Labour to force release of advice to Sunak on Braverman reappointment

Labour will table a vote to force Rishi Sunak to release the advice given to him before the Prime Minister decided to reappoint Suella Braverman as Home Secretary after she resigned for breaching the ministerial code.

The motion will call on the government to share with parliament or the intelligence and security committee the relevant government security and risk assessments regarding the Home Secretary’s alleged leaks and security lapses, and reveal the information given to the Prime Minister before her reappointment.

The move from Labour comes after reports that the Home Secretary has been the subject of several leak inquiries, including while she was Attorney General.

Commenting today, Yvette Cooper said that reappointing Braverman as Home Secretary after she resigned “against advice and in the light of these further reports about security and code breaches” was “irresponsible”.

“It shows that neither the Prime Minister nor the Home Secretary are taking security and public safety seriously enough,” the Shadow Home Secretary added.

“Reappointing Gavin Williamson to the Cabinet Office, which covers cybersecurity and the National Security Council, when he was sacked in the past over a security council leak is even more inexplicable and compounds the problem.

“This is why we need to know whether Rishi Sunak even considered questions about security or the ministerial code when making his cabinet appointments. Tory MPs must not vote to hide the answers. Security is too important for a grubby political deal which puts party ahead of country.”

Braverman apologised last week for sending official papers to her personal email account and then forwarding them to Conservative backbench MP John Hayes – and admitted that she had used her personal email for official business six times during her short stint as Home Secretary.

Braverman was made Home Secretary by Liz Truss, the then Prime Minister, on September 6th. In a letter to the home affairs select committee last week, Braverman said none of the documents sent between September 6th and October 19th – when she stepped down – were “classified as secret or top secret”.

Braverman endorsed Sunak in his latest leadership campaign, following the resignation of Truss – effectively ending Boris Johnson’s bid to become Prime Minister again. Sunak reappointed Braverman as Home Secretary the next day.

Sunak is also under pressure after bringing Gavin Williamson back into government despite being warned that the Conservative MP was under investigation for allegedly bullying former chief whip Wendy Morton. Williamson has been accused of sending Morton threatening messages.

Williamson was sacked from Theresa May’s government in 2019 after an investigation concluded he had leaked discussions about the role of Chinese telecoms firm Huawei in the UK’s 5G network. He was later sacked by Boris Johnson after being criticised for his handling of school exams during the pandemic.

A senior civil servant told The Guardian today that Williamson told them to “slit your throat” in what they described as a sustained campaign of bullying while he was Defence Secretary. The civil servant also alleged that the minister told them on a separate occasion to “jump out of the window”.