MICHAEL Gove has said that Suella Braverman is “absolutely” a politician of integrity and said her asking the recipient of a message sent in error to “ignore and delete” it was “standard practice”.
Braverman initially left her role because she had breached security rules relating to email use.
She was caught sending veteran backbench Tory Sir John Hayes, a fellow right-winger, an official document from a personal email account.
Braverman accidentally copied in someone she believed was Hayes’s wife but was in fact an aide to Conservative MP Andrew Percy who raised the alarm.
However, Gove was challenged over the Home Secretary’s account that she immediately reported the mistake. He was shown an email from Braverman’s account asking: “Can you delete the message and ignore?”
Gove told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I’m sure there’d be all sorts of inferences that people can draw, but it would seem to me on the basis of the facts that I know, that would have been quite proper for the Home Secretary to have said to the recipient of something that was sent in error ‘please do delete and ignore it’. That is standard practice.”
He also rejected calls for the Government to publish documents on Braverman's security breach.
Gove said: "When we publish everything, we also potentially publish information that can compromise the effective operation, not just of government, but of national security itself.
"I also, critically, want to ensure that what we don't do is, on the basis of the imperfect information that is in the public domain, rush to judgement in away that would seem to be inappropriate."
He added that the message was intended for another parliamentarian and “so it’s not as thought it was being sent out into the ether to persons unknown”.
Braverman said she reported the mistake "rapidly" to officials although the BBC reports that it took hours for her to respond.
The broadcaster reports that the recipient sent her a message at 8.30am saying it had been sent in error which was followed by an email at 10.02am from Braverman asking for it to be deleted and ignored.
A source close to Braverman said around midday, she instructed officials to raise the breach.
They said: "The home secretary has been clear that once she realised she'd made this error of judgement she proactively reported it on official channels.
"These events need to be seen in the context of a very packed schedule. She recognises she made a mistake, apologised and offered her resignation to the PM."
Asked if the Home Secretary is a politician of integrity, Gove said: “Absolutely.
“I am satisfied, more than satisfied, that in resigning, accepting responsibility, apologising, and then in being assured by the Cabinet Secretary and the Prime Minister that Suella coming back into office was the right thing, that Suella is now in a position to do the work that she is dedicated to doing.”
He added that he was "more than satisfied" in that resigning, apologising, accepting responsibility and being brought back by the Prime Minister, Braverman should be in the role.
Gove added she deserves a "second chance" and appeared to blame the media for the uproar around the matter, saying: "It becomes a distraction if people are asking these questions."
Meanwhile, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky News: "You can't have a Home Secretary who is not trusted by the security service, who is not trusted with important government information."
She continued: "We have to have proper answers about whether or not this was the first security breach from Suella Braverman."
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.
