Braverman admits using personal email for work six times

UK home secretary Suella Braverman has admitted using her personal email for official business six times so she could read the documents while taking work video calls.

She was reappointed to the position 11 days ago by new prime minister Rishi Sunak after quitting under Liz Truss because she breached security rules.

Ms Braverman resigned from the Truss government on October 19th after sending a draft written ministerial statement (WMS) on immigration policy to Tory backbencher Sir John Hayes and – inadvertently – a staff member of Conservative MP Andrew Percy.

In a letter to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee’s chairwoman Dame Diana Johnson, Ms Braverman revealed a Home Office review had found she forwarded official documents to her personal email on six occasions, although Ms Braverman insisted she had not sent them on to anyone outside the Government.

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But she said none of the documents she shared between September 6th and October 19th was “classified as secret or top secret”.

She said there was nothing market-sensitive in the draft written ministerial statement she sent from her private email address to Mr Hayes. She said Ms Truss, the former prime minister, had “specifically” asked her to engage with parliamentary colleagues to discuss the content of the planned written statement.

The draft statement consisted of “high-level proposals for liberalising our migration rules”, including “increasing the number of low-skilled foreign workers, as well as general plans for controlling illegal migration”.

Much of the document had already been briefed to MPs, including Hayes, “at the request” of Ms Truss, although Ms Braverman acknowledged that “some sentences” had not been fully agreed by all departments.

She said: “I want the home affairs select committee to be reassured on the very important point about the nature of the document that I shared by mistake.

“The draft WMS [written ministerial statement] did not contain any information relating to national security, the intelligence agencies, cybersecurity or law enforcement. It did not contain details of any particular case work. It did not contain any market-sensitive data as all the data contained in the document was already in the public domain. It was not classified as secret or top secret.”

Dame Johnson told Times Radio that Ms Braverman, who avoided questions in the Commons last week, must come to the Commons to explain her position.

“I think she needs to come today to the House of Commons. I don’t think she needs to be summoned,” she said. “She needs to decide she’s coming herself and she’s going to make a statement and deal with all of these issues and questions that have been rising up over the last few weeks since she was reappointed.

“She’s got to deal with this because until this is dealt with she can’t get on and do the job of home secretary.” – PA