Louise Haigh returns to the Cabinet Office as Andy Burnham’s first secretary of state, after helping shape his rise and rebuilding her role on the Labour left.
Louise Haigh is back at the centre of Labour power, with Andy Burnham naming the Sheffield MP as first secretary of state and giving her control of the Cabinet Office. The move marks a sharp return for Haigh, whose ministerial career was cut short after Labour came back into power in 2024.
Haigh had already made history as the youngest female cabinet minister, taking office at 36. But she resigned as transport secretary only four months into the job after it emerged that she had pleaded guilty to a fraud offence in her twenties. Her comeback now puts her in one of the most senior posts in Burnham’s administration and underlines how closely aligned the two have become.
According to the account, Haigh was part of a very small circle of allies who held access talks with civil servants before Burnham arrived in Downing Street. After leaving the cabinet in November 2024, she stayed visible on the backbenches and helped organise the Labour rebellion against proposed welfare cuts last year. She also revived the Tribune group, a long-running caucus on the party’s soft left that has become a home for supporters of Burnham’s ascent.
Her backing of Burnham deepened after she grew more critical of Sir Keir Starmer’s government. The source says she signed on to the Burnham project before the elections scheduled for May this year, reportedly after a meeting in Manchester to hear his plans. She later ran his successful bid to return to Westminster as MP for Makerfield, working from an Airbnb and operating a campaign base in a community club used for weddings, tribute bands and exotic bird auctions. She has said she first saw that choice of seat as a huge risk.
Haigh’s political path began in Sheffield, where she was born and raised and joined Labour as a teenager after being influenced by a very left-wing economics teacher. She later studied politics at Nottingham University, worked for Labour MPs including Jon Trickett and Lisa Nandy, and served as a volunteer police officer for the Met. Elected in 2015 as MP for Sheffield Heeley, she later worked in shadow roles under Jeremy Corbyn and Sir Keir Starmer, before forming a close working relationship with metro mayors including Burnham while serving as shadow transport secretary.
Her time as transport secretary included an early decision to award train drivers a 14% pay rise over three years to help end long-running strike action. She also drew attention for criticising P&O Ferries over the sackings of hundreds of workers in 2022. Her resignation followed the later publication of details about a false report to police from 2013, which she said was a genuine mistake and that she had pleaded guilty on legal advice. Now back in a senior post, Haigh is expected to help deliver the economic ideas she set out in essays before Burnham’s Westminster return. Why this matters to you: it shows where power is now gathering inside Labour, and who Burnham is trusting to help run it.
