British Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Monday said that she did not leak any “secret”, “top secret” or market-sensitive data when she sent a document via her private email address, a move which culminated in her resignation from the previous government.
Braverman, 42, resigned from the Cabinet of former prime minister Liz Truss, having breached the ministerial code by sending secure information from her private email. The Indian-origin barrister was reappointed by newly appointed Britain’s Indian-origin Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday, leading to growing calls for her resignation.
In a detailed communication to Dame Diana Johnson, MP, Chair, Home Affairs Select Committee, Braverman said “as Indicated in my letter to the then Prime Minister (Liz Truss), I accepted that I had made a mistake, took responsibility and resigned as Home Secretary.
“In my appointment discussion with the new Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak) I raised the mistake and apologised to him and would like to do so again here. I also gave the Prime Minister assurances that I would not use my personal email for official business and reaffirmed my understanding of and adherence to the Ministerial Code.
She said “given the level of speculation about the sequence of events that led to my resignation including several inaccuracies,” she gave a detailed account of the circumstances of her resignation.
She assured the Home Affairs Select Committee that “the nature of the document that I shared by mistake did not contain any information relating to the National Security, the intelligence agencies, cyber security or law enforcement. It did not contain details of any particular casework. It was not classified Secret or Top Secret.” The prime minister, however, defended his decision to reinstate Braverman at last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament and his spokesman has reiterated that the home secretary has his unwavering support.
The spokesman said: “Clearly, there was an error of judgement and she has taken responsibility.” Sunak had said that Braverman had “made an error of judgment” but had “recognised that, raised the matter and accepted her mistake.” Prime Minister Sunak also said that bringing Braverman back into cabinet would help provide more “experience and stability” in government.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has also defended the re-appointment of Braverman as home secretary, saying she has “a very clear agenda” that the prime minister wants to see delivered.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have called for a Cabinet Office probe into Braverman’s re-appointment as Home Secretary.
When Braverman resigned from Truss’ Cabinet, she had said that she “sent an official document from my personal email to a trusted parliamentary colleague… as you know, the document was a draft Written Ministerial Statement about migration, due for publication imminently”.
“Nevertheless it is right for me to go. As soon as I realised my mistake, I rapidly reported this on official channels, and informed the Cabinet Secretary,” she had said.
Braverman, a mother of two children, is the daughter of Hindu Tamil mother Uma and Goan-origin father Christie Fernandes. Her mother migrated to the UK from Mauritius while her father migrated from Kenya in the 1960s.
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