Michael Gove Says Rishi Sunak "Made It Clear" That Suella Braverman Deserves A Second Chance
Michael Gove said Prime Minister has made clear Suella Braverman deserves second chance (Alamy)
3 min read
Michael Gove has insisted Rishi Sunak has made clear that Home Secretary Braverman deserves a “second chance” as the Government has come under renewed pressure over a data breach before she left Liz Truss's government.
Braverman was reappointed Home Secretary just six days after resigning over sending official documents from a personal email address. In an email revealed by the BBC on Sunday, Braverman asked the recipient of the sensitive message to “delete” and “ignore” it, a move Gove described as “quite proper”.
The email adds to a number of security concerns facing government, after the Mail on Sunday reported that a phone belonging to then-foreign secretary Liz Truss was hacked by agents suspected to be working for Russia.
The Mail reports that the compromising of Truss’ phone was discovered this summer, but that details were apparently suppressed by then-prime minister Boris Johnson and the cabinet secretary Simon Case. It is thought that messages between Truss and her future chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng were among the materials accessed.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the government is not taking national security “seriously enough” and called for “proper answers” on what happened with Braverman.
Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg this morning, Gove defended Braverman, describing her as a “first rate front rank politician” and said he is “glad” she is in Cabinet.
“Suella apologised for the mistake that she made and indeed resigned from government,” he said.
“But the Prime Minister has made it clear that Suella deserves a second chance.”
Gove was shown an email from Braverman sent to the recipient of the sensitive material later that day asking them to “delete the message and ignore”.
The Levelling Up Secretary said that he does not know “the details of every email” but added: “It would seem to me on the basis of the information that you have there, that it was quite right that if something had been sent in error, that the recipient should be invited to delete and to ignore that message.”
Labour’s Yvette Cooper told Sky News that the reappointment of Braverman, as well as the revelations around Truss's phone, is “raising questions” about the government “not taking national security seriously enough”.
“The serious problem is the person who ought to be providing reassurance that the government has a grip, the person who ought to be being interviewed this morning about all of this is the Home Secretary Suella Braverman and she can't do that because she's still unable to answer those serious questions about her own serious security breaches and lapses,” Cooper said.
Gove has also addressed a tumultuous few months for government, leading to this week's appointment of Rishi Sunak as prime minister after Truss was forced to resign after just 45 chaotic days in office.
Writing in the Sun on Sunday he said that the country owes people “an apology” after installing Liz Truss as leader and “must earn” trust again.
“We made the wrong choice this summer about the path we should take. Plans to cut taxes targeted on the richest were a holiday from reality," he said.
“A mini budget that didn’t explain how spending plans would be paid for was an error. To put it mildly.
“So I understand why people are angry. We must earn your trust again.”
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