Lord chancellor Shabana Mahmood has lost a key minister after Heidi Alexander MP was promoted to transport secretary today following Louise Haigh's resignation.
Alexander, who won former lord chancellor Robert Buckland's South Swindon seat in the July election, was appointed a justice minister on 8 July. Her responsibilities included the courts, legal aid, civil justice and SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation).
Standing in for the lord chancellor at the Civil Justice Council’s national forum this morning, Alexander spoke of her frustration in attempting to navigate the justice system on behalf of her Swindon constituents.
Alexander set out five principles for the direction of travel of the Labour government’s justice programme: access to justice ‘to nurse the legal aid sector back to health; looking at justice more broadly, including making more use of out of court procedures; more use of technology (‘the future is digital’); improving efficiency across the systeml and modernisation to ensure England and Wales ‘remains the global gold standard’ in dispute resolution.
Haigh resigned today after it emerged that she pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation in 2014 in relation to a missing work phone. She was given a conditional discharge by magistrates.
Haigh told the PM in her resignation letter that, as he knew, she was mugged in London in 2013 and thought her phone had been stolen. ‘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,’ Haigh said.
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