Louise Haigh has quit as Transport Secretary after a decade-old spent conviction of fraud was revealed in media reports.

Haigh wrote to the Prime Minister tendering her resignation after admitting she was convicted for making a false report to police over a mobile phone stolen in 2013.

She was given a conditional discharge by magistrates following the incident, which happened before she became an MP.

In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, Haigh said: “As you know, in 2013 I was mugged in London. As a 24-year-old woman, the experience was terrifying. In the immediate aftermath, I reported the incident to the police.

“I gave the police a list of my possessions that I believed had been stolen, including my work phone.

“Some time later, I discovered that the handset in question was still in my house. I should have immediately informed my employer and not doing so straight away was a mistake.

“I appreciate that whatever the facts of the matter, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from delivering on the work of this government and the policies to which we are both committed.”

At the time of the incident, Haigh was working as a public policy manager for the insurance company Aviva.

Her resignation comes just five months after she was appointed to the cabinet following the election and a day after she revealed the Government’s plans for a joined-up approach under an Integrated National Transport Strategy.

Haigh’s is the first resignation from Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet. A successor is likely to be announced today.

The 37-year-old said her appointment as the youngest female Cabinet member “remains one of the proudest achievements of my life”.

In her letter, she said: “I remain totally committed to our political project, but I now believe it will be best served by my supporting you from outside government.

“I am sorry to leave under these circumstances, but I take pride in what we have done. I will continue to fight every day for the people of Sheffield Heeley who I was first and foremost elected to represent and to ensure that the rest of our programme is delivered in full.”

Haigh studied politics at Nottingham University and law at Birkbeck, University of London.

She worked as a shop steward for the Unite union and as a Metropolitan Police officer in London’s Lambeth borough before entering politics.

She has been the MP for Sheffield Heeley since 2015 and previously held a number of shadow ministerial roles, including Shadow Secretary of State for Transport from 2021, before becoming Transport Secretary when Labour won the election in July.