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Daily Record
Daily Record
Politics
Chris McCall

Suella Braverman called on to resign after admitting sending official documents to personal email

Suella Braverman has been called on to resign as Home Secretary for a second time after she admitted sending official documents from her UK Government email to her personal account address six times.

A Home Office review identified the incidents after she was forced to resign for breaching the ministerial code by sending a draft government statement to an ally from her personal account.

Rishi Sunak has faced questions over his decision to reappoint Braverman as Home Secretary just days after she quit.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said there were "serious questions" about Braverman’s conduct and the Prime Minister was "irresponsible in reappointing her".

In a lengthy statement to the Home Affairs Select Committee, Braverman said she was "sorry for the errors of judgment" that resulted in her resignation from Liz Truss’s government on October 19.

She set out details of the email blunder, revealing that although the message was sent at 7.25am and she realised she had also inadvertently sent it to the wrong person at around 10am, it was hours before she confessed to officials what had happened.

A subsequent review of her use of her personal email revealed six instances where documents were sent from her work account to her private one, including papers on migration policy and public disorder.

She said the documents were sent on occasions when she was conducting meetings virtually or "related to public lines to take in interviews" when she would need to use her personal phone.

“None of the documents in question concerned national security, intelligence agency or cybersecurity matters, and did not pose any risk to national security,” she said.

Other than on October 19, “I have not used my personal email account to send official Home Office documents to other people outside of government”, she added.

The Home Secretary said she had been given a “fulsome and detailed security briefing by officials” on appropriate use of Government and personal IT.

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

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

Shadow home secretary Cooper said: "This letter fails to answer all the serious questions about the Home Secretary’s irresponsible conduct and shows that neither she nor the Prime Minister recognise the gravity of these issues.

"The Home Secretary has now admitted she sent government documents to her personal phone six times in 43 days – that’s once in every week she was in the post.”

Scots Lib Dem MP Wendy Chamberlain said the Home Secretary "has admitted breaking the rules on an industrial scale" and "must resign now".

"Unless Suella Braverman resigns for the second time, the Conservatives will be putting their own party ahead of this country’s security," she added.

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