Louise Haigh has become chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, first secretary of state and Cabinet Office minister.
Haigh, one of Andy Burnham’s closest allies, will run Number 10 North, a new unit that Burnham has promised will redistribute power and support regions to reform utilities, reindustrialisation and regeneration.
After entering parliament as MP for Sheffield Heeley in 2015, Haigh was named the hardest-working new MP in 2016 due to the number of her Commons speeches and questions, and praised by then-Speaker John Bercow for her “terrier-like intensity”.
In 2025, the former special constable and Unite union shop steward became the first person to resign from Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet as transport secretary after it emerged that she had admitted a fraud offence in 2013.
On the backbenches she emerged as a crucial power broker on Labour’s “soft left”, and was at the heart of the huge rebellion that scuppered the government’s welfare cuts in 2025.
