Suella Braverman resigned as Home Secretary from the government of Liz Truss on 19 October 2022, after just six weeks in the role. Her departure was the result of a breach of ministerial rules: she sent an email to her own unsecured email address, and intended to share sensitive information with Sir John Hayes, the MP for South Holland and the Deepings. In another mistake, she sent it to the assistant of Andrew Percy, the MP for Brigg and Goole in Yorkshire.
Sir John admitted that he was the intended recipient but that it has been sent ‘to the wrong Hayes’.
The resignation
In her resignation letter Braverman indicated that the document was a draft ministerial statement regarding immigration and had been shared with a ‘trusted parliamentary colleague’. However, such drafts should not be shared outside cabinet, given the sensitivity of the information within them, especially when a member is on the Intelligence and Security Committee, from a non secure email address which could be open to cyber attack.
Once news broke, an urgent question was tabled by Labour for the then Prime Minister, who was memorably replaced by the Leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt.
The return
On 26 October 2022 Braverman was reappointed as the Home Secretary by the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The Prime Minister promised ‘professionalism and integrity’ when he took office.
Applying the old and misquoted adage that ‘A week is a long time in politics’, given that seven days had passed between her resignation for a breach of ministerial rules and her reappointment, perhaps enough had changed to allow the matter to be addressed formally and laid to rest.
The criticism
Yet nothing seems to have changed. Criticism has been widespread, from Labour through to former Conservative Party Chairman Jake Berry. Berry, who was chairman during the leadership of Liz Truss, told talk TV “From my own knowledge, there were multiple breaches of the Ministerial Code … to me, it seems a really serious breach.”
Alistair Graham, the former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, has been quoted on the matter as saying “A breach of the ministerial code is seen as a serious matter and would make any minister an inappropriate appointment to one of the four most senior positions in government.”
The Home Secretary in hiding
Yet the most striking action came from the former/new home secretary herself. When faced with an urgent question from the shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, the home secretary left the parliamentary chamber without giving either an answer or an apology.
Serious breaches require serious answers, and yet there is silence.
