Louise Haigh

Louise Margaret Haigh (born 22 July 1987) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Transport since 2021.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

She 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.

A member of the Labour Party, she was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Heeley at the 2015 general election, as the youngest Labour member of that parliament.

At the 2015 general election she was elected as MP for Sheffield Heely with 48.2% of the vote and a majority of 12,954.

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

The role, newly expanded under Jeremy Corbyn, covered the Government's digital strategy, the Freedom of Information Act, data security and privacy.

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

In 2016 Haigh was instrumental in revealing that hundreds of women had their tax credits stopped in error by US company Concentrix.

The revelation led to an announcement that their HMRC contract would not be renewed.

Panic alarms have been installed in Haigh's office and home by South Yorkshire Police 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.

In November 2016 Haigh introduced a private member's bill calling for statutory leave from work for living organ donors, after a constituent complained of being given three days’ unpaid holiday after donating bone marrow.

In this role, Haigh criticised a 2016 reshuffle of Permanent Secretaries which saw two fewer women as departmental heads.

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.

On 10 October 2016, she was made Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy.

At the 2017 general election, Haigh was re-elected with an increased vote share of 60% and an increased majority of 13,828.

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.

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.

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.

Haigh has also called for compulsory online education alongside sex and relationships education in schools, citing an 800% increase in children contacting the NSPCC about online abuse.

On 3 July 2017, she was made Shadow Policing Minister.

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".

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.

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.

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

At the 2019 general election, Haigh was again re-elected, seeing her share of the vote decrease to 50.3% and her majority decrease to 8,520.

She served as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2020 to 2021.

Haigh grew up on Abbeydale Road, Sheffield, and was educated at Sheffield High School, an independent school.

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.

Her grandfather and uncle were trade union officials.

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.

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

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