Louise Haigh, who quit as Transport Secretary in November 2024 after an old conviction came to light, has returned to the centre of government under Prime Minister Andy Burnham. She now holds three senior titles: Minister for the Cabinet Office, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and First Secretary of State. She is doing the job unpaid.

The BBC reports Haigh is now in the "cockpit" of the new Burnham government, tasked with delivering a set of big reforms she set out in two essays written shortly before Burnham's Makerfield campaign.

Her return completes a turbulent journey. She was Transport Secretary for only part of 2024, appointed after Labour won the election. In that role she negotiated a 14% pay rise for train drivers over three years to end a long-running strike by Aslef, the train drivers' union. She was replaced by Heidi Alexander on 29 November 2024 after resigning over a 2013 conviction for making a false report to police.

The conviction dated back to Haigh's time working at the insurer Aviva. She reported a work mobile phone as stolen; the phone was later found. Haigh pleaded guilty on the advice of her lawyer and called the episode a "genuine mistake." She had told Keir Starmer about the conviction while Labour was still in opposition. But after the story appeared in the media, Downing Street asked her to resign, citing "additional information" that had come to light. Haigh later said Downing Street would not tell her what that additional information was.

The press had nicknamed Haigh "Red Lou" — a reference to both her dyed hair and her reputation as one of the most left-leaning members of Starmer's cabinet. That political stance had caused waves before her resignation. In 2022, Haigh publicly criticised P&O Ferries for sacking hundreds of workers, which led to a rebuke from Starmer.

Haigh had been Labour's Shadow Transport Secretary while the party was in opposition, using the role to pressure the Conservative government over HS2, the planned high-speed rail line. Her constituency is Sheffield Heeley.

The ideas Haigh set out in her two essays now form the core of the Burnham government's agenda. The BBC says her proposals "are expected to feature heavily in Burnham's administration."

Haigh put forward three main ideas. First, she argued for changing the government's borrowing rules to allow more investment in things like roads, railways, and hospitals over a longer period. Second, she called for the Bank of England — which sets interest rates to keep prices stable — to also focus more on growing the economy. Third, she wanted to replace stamp duty (the tax people pay when they buy a home) with a yearly tax based on the value of the land a property sits on. Andy Burnham had previously supported that idea himself.

The land-value tax idea is the most controversial of the three. At the moment, buyers pay a one-off tax when they purchase a property. Haigh's idea would shift that cost to owners, who would pay a yearly charge instead. That would affect household budgets and council funding across all four nations of the UK. Scotland and Wales run their own property taxes separately from England and Northern Ireland, so whether they would adopt the same change is an open question.

The borrowing-rule idea challenges the Treasury's usual approach. At present, the government aims to bring debt down over a rolling five-year period. Haigh wants to extend that to ten years, which would give the government more room to invest in big projects without breaking its own rules. But borrowing over a longer period also means more exposure to rising interest rates — a trade-off ministers will need to defend in Parliament.

The Bank of England question is narrower but still sensitive. Right now, the Bank's main job is to keep inflation (the rate at which prices rise) at 2%. Haigh wants growth given more weight within that system. Changing the Bank's remit would require the Treasury to issue new instructions and possibly new laws. The Bank has been free to make interest-rate decisions without political interference since 1997, and any change would be judged against that principle.

Haigh's journey from resignation to three of the most powerful jobs in Whitehall is a political story in itself. The Cabinet Office brief, the Duchy of Lancaster (an old title covering wide-ranging government duties), and the First Secretary of State label effectively make her Burnham's deputy across the government's domestic reform programme. The fact that she is doing all of this without a salary is unusual. A senior minister working for free is not something modern Whitehall has seen much of, and the precedent it sets is worth keeping an eye on.

Before becoming Transport Secretary, Haigh was not a household name, though she had held the transport role in opposition during a period of major disruption, including the cancellation of the HS2 northern leg. Her willingness to take on P&O Ferries publicly and to settle the train drivers' dispute on terms the Treasury considered generous suggested a minister who was comfortable stepping in. Her essays now suggest that approach was not limited to transport.

The bigger picture is that Burnham's choice of Haigh puts three big levers of government in play: how much the country borrows, how the Bank of England is instructed, and how property is taxed. Haigh's essays are the plan. Her new roles give her the machinery to carry it out. What is left is the hardest part: turning essays into laws that can get through Parliament.