'No risk to national security': Minister defends Suella Braverman's email use
1 November 2022, 11:16
Minister grilled on Braverman's Ministerial Code breach
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has defended Suella Braverman after she said she sent official documents from her Government email address to her personal account on six occasions, insisting there was "no risk to national security".
Speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast the Minister said: "The Home Secretary apologised for her breach of the ministerial code, which was an inadvertent one, in messaging another parliamentarian with a document.
"I don't think that the other emails that she referred to in her statement to the Home Affairs Select Committee yesterday were breaches of the ministerial code as I understand it, but for the one that she did make, she apologised and she resigned.
"That is the honourable thing to do. The new Prime Minister chose to reappoint her because he had confidence in her determination to tackle this issue alongside me."
Read more: Who is home secretary Suella Braverman? Everything you need to know
The conversation comes after Ms Braverman apologised for the breach while also attempting to clarify what happened via a letter to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee's chairwoman Dame Diana Johnson.
There have been growing calls for Ms Braverman to step down from her role once again after her controversial reappointment in Rishi Sunak's Cabinet.
Ms Braverman initially resigned from the Truss Government on October 19 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.
However, she revealed in her letter to the committee that between September 6 and October 19 she had sent official documents from her Government email to her personal address on six occasions.
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She said that it was on occasions when she was conducting meetings virtually or "related to public lines to take in interviews".
She insisted that none of the documents were "market-sensitive" - classified secret or top secret.
She said former Prime Minister Liz Truss had "specifically" asked her to engage with parliamentary colleagues to discuss the content of the planned WMS, which 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 Sir John - "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 did not contain any information relating to national security, the intelligence agencies, cyber security or law enforcement."
