Suella Braverman deserves a “second chance” as home secretary despite concerns over “multiple” security breaches, Nadhim Zahawi has said.
Zahawi, who was made Tory Party chair in Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle, said he believed Braverman was a very “capable” minister and that it was right to offer her “redemption”.
He told Sky News: “She admitted her mistake, she resigned.
“The new prime minister came in, looked at the information and decided that he wants to give her a second chance. It think that is the right decision. Redemption is a good thing.”
Controversy continues to swirl around Braverman’s reappointment to the Cabinet just days after she was forced to resign for a security breach.
Braverman sparked Liz Truss’s downfall as prime minister when she resigned as home secretary after she was was caught sending an official document from a personal email account to veteran backbench Tory John Hayes.
She accidentally copied in someone she believed was Hayes’s wife, but was in fact an aide to Conservative MP Andrew Percy, who raised the alarm.
Braverman said she “rapidly reported” her “mistake” through official channels, and informed cabinet secretary Simon Case as soon as she realised it.
Defending her reappointment in the Commons yesterday, Sunak told MPs that Braverman “made an error of judgment, but she recognised that, she raised the matter and she accepted her mistake”.
But last night former Tory party chair Jake Berry questioned that account, suggesting that she was in fact alerted to her error rather than raising the alarm herself.
Berry told TalkTV that he believed Braverman’s actions represented “a really serious breach”.
“The cabinet secretary had his say at the time. I doubt he’s changed his mind in the last six days, but that’s a matter for the new prime minister.
“As I understand it, the evidence was put to her and she accepted the evidence, rather than the other way round.”
Zahawi also refused to say whether officials, including Case, expressed concern about her reappointment so soon after her resignation.
“Officials raise concerns and raise points with secretaries of state, with ministers, all the time. I think they should be allowed to do that,” he said.
Pressing Zahawi further on why Braverman’s reappointment was necessary, Sky;s Niall Paterson said: “It’s not as if Suella Braverman is the intellectual powerhouse of the Conservative movement.”
Zahawi hit back: “You’re now personalising it and being very rude about a particular politician. I think Suella is very capable, it’s unfair for you to say that.”
“People are allowed a second chance and the Prime Minister did the right thing to give Suella that second chance.”
The Labour Party has demanded that Case — who is reportedly “livid” over Braverman’s swift return — launch an investigation “into the extent of this and other possible security breaches”.
Yesterday Keir Starmer accused Sunak of doing a “grubby deal” to reappoint Braverman as home secretary.
During the brief leadership contest to replace Truss, Braverman swung behind Sunak in what was seen as a blow to Boris Johnson’s hopes of staging a comeback to No.10.