Former Cabinet minister Suella Braverman sent 127 emails to her private address – to hide what she was doing from public scrutiny?
She did this in 2021-22, after many other incidents in which her fellow Tory ministers had been caught doing government business via private email, apparently in order to avoid having to divulge their dealings in response to Freedom of Information requests.
This Site has reported how Michael Gove was caught using private emails to communicate with Department for Education personnel, all the way back in 2011.
Liam Fox’s personal email account was hacked by Russians in 2019 when, as International Trade Secretary, he was responsible for negotiating a trade deal with the United States.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Matt Hancock, Lord Bethell, Helen Whately and then-PM Boris Johnson were all alleged to have misused their personal email accounts in order to hide business they did as members of the government from lawful scrutiny.
Tom Tugendhat claimed in 2016 that he had received private advice from GCHQ, the government communications centre in Cheltenham, that a Gmail account would be more secure against hacking than the government’s own system.
But claims that ministers are allowed to conduct some business by private email, depending on the seriousness of the matters concerned and the level of security to be applied, are not true.
I wrote:
Cabinet Office guidance clearly states that “The originator or recipient of a communication should consider whether the information contained in it is substantive discussions or decisions generated in the course of conducting Government business and, if so, take steps to ensure the relevant information is accessible (e.g. by copying it to a government email address)”.
There is no opt-out. Any and all emails in which government business is carried out must at least be copied into the government’s email system and any failure to do so is a breach of the rules.
Sadly, the guidance note does not describe any sanctions that could be used against government ministers or officers for misuse of private email accounts to carry out government business in secret. This is a common omission that makes the rules themselves… worthless.
Braverman herself admitted using her private email for official papers on what was described by others as “an industrial scale”, nearly two years ago in October 2022.
But that referred to just six incidents, plus a security breach that led to her resignation as Home Secretary that month – all within the 43 days she initially held that job.
Now it seems that, in her role as Attorney General between September 2021 and September 2022, she “forwarded government documents to her private email accounts at least 127 times”. These incidents involved 290 government documents – and no, we haven’t been told what they contained.
If six times was “an industrial scale”, what is 127 times?
We should also note the dishonesty of carrying out government business in private, in order to escape public scrutiny, by the Attorney General – whose role is to ensure that all government behaviour is legal and above-board.
Indeed, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) seems to have done everything it could to prevent Braverman’s behaviour – which is potentially a breach of the Ministerial Code – from becoming public knowledge.
It refused to respond to a FoI request by The Times, saying it would be too costly to search her ministerial inbox. Too costly? How much effort does it take to check traffic from an email outbox within a limited period of time?
A tribunal judge later criticised the AGO, saying it “initially went about finding private email account details in a convoluted way”, which was “not a sensible way to start”, and could, “using the tools available in Outlook, answer the request with relative ease”.
And now we have information indicating that Braverman habitually used her private email address to carry out government business in secret. Logically, this was to hide her activities from public scrutiny.
Will she be punished for it in any meaningful way?
No. Or at least, it seems doubtful.
As you saw, above, there are no sanctions for misusing private email accounts in order to hide government business from scrutiny. This fact would make it easy to conclude that all UK governments are dishonest, they all want to be able to carry out backroom deals without any of us knowing, and they all want to get away unpunished if they’re caught.
Of course, we have a new, Labour government now, instead of the Tory administration that let its ministers off. Will this make a difference?
Let’s all be careful to watch what Keir Starmer does about this.
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Braverman sent 127 emails to her private address – to hide what she was doing?
Former Cabinet minister Suella Braverman sent 127 emails to her private address – to hide what she was doing from public scrutiny?
She did this in 2021-22, after many other incidents in which her fellow Tory ministers had been caught doing government business via private email, apparently in order to avoid having to divulge their dealings in response to Freedom of Information requests.
This Site has reported how Michael Gove was caught using private emails to communicate with Department for Education personnel, all the way back in 2011.
Liam Fox’s personal email account was hacked by Russians in 2019 when, as International Trade Secretary, he was responsible for negotiating a trade deal with the United States.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Matt Hancock, Lord Bethell, Helen Whately and then-PM Boris Johnson were all alleged to have misused their personal email accounts in order to hide business they did as members of the government from lawful scrutiny.
Tom Tugendhat claimed in 2016 that he had received private advice from GCHQ, the government communications centre in Cheltenham, that a Gmail account would be more secure against hacking than the government’s own system.
But claims that ministers are allowed to conduct some business by private email, depending on the seriousness of the matters concerned and the level of security to be applied, are not true.
I wrote:
Braverman herself admitted using her private email for official papers on what was described by others as “an industrial scale”, nearly two years ago in October 2022.
But that referred to just six incidents, plus a security breach that led to her resignation as Home Secretary that month – all within the 43 days she initially held that job.
Now it seems that, in her role as Attorney General between September 2021 and September 2022, she “forwarded government documents to her private email accounts at least 127 times”. These incidents involved 290 government documents – and no, we haven’t been told what they contained.
If six times was “an industrial scale”, what is 127 times?
We should also note the dishonesty of carrying out government business in private, in order to escape public scrutiny, by the Attorney General – whose role is to ensure that all government behaviour is legal and above-board.
Indeed, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) seems to have done everything it could to prevent Braverman’s behaviour – which is potentially a breach of the Ministerial Code – from becoming public knowledge.
It refused to respond to a FoI request by The Times, saying it would be too costly to search her ministerial inbox. Too costly? How much effort does it take to check traffic from an email outbox within a limited period of time?
A tribunal judge later criticised the AGO, saying it “initially went about finding private email account details in a convoluted way”, which was “not a sensible way to start”, and could, “using the tools available in Outlook, answer the request with relative ease”.
And now we have information indicating that Braverman habitually used her private email address to carry out government business in secret. Logically, this was to hide her activities from public scrutiny.
Will she be punished for it in any meaningful way?
No. Or at least, it seems doubtful.
As you saw, above, there are no sanctions for misusing private email accounts in order to hide government business from scrutiny. This fact would make it easy to conclude that all UK governments are dishonest, they all want to be able to carry out backroom deals without any of us knowing, and they all want to get away unpunished if they’re caught.
Of course, we have a new, Labour government now, instead of the Tory administration that let its ministers off. Will this make a difference?
Let’s all be careful to watch what Keir Starmer does about this.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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