Louise Margaret Haigh (/heɪɡ/; born 22 July 1987) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Transport since July 2024. A member of the Labour Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Heeley since 2015. She previously held various shadow ministerial and shadow cabinet portfolios between 2015 and 2024.
Born in Sheffield, Haigh attended Sheffield High School and later studied at the University of Nottingham. She later worked in Parliament, before working as a public policy manager at Aviva. 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. She became the Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy in 2016, and was reelected in the 2017 general election. She was the Shadow Minister for Policing from 2017 to 2020, and was reelected in the 2019 general election.
After Keir Starmer became Leader of the Opposition following the 2020 Labour Party leadership election, Haigh joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. In the November 2021 British shadow cabinet reshuffle, she became the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport. Following Labour's victory in the 2024 general election, Haigh was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Transport in the Starmer ministry.
Louise Haigh was born on 22 July 1987 in Sheffield, and grew up on Abbeydale Road.[1] Her grandfather and uncle were trade union officials.[2] She was educated at Sheffield High School, an independent school.[3] She then studied government and economics at the London School of Economics but did not complete the course, and opted to study politics at the University of Nottingham.[4]
After graduating, Haigh worked for the local council youth service from 2006 to 2008. She then began working in Parliament, where she was the co-ordinator of the all party parliamentary group on international corporate responsibility.[2] During this time, she was also a Unite shop steward and volunteered as a special constable in the Metropolitan Special Constabulary from 2009 to 2011.[5]
From 2012 until her election in 2015, Haigh worked for insurer Aviva as public policy manager, responsible for corporate governance and responsible investment policy.[5][6][7]
Haigh was selected to stand for the Labour Party in Sheffield Heeley in May 2014.[8] At the 2015 general election she was elected to Parliament as MP for Sheffield Heeley with 48.2% of the vote and a majority of 12,954.[9][10]
In September 2015, Haigh was appointed Shadow Minister for Civil Service and Digital Reform.[11][12] The role, newly expanded under Jeremy Corbyn,[13] covered the Government's digital strategy, the Freedom of Information Act, data security and privacy.[14] In this role, Haigh criticised a 2016 reshuffle of Permanent Secretaries which saw two fewer women as departmental heads.[15] She opposed the closure of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills office in Sheffield city centre, saying the decision demonstrated "contempt" for the city.[16]
Haigh was declared the "most hard-working" new MP in February 2016 after a study of the activity of MPs elected in 2015.[17][18][19]
In September 2016, Haigh was instrumental in revealing that hundreds of women had their tax credits stopped in error by US company Concentrix.[20] The revelation led to an announcement that their HMRC contract would not be renewed.[21]
Panic alarms were installed in Haigh's office and home by South Yorkshire Police in December 2016 after she received death threats for calling for a debate on the banning of Britain First, the far-right group. South Yorkshire Police have provided her with uniformed and undercover protection as she attends to her constituency activities.[22]
On 10 October 2016, she was made Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy.[23] Haigh served in this role during the passage of the Digital Economy Act (2017) 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.[24] She has 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.[25]
At the snap 2017 general election, Haigh was re-elected with an increased vote share of 60% and an increased majority of 13,828.[26]
On 3 July 2017, she was made Shadow Policing Minister.[27] 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".[28] In this role she has raised the issue of stress and mental health of officers, citing a 77% rise in officer leave due to mental health between 2014 and 2018.[29] She has called for a "public health approach" to reducing violent crime[30] and blamed the rise in crime on government spending cuts to both police and other public services.[31]
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 July 2017 she was elected vice chair of the APPG on state pension inequality and in February 2019 became a joint chair of the APPG on social care.[32][33]
In October 2018, 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. She stated, "Forcing the police at the last minute to bear the huge cost of pension changes demonstrates the utter failure of ministers to grasp the crisis in policing caused by their cuts. They have played fast and loose with public safety and the police are right to step up and take action".[34] She also believes it is wrong that the police are forced to deal with mental health crises, at the root of which lies the chronic underfunding of the NHS, saying: “The government’s underfunding of mental health services is a national scandal and passing the buck to our overstretched police officers is exacerbating the crisis in policing. It is frankly shocking that the police are often the only people who someone experiencing a mental health crisis can turn to. Nearly a decade of brutal austerity has torn at the fabric of our society and the most vulnerable are being failed”.[35]
In April 2019 Haigh introduced a private member's bill that would remove the automatic parental rights of fathers of children conceived through rape. The bill would also establish an inquiry into the family court's handling of domestic abuse and violence against women and girls.[36] This Bill was borne out of Haigh's work with Sammy Woodhouse, a survivor of child sexual exploitation, to increase protections for victims of abuse.[37]
At the 2019 general election, Haigh was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 50.3% and a decreased majority of 8,520.[38]
On 6 April 2020, Haigh replaced Tony Lloyd as the interim Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, following Lloyd's hospitalisation as a result of the COVID-19 virus.[39] On 28 April 2020, Lloyd resigned as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary to focus on recovery, and Haigh replaced him permanently.[40] She is the second woman after Mo Mowlam to serve as the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
Haigh made her first visit to Northern Ireland as Shadow Secretary of State in August 2020.[41] After Brexit she was in charge of Northern Ireland policy in relation to the Northern Ireland Protocol. She said “We’re a unionist party in the Labour Party, but if there is a border poll we should remain neutral. I think that’s an important principle." Haigh was criticised for undermining the views of Keir Starmer who said he would side with unionists in any poll.[42]
On 29 November 2021, during the shadow cabinet reshuffle, Haigh was appointed as the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport.[43] She was replaced as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary by Peter Kyle.[44]
On 25 April 2024, Haigh revealed Labour's plans for the renationalisation of British rail,[45] pledging to do this in the first term of a Labour government.[46]
Haigh was again re-elected at the 2024 general election, with an increased vote share of 55.2% and an increased majority of 15,304.[47][48] She was appointed as the Secretary of State for Transport on 5 July 2024 in the Starmer ministry.[49] She was sworn into the Privy Council on 10 July 2024, entitling her to be styled "The Right Honourable" for life.[50]
On 9 October 2024 Haigh, while promoting the government's new Employment Rights Bill in a television interview, urged viewers to join her in boycotting P&O Ferries after the firm had sacked hundreds of its workers with immediate notice two years prior.[51] Speaking to ITV News, she called P&O "a rogue operator" and said it needed "cracking down on".[52] Haigh was publicly rebuked by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who stipulated that her view was "not the view of the government".[53] The incident came only days before a government-led international investment summit, that P&O's parent company, DP World, attended despite the controversy.[54]
Haigh was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015,[55] although she later said she regrets this decision.[56] She then supported and campaigned for Andy Burnham.[57]
In the 2016 Labour leadership election, Haigh supported Owen Smith.[58]
In the 2020 leadership election, Haigh chaired the leadership campaign of Lisa Nandy.[59] She also nominated Angela Rayner for Deputy.
Haigh campaigned for the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.[60]
Haigh has previously called for compulsory online education alongside sex and relationships education in schools, citing an 800% increase in children contacting the NSPCC about online abuse.[61]
