stolen was a “genuine mistake”, but risked being a distraction for the government.
British Transport Minister Louise Haigh resigned on Friday following revelations of a decade-old fraud conviction for claiming that her mobile phone had been stolen.
In her resignation letter to Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Haigh stated her commitment to Labour’s agenda but said that her departure was necessary to avoid distracting from the government’s work.
“I remain totally committed to our political project, but now I believe it will be best served by my supporting you from outside government,” she wrote.
“I appreciate that whatever the facts of the matter, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from delivering work of this government and the policies to which we are both committed,” she added.
The resignation followed reports by British media that Haigh had pleaded guilty to fraud by misrepresentation in 2013. She had reported a work phone as stolen during a mugging, but later found it and reactivated the device.
Haigh told Sky News she later noticed that “the mobile in question had not been taken”.
“I should have immediately informed my employer and not doing so straight away was my mistake,” she said.
The error led to a police investigation, and Haigh received a conditional discharge after pleading guilty.
In a statement before her resignation, Haigh said that “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. The magistrates accepted all of these arguments and gave me the lowest possible outcome (a discharge) available.”
Haigh, 37, has served as a Labour MP representing Sheffield, northern England, since 2015 and was appointed transport minister after Labour’s general election victory in July.
