Squirming Labour minister Pat McFadden claimed he “doesn’t know” whether Sir Keir Starmer knew about a Cabinet colleague’s fraud offence.

Louise Haigh quit as transport secretary on Friday after it emerged she pleaded guilty to a fraud offence a decade ago.

Asked if the Prime Minister knew about her mobile phone conviction, Mr McFadden said he did not know “who knew what and when”.

He claimed “new information” came to light between Thursday and Friday, prompting her resignation.

Mr McFadden also claimed the issue was dealt with speedily, with Ms Haigh quitting and her replacement being appointed on Friday.

Put to him that the whole situation, plus other scandals such as ministers getting free Taylor Swift tickets, makes Labour look like previous government, Mr McFadden told Sky News: “I don’t accept that for a minute.

“If you take this Louise Haigh situation, this story came to light and it was dealt with very quickly.

“Louise has decided to resign by the end of the day. This isn’t something that dragged on for weeks.”

He also said that Sir Keir is not a hypocrite for appointing Louise Haigh to his frontbench.

Following past comments from the past in which the now-Prime Minister said you “cannot be a lawmaker and a law breaker”, Mr McFadden was asked by the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme whether Sir Keir was a hypocrite.

He said: “No, he’s not. I think he’s appointed a good Cabinet. It’s a more united cabinet than I’ve seen in many years, and we’re working together on this plan for change that we’re going to publish this week which will set out our priorities.”

Ms Haigh admitted telling police in 2013 she had lost her work mobile phone in a mugging, but later found it had not been taken.

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

Ms Haigh’s is the first resignation from Sir Keir‘s government. The 37-year-old said her appointment as the “youngest ever” female Cabinet minister “remains one of the proudest achievements of my life”.

Downing Street has named Heidi Alexander as her replacement.

Ms Haigh issued a statement giving her version of the 2013 incident, which happened when she was working as a public policy manager for insurance company Aviva.

She had reported a “terrifying” mugging in London to police and told them her work mobile phone had been among items stolen, but later found the handset in a drawer at home.

Turning on the phone “triggered police attention”, she said. She was called in for questioning and advised not to comment by her solicitor, before the matter was taken to magistrates’ court for making a a false report to police.

She said: “Under the advice of my solicitor, I pleaded guilty – despite the fact this was a genuine mistake from which I did not make any gain.”

Magistrates handed down a conditional discharge – the “lowest possible outcome” – six months before she became an MP in the 2015 General Election.

In her resignation letter, she said she did not want to become a distraction and Labour would be “best served by my supporting you from outside government”.

In response, Sir Keir said Ms Haigh had made “huge strides” as transport secretary to take the rail system back into public ownership, and thanked her for her work.

Whitehall sources said the transport secretary declared her spent conviction to Sir Keir when he appointed her to his shadow cabinet in 2020.

She did not tell the Government’s propriety and ethics team about it when she became a member of the Cabinet after Labour won July’s General Election.

She believed it was sufficient to have disclosed her spent conviction to Sir Keir when Labour was in opposition, the BBC has been told.

But Downing Street has refused to say what Sir Keir knew about Ms Haigh’s conviction before stories about it appeared in the media on Thursday evening.

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Questioned for 25 minutes by reporters, the PM’s official spokesman would say only that Sir Keir had accepted Ms Haigh’s resignation after “further information” emerged.

Spent convictions remain on an individual’s criminal record for life, but they do not have to reveal them in job applications, under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Louise Haigh has done the right thing in resigning. It is clear she has failed to behave to the standards expected of an MP.

“In her resignation letter, she states that Keir Starmer was already aware of the fraud conviction, which raises questions as to why the Prime Minister appointed Ms Haigh to Cabinet with responsibility for a £30billion budget.

“The onus is now on Keir Starmer to explain this obvious failure of judgement to the British public.”