Louise Haigh: Labour power broker behind Burnham's rise

Louise Haigh had enjoyed a stratospheric political rise before her ministerial career came to a juddering halt shortly after Labour's return to power.

She became the youngest-ever female cabinet minister at the age of 36, but resigned as transport secretary just four months into the role, after it emerged she had pleaded guilty to a fraud offence during her twenties.

Now Andy Burnham has brought her back into government with a big job running the Cabinet Office and the title of first secretary of state, denoting her senior rank.

It cements the Sheffield MP's place at the heart of Burnham's cabinet, having been among a tiny circle of key allies entrusted with holding "access talks" with civil servants ahead of his arrival in Downing Street.

After her departure from the cabinet in November 2024, Haigh maintained a high profile on the backbenches, playing a key role in orchestrating the Labour rebellion against proposed welfare cuts last year.

She went on to revive the Tribune group, a caucus dating back to the 1960s that has emerged as a home for the "soft left" wing of the party that has fuelled Burnham's rise to power.

Becoming increasingly critical of the Starmer government, she signed up to the Burnham project in the run-up to elections scheduled for May this year, reportedly after meeting him in Manchester to sound out his plans for power.

She then oversaw his successful bid to return to Westminster as MP for Makerfield, living out of an AirBnb and running a campaign HQ in a community club shared with weddings, tribute bands and exotic bird auctions.

She admits that she was initially sceptical about using a seat outside Wigan as the launch pad for his Westminster return, branding it a "huge risk".

But it was a decision that has ultimately paid off for both of them, paving the way for his return to Parliament and her elevation back into the cabinet.

Born and raised in Sheffield, Haigh has said party politics did not play a big role in her early life before she joined the Labour Party in her teens after being influenced by a "very left-wing economics teacher".

Her parents separated in her early teens and she lived with her mother, who enrolled her in a private girls' school in the city, something she would later admit to finding "quite uncomfortable" as a Labour MP.

She started a degree at the London School of Economics, but left after "absolutely hating" student life in the capital, instead deciding to study politics at Nottingham University.

She went on to work for various Labour MPs, including party veteran Jon Trickett and Lisa Nandy, andbecame a volunteer police officer for the Met.

As shop steward for parliamentary staff at Unite the union, she spearheaded a cost of living push to reduce the price of food and snacks on the parliamentary estate, and for a mothballed bar to be reopened by a "workers' co-operative".

Elected in 2015 as MP for Sheffield Heeley at the age of 27, she nominated Jeremy Corbyn instead of Andy Burnham in that year's Labour leadership contest, a decision she would claim to regret in more recent years.

She later recalled getting to know Burnham after her mother confronted him at a party hustings in Doncaster, to ask whether he planned to give her daughter a job if his bid for the Labour crown was successful.

Corbyn gave Haigh her first shadow ministerial role, and kept her on his frontbench despite her backing Owen Smith's failed 2016 bid to topple him as Labour leader.

Despite nominating former boss Nandy in the 2020 contest to replace him, eventual winner Sir Keir Starmer promoted her into the shadow cabinet as shadow Northern Ireland secretary, before she later became shadow transport secretary.

It was in this role that she forged a close working relationship with England's metro mayors, including Burnham, who by that point had begun his second term as mayor of Greater Manchester.

After Labour's election victory, she took the helm at the transport department, making headlines with an early decision to give train drivers a 14% pay rise across three years to end their long-running strike action.

She was dubbed "Red Lou" in the press, reflecting her vibrant shades of dyed hair as well as her emerging reputation as one of the more left-leaning members of Starmer's cabinet.

Her criticism of P&O Ferries' decision to sack hundreds of workers in 2022 led to a public rebuke by the prime minister, after the remarks threw the attendance of its parent company at a government investment summit into doubt.

Just a month later came her resignation, after her previous conviction for making a false report to police in 2013 was revealed in the media.

The incident dated back to her time working at insurance giant Aviva, when a work phone she had reported as stolen was later found. She said it was a "genuine mistake" and she had pleaded guilty on the advice of her lawyer.

Haigh said she had told Sir Keir about the episode when Labour was in opposition, but was asked by Downing Street to offer her resignation after the story broke because "additional information" had come to light.

"But at no point would any of them tell me what that additional information was," she recently said in an interview.

Her resignation, however, afforded her the freedom to expound the political ideas that are expected to feature heavily in Burnham's administration.

In two essays published shortly before his Makerfield campaign, Haigh set out a vision for a radical reshaping of the British state.

This included a significant loosening of Labour's debt rules, with the rolling five-year debt target extended instead over 10 years, and a call to "re-examine the mandate" of the Bank of England with a greater focus on growth.

She also argued for several key policies previously advocated by the new prime minister, including a new tax on the value of land to replace stamp duty on house purchases.

"The status quo is not sustainable," she wrote. "We cannot afford to wait any longer before we change the system we inherited."

It is a task she will now be charged with delivering, from a seat in the cockpit of the new Burnham administration.