Prime Minister declines to elaborate on Haigh’s departure

Sir Keir Starmer has declined to provide additional information regarding the resignation of Louise Haigh from her position as transport secretary last week. Ms. Haigh’s departure followed revelations that she had pleaded guilty to a fraud offense ten years prior, a conviction she reportedly informed Sir Keir of in 2020, at the time of her appointment to his shadow cabinet. During Prime Minister’s Questions, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, questioned why the prime minister had appointed a “convicted fraudster” to the role of transport secretary. Sir Keir stated that Ms. Haigh’s resignation was appropriate “when new information came to light”. However, when Ms. Badenoch requested specifics concerning this new information, he responded: “I’m not going to disclose private information.” He further commented that Ms. Haigh’s prompt resignation presented a “marked contrast” to the conduct of the preceding Conservative government and accused Ms. Badenoch of being “obsessed with the Westminster issues”. Ms. Badenoch asserted that the prime minister was “obfuscating” and that he owed Members of Parliament “an explanation”. She stated: “The country needs conviction politicians not politicians with convictions.” In response, Sir Keir noted that two of Ms. Badenoch’s predecessors had “convictions,” referring to Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, both of whom received fixed penalty notices for violating Covid rules. Fixed penalty notices are not categorized as criminal convictions if the fine is settled promptly. Subsequently, a Labour source, addressing Ms. Badenoch’s inquiries, commented: “If the Conservatives want to have a row about the extent of their criminality in office, that’s fine by us.“The fact is that her two predecessors were found guilty of breaking the law, partying in Downing Street while telling everyone else to follow the rules, something which the leader of the opposition described just a few weeks ago as ‘overblown’. Maybe she’ll want to retract that statement.” Last week, Ms. Haigh became the initial minister to resign since the Labour government assumed power in July. On Thursday evening, Sky News and The Times disclosed information regarding her previous conviction. Ms. Haigh subsequently released a statement providing additional specifics about the incident, which occurred in 2013 while she was employed by the insurance company Aviva. She stated that she had reported a mugging to the police, with a work mobile phone being among the stolen items. She later indicated that she located the handset in a drawer at her residence. Activating the phone “triggered police attention,” she explained, leading to the matter being brought before a magistrates’ court for filing a false police report. Ms. Haigh commented: “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.” She was given a conditional discharge half a year prior to her election as an MP in the 2015 general election. Early on Friday, the morning following the disclosure of her conviction details, Ms. Haigh submitted a resignation letter to the prime minister, stating her desire not to be a distraction. Whitehall sources have informed the BBC that she had disclosed her conviction to Sir Keir when he selected her for his shadow cabinet in 2020. However, she did not inform the government’s propriety and ethics team about it upon becoming a cabinet member after Labour’s victory in July’s general election. The BBC has been informed that she believed disclosing her spent conviction to Sir Keir while Labour was in opposition was adequate. On Friday, a spokesperson for Downing Street declined to specify what Sir Keir knew regarding the conviction, stating only that he accepted her resignation after “further information” came to light. The spokesperson was interrogated for 25 minutes concerning the matter but declined to provide additional details. A routine briefing with journalists following Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions yielded similar results, with a Labour spokesperson present merely stating they would not delve into “private discussions with former cabinet ministers”. Nevertheless, the BBC understands that certain individuals within Downing Street were dissatisfied that Ms. Haigh had not reviewed her explanation with them prior to its release to the media on Thursday, and believed she ought to have informed senior civil servants about the conviction upon assuming her ministerial role. On Wednesday, Ms. Badenoch’s spokesperson declared: “It’s not good enough to say this is a private matter.” “Did he know about the criminal conviction and put her in the Cabinet anyway? Or did he not and that is why he fired her on Friday?” “He has not come clear with the public. This is a serious matter.”