In recent years, Labour has made great political hay out of allegations of rule-breaking. The party was never slow to criticise Boris Johnson’s government for breaches of lockdown, with Sir Keir keen to depict himself as ‘Mr Rules.’ So it is sub-optimal, to say the least, that a senior minister has tonight admitted pleading guilty to an offence connected with misleading the police while she was a parliamentary candidate.
Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, appeared at Camberwell Green Magistrates’ Court six months before the 2015 general election, after making a false report to officers that her mobile phone had been stolen. Haigh claimed that she was ‘mugged while on a night out’ in 2013 and then reported the incident to the police. She gave officers a list of items she believed had been taken – including a work mobile phone. But in a statement to Sky News, the minister admitted she discovered ‘some time later’ that ‘the mobile in question had not been taken’.
Haigh was subsequently asked to come in for questioning. She says that she declined to comment, with the matter then being referred to the CPS. Subsequently Haigh appeared before Southwark magistrates where she pleaded guilty, despite – in her words – ‘the fact this was a genuine mistake from which I did not make any gain’. Haigh insists tonight that ‘the magistrates accepted all of these arguments and gave me the lowest possible outcome (a discharge) available.’ However, Sky reports that three separate sources claim she made the false report to benefit personally, with several suggesting she lost her then-job at Aviva over the incident.
For the Tories, lambasted on rule-breaking for so many years, the revelation about a minister is a political gift. Nigel Huddleston, the party chairman, has been quick to point out that Haigh is responsible for managing £30 billion of taxpayers’ money. ‘Keir Starmer has serious questions to answer regarding what he knew and when’, he said. Downing Street is yet to comment on the news that a member of the cabinet has a previous fraud conviction.
But the Times reports that she declared it ‘in full’ to Sir Keir on being appointed him to the post of Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary in 2020. That would suggest No. 10 is – for now at least – willing to stand by the minister.
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