42 Facts About Louise Haigh

Louise Margaret Haigh is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Transport from July to November 2024.

Louise Haigh held various shadow ministerial and shadow cabinet portfolios between 2015 and 2024.

Louise Haigh later worked in Parliament, before working as a public policy manager at Aviva.

Louise Haigh was elected to Parliament as MP for Sheffield Heeley in the 2015 general election, and joined the shadow frontbench as Shadow Minister for the Civil Service and Digital Reform under Jeremy Corbyn.

Louise Haigh became the Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy in 2016, and was re-elected in the 2017 general election.

Louise Haigh was the Shadow Minister for Policing from 2017 to 2020, and was re-elected in the 2019 general election.

Louise Haigh was born in Sheffield, and grew up on Abbeydale Road.

Louise Haigh was educated at Sheffield High School, a private school.

Louise Haigh then studied government and economics at the London School of Economics but did not complete the course, opting to study politics at the University of Nottingham.

Louise Haigh then began working in Parliament, where she was the co-ordinator of the all party parliamentary group on international corporate responsibility.

From 2012 until her election in 2015, Louise Haigh worked for insurer Aviva as public policy manager, responsible for corporate governance and responsible investment policy.

Louise Haigh was selected to stand for the Labour Party in Sheffield Heeley in May 2014.

In September 2015, Louise Haigh was appointed Shadow Minister for Civil Service and Digital Reform.

Louise Haigh opposed the closure of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills office in Sheffield city centre, saying the decision demonstrated "contempt" for the city.

Louise Haigh was declared the "most hard-working" new MP in February 2016 after a study of the activity of MPs elected in 2015.

In September 2016, Louise Haigh revealed that hundreds of women had their tax credits stopped in error by US company Concentrix.

Louise Haigh served in this role during the passage of the Digital Economy Act and introduced a number of amendments, including an obligation for television broadcasters to include subtitles and closed captioning in on-demand content online which was adopted by a subsequent Government amendment.

Louise Haigh repeatedly raised concerns about child protection online, including calling for social media companies to recognise "that alongside their new-found power, they have responsibilities" in dealing with harmful and illegal content.

Louise Haigh has called for greater protection for police officers involved in vehicle pursuits, saying the current rules are "hampering the ability of the police to apprehend very serious offenders".

Louise Haigh has called for a "public health approach" to reducing violent crime and blamed the rise in crime on government spending cuts to both police and other public services.

Louise Haigh was a member of a number of all-party parliamentary groups, including the APPGs on corporate governance, refugees, Colombia and looked-after children.

In October 2018, Louise Haigh stated her concern that forcing police to find more to pay for police pensions out of their general budget leaves less money for the police to protect the public.

Louise Haigh said it was wrong that the police were forced to deal with mental health crises due to underfunding of the NHS.

On 6 April 2020, Louise Haigh replaced Tony Lloyd as the interim Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the Starmer shadow cabinet, following Lloyd's hospitalisation as a result of COVID-19.

On 28 April 2020, Lloyd resigned as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary to focus on recovery, and Louise Haigh replaced him permanently.

Louise Haigh is the second woman after Mo Mowlam to serve as the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Louise Haigh made her first visit to Northern Ireland as Shadow Secretary of State in August 2020.

Louise Haigh was replaced as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary by Peter Kyle.

Louise Haigh revealed Labour's plans for the renationalisation of British rail on 25 April 2024, pledging to do this in the first term of a Labour government.

Louise Haigh was appointed as the Secretary of State for Transport by Starmer on 5 July 2024 in the Starmer ministry.

Louise Haigh was sworn into the Privy Council on 10 July 2024, entitling her to be styled "The Right Honourable" for life.

Louise Haigh was publicly rebuked by Starmer, who stipulated that her view was "not the view of the government".

Louise Haigh said that she had given the police a list of items that she thought were missing from her handbag, which wrongly included her mobile work phone supplied by Aviva.

Louise Haigh was issued with a new phone by her employer, but Haigh said she later discovered her old phone in a drawer which she switched on.

Louise Haigh said that this signal was picked up on by Aviva and they alerted it to the police, who called in Louise Haigh for police questioning to make a statement.

Six months before she was elected as an MP at the 2015 general election in November 2014, Louise Haigh pleaded guilty when she appeared at the Camberwell Green magistrates' court, and received a conditional discharge.

Louise Haigh said that the issue would "inevitably be a distraction" from delivering on the work and policies of the government, but said she took "pride" in what they had done.

Louise Haigh was succeeded as Transport Secretary by Heidi Alexander.

On 29 November 2024, following her resignation from government, Louise Haigh voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults Bill, which proposes to legalise assisted suicide.

Louise Haigh was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015, although she later said she regretted this decision.

Louise Haigh supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign during the 2016 European Union membership referendum.

Louise Haigh nominated Angela Rayner for deputy in the 2020 deputy leadership election, which Rayner won.