A second senior Tory MP has questioned the reappointment of Suella Braverman as home secretary as a Cabinet minister insisted she deserves a second chance in the top post.
Caroline Nokes, who chairs the parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee, told the BBC there were “big questions” hanging over the issue and called for a full inquiry.
The MP for Romsey and Southampton North said: “I think what is apparent is that there are big questions hanging over this whole issue.
“And to be frank I would like to see them cleared up so that the home secretary can get on with her job.”
Earlier, former Tory party chairman Sir Jake Berry claimed Ms Braverman had committed “multiple breaches of the ministerial code” when she sent an MP an official document from her personal email account.
The Prime Minister reappointed Ms Braverman six days after she was sacked by his predecessor Liz Truss for the security breach, and Labour has called on Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to launch a full investigation.
But Mr Zahawi, who is also Conservative Party chairman, told Sky News: “The Prime Minister has looked at this. The Home Secretary herself if you recall, in her letter, said ‘I made a mistake. I’m not going to deny that or shirk away from it. I will resign.’ She resigned quite rightly.
“The new Prime Minister dealt with this yesterday, looked at it and he felt that she is allowed a second chance.”
His remarks echo similar comments made by former Tory PM David Cameron when he hired ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson as his director of communications despite his involvement in phone hacking.
Downing Street refused to say on Wednesday if Ms Braverman has full security clearance. But Mr Zahawi told Sky News: “The Home Secretary has full security clearance of course.”
Tory MP Mark Pritchard, a former member of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, said that domestic security service MI5 needed “to have confidence in the Home Secretary — whoever that might be”.
He added on Twitter: “It’s a vital relationship of trust, key to the UK’s security & democratic oversight of MI5. Any breakdown in that relationship is bad for the Security Service and the government. It needs to be sorted asap.”
Ms Braverman, who has been nicknamed “leaky Sue” left Ms Truss’s Cabinet after she was found to have sent Tory MP Sir John Hayes a document which she claimed was a draft of a written ministerial statement.
It was only discovered because she copied in someone she believed was Sir John’s wife. At the time the Home Secretary claimed she had “rapidly reported” her “mistake” through official channels, and informed Cabinet Secretary Mr Case, as soon as she realised it.
But Mr Berry told TalkTV that it was “the other way around” and that officials brought the evidence of the breach to her attention. “From my own knowledge, there were multiple breaches of the ministerial code. It was sent from a private email address to another Member of Parliament.
“She then sought to copy in that individual’s wife and accidentally sent it to a staffer in Parliament. To me that seems a really serious breach, especially when it was documents relating to cybersecurity, as I believe,” he said.
Labour’s shadow foreign secretary David Lammy called for Ms Braverman to be sacked. He told Times Radio: “There should be a thorough investigation and we certainly should know what advice Rishi Sunak took from the Cabinet Secretary as to whether he should have reappointed her.”
