British Transport Minister Louise Haigh resigned today after it was revealed she was convicted of fraud a decade ago when she claimed her mobile phone had been stolen.
In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Haigh said: "I remain fully committed to our political project, but I now believe it will be best supported outside of government."
"I understand that, whatever the facts, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from the work of this administration and the policies in which we are both engaged," he wrote.
The dismissal came hours after Sky News and The Times newspaper reported that Haigh had been charged with fraud after reporting that a work mobile phone had been stolen after being robbed in 2013. She later said she included it by mistake among the stolen objects.
After she found her cell phone and turned it back on, she was called by the police to be questioned. Haigh pleaded guilty to fraud by false statements and received a conditional discharge.
In a statement prior to her dismissal, Haigh stated that on the advice of her lawyer, she pleaded guilty, despite it being a genuine mistake from which she derived no benefit. "The magistrates accepted all these arguments and gave me the lowest sentence possible," he said.
In response, the Prime Minister thanked him for his work to "realize this government's ambitious transport agenda", in which he highlighted the progress made in renationalizing the railway system, one of the government's priorities.
"I know you can still make a great contribution in the future," Starmer wrote to Haigh, 37, who has represented a constituency of Sheffield in northern England in Parliament since 2015.
This resignation is the first by a minister in this government since the Labor Party came to power after obtaining an absolute majority in the July 4 elections, which ended 14 years of conservative government.
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