Sir Keir Starmer has refused to give more information about why Louise Hague resigned as transport secretary last week.
High Descended After it emerged that he had pleaded guilty to fraud a decade earlier, he reportedly told Sir Kerr about the conviction in 2020, when he appointed him to his shadow cabinet.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, Conservative leader Kimmy Bedenock asked why the prime minister had appointed a “criminal fraudster” as her transport secretary.
Sir Kerr said Hague was right to resign “when new information came to light”.
But, when Badenoch was asked for details about the new information, he replied: “I’m not going to reveal private information.”
He added that Hague’s swift resignation was a “marked contrast” to the behavior of the previous Conservative government and accused Badenoch of being “obsessed with Westminster affairs”.
Badenoch said the prime minister had been “vague” and he owed MPs “clarification”.
He said that the country needs politicians who believe and not politicians who believe.
Hitting back, Sir Kerr said two of Badenoch’s predecessors had “ambitions”, referring to Boris Johnson and Rishi Singh. Both of whom received fixed penalty notices. For breaking covid laws.
A fixed penalty notice is not classed as a criminal conviction, provided the penalty is paid on time.
Later, responding to questions from Badenoch, a Labor source said: “If the Conservatives want to have a dispute about the crime rate in office, that’s fine by us.
“The fact that two of his predecessors were found guilty of breaking the law, partying in Downing Street and telling everyone to follow the rules, which the Leader of the Opposition described as ‘absolute’ just a few weeks ago. Maybe She would like to retract this statement.”
Last week he became the first minister to resign since the Labor government took office in July.
On Thursday evening, Sky News and The Times revealed details of his past convictions.
Hai later released a statement detailing the incident, which happened in 2013 while she was working at insurance company Aviva.
He said he had reported the theft to the police and that Kam’s mobile phone was one of the items stolen.
He later said that he found the handset in a drawer at home.
He said turning on the phone “drew the attention of the police”, and the matter was taken to a magistrate’s court for making a false report to the police.
High said: “On the advice of my lawyer I pleaded guilty – despite the fact that it was a genuine mistake that did me no good.”
He was granted conditional leave six months before becoming an MLA in the 2015 general elections.
Earlier on Friday, after details of the sentence emerged, Hague sent a resignation letter to the prime minister, saying she did not want to be a distraction.
Whitehall sources have told the BBC they told Sir Keir about his conviction when he selected him to join his shadow cabinet in 2020.
She did not tell the government’s property and ethics team when she became a cabinet member after Labor won the July general election.
The BBC has been told that when Labor was in opposition, he believed it was enough to disclose his conviction to Sir Keir.
On Friday, a Downing Street spokesman refused to say what Sir Keir knew about the conviction, saying only that he had accepted his resignation after “further information” came to light.
The spokesman was questioned for 25 minutes on this matter, but he refused to give further details.
The regular briefing with reporters after Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday was no different, with a Labor spokesman saying only that he would not be involved in “private discussions with former cabinet ministers”.
However, the BBC understands that some people in Downing Street were unhappy that Hague did not play out his explanation to them before releasing it to the media on Thursday and felt that he should tell senior civil servants about the penalty for becoming a minister. was
On Wednesday, a spokesman for Badenoch said: “It’s not good enough to say it’s a private matter.”
“Did he know about the criminal conviction and put him in the cabinet anyway? Or did he not and that’s why he fired him on Friday?”
“They have not been clear to the public. This is a serious matter.”