The Home Secretary was reappointed to the post by Rishi Sunak after she resigned under Liz Truss for breaching security rules by sending a draft written ministerial statement (WMS) to Conservative backbencher John Hayes and also by mistake to someone on the MP’s staff of Toris Andrews. Last year, in violation of the ministerial code. The draft statement included “high-level proposals to liberalize our immigration rules,” including “increasing the number of low-skilled foreign workers, as well as broad plans to control illegal immigration.” After dodging questions from MPs in the Commons last week, Braverman broke her silence with a letter to the chair of the home affairs committee, Diana Johnson, apologizing for “errors in judgement”. It insists WMS was not “classified as secret or top secret” and none of the six emails sent between September 6 and October 10 “regarded national security, intelligence or cyber security matters and did not pose any risk to national security”. But Braverman’s letter reveals that she did not confess what had happened with WMS to officials “once I realized my mistake,” as she had said in her resignation letter to Truss. Instead, Braverman admits she was notified of the error “before or around 10 A.M. when a Percy MP told her it was “sent to me by mistake” and had only forwarded all relevant emails to her private secretary at 12.56pm. At 12.57pm, before meeting Cabinet Secretary Simon Case at around 2pm. Much of the document had already been shared with MPs, including Hayes, “at the request” of Truss, although Braverman acknowledged that “certain penalties” had not been fully agreed by all departments. He said: “I want the home affairs select committee to be reassured about the very important point about the nature of the document that I accidentally shared. “The draft WMS did not contain any information about national security, intelligence, cyber security or law enforcement. It did not contain details of any specific task. It did not contain market sensitive data as all the data contained in the document was already public. It was not classified as secret or top secret.” Liberal Democrat leader Wendy Chamberlain said the home secretary had “admitted to breaking the rules on an industrial scale” and “must stand down now”. “If Suella Braverman resigns for a second time, the Conservatives will put their own party ahead of the security of this country.” Johnson told Times Radio that Braverman should come to the Commons to explain her position. “I think it should come to the House of Commons today. I don’t think it needs to be called,” he said. “She has to decide that she is going to come in and make a statement and deal with all these issues and questions that have come up in the last few weeks since she was reappointed. “She needs to deal with that because until that is dealt with she can’t go on and do her job as home secretary.” Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Braverman said she apologized to Rishi Sunak when he reappointed her as interior secretary and reiterated her apology in her letter to Johnson. However, the Prime Minister has distanced herself from her claims, with No 10 saying the Prime Minister did not discuss the circumstances surrounding her resignation when she re-appointed her, they only discussed getting her old job back. Asked by Labor leader Keir Starmer whether it was right to bring Braverman back to cabinet, Sunak told MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions that she had “raised the issue” and accepted her mistake. She said there was nothing market sensitive in the draft WMS she sent from her private email address to Hayes. She said Truss had “specifically” asked her to work with parliamentary colleagues to discuss the content of the planned written statement. Asked whether Sunak believed the letter to the Commons home affairs committee would “draw a line” in the controversy surrounding the home secretary, Sunak’s official spokesman said: “I think the Prime Minister believes this presents a detailed account of what happened and it meets some interest in it and that the Home Secretary provides a full account.’ Downing Street said Sunak had complete confidence in the home secretary.
