Your guide to the department's cast of ministerial characters, and what’s in their in-trays
New transport secretary Louise Haigh has a simple philosophy that she wants everyone in the Department for Transport to follow: “Move fast and fix things”.
Haigh said this would be the department’s “new motto” and “purpose” in her first speech to officials on the Monday morning following the election.
She also promised that DfT would “think about infrastructure and services together at every turn” and “focus relentlessly” on improving performance on the railways and introducing “much-needed rail reform”.
In line with the motto, Haigh has been busy since her appointment: she has agreed a deal with ASLEF to prevent strike action, publicly warned train operator CrossCountry about the inadequacies of its rail service, and met combined authority mayors to discuss bus franchising.
The department also has a significant amount of legislation to be getting on with – it had five bills in the King’s Speech, with the return of the railway services to public ownership the big-ticket item. Other key pieces of legislation include creating Great British Railways and giving new powers to local politicians to franchise bus services.
Haigh said the department’s efforts will be “central” to achieving the government’s five missions. “Growth, net zero, opportunity, women and girls’ safety, health – none of these can be realised without transport as a key enabler,” Haigh said.
“Growth, net zero, opportunity, women and girls’ safety, health – none of these can be realised without transport as a key enabler” Louise Haigh
While studying at university, Haigh worked for several MPs, including Lisa Nandy, who is now culture secretary. She later worked as a trade union rep and for insurance firm Aviva. First elected as an MP in 2015, Haigh found herself on the opposition frontbenches just four months later as minister for the civil service and digital reform.
“That was very daunting and you have to learn very quickly,” she told CSW in 2016. “There are good things about being thrown in at the deep end. It makes you take responsibility straight away. Perhaps I would have liked a little bit of a longer lead-in time, because learning to be a new MP while learning to be a shadow minister is quite a tall order. But we are where we are – and I love it.”
She became shadow transport secretary in 2021, retaining the brief until this year’s general election.
Haigh has said her favourite book is John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, a story described by the National Theatre as one of “wrong turns and broken dreams, but also a hymn to human kindness and a tribute to the endurance of the human spirit”. She will be hoping for more of the latter than the former during her time as transport secretary.
Coming along with her for the journey, she has a team packed with transport experience.
She is joined by future of roads minister Lilian Greenwood, who is a fellow former shadow transport secretary and was chair of the House of Commons’ Transport Committee from 2018 to 2020.
And in rail minister Lord Peter Hendy, she has a colleague with a near-50-year career in public transport.
Lord Hendy departed his role as chair of Network Rail, which he had held since 2015, to join the ministerial team. He began his extensive career in public transport in 1975 as a London Transport graduate trainee and went on to hold roles including commissioner of Transport for London and chair of the London 2012 Games Transport Board. Along with Patrick Vallance and James Timpson, Hendy represents a new wave of government ministers who have been appointed based on their substantial expertise and relevant policy knowledge.
Local transport minister Simon Lightwood and Mike Kane, who is minister for aviation, maritime and security, make up the rest of the team.
Kane was shadow minister for aviation and maritime throughout Keir Starmer’s spell as leader of the opposition, while Lightwood had been shadow local transport minister for around 10 months.
Read up on ministers in other departments here