PM: Braverman ‘has learned’ from error

RISHI Sunak has insisted Suella Braverman has “learned from her mistake” as Sir Keir Starmer demanded the Home Secretary’s sacking for her security breach.

The Prime Minister insisted the Tories are “united” despite the backlash spreading to the Tory ranks over Ms Braverman’s reappointment just six days after she was forced out.

He was resisting demands to launch an inquiry into Ms Braverman breaking the Ministerial Code by sharing a sensitive document with a Tory backbencher from a personal email without permission.

Mr Sunak also sought to clarify his remarks in the Commons that Ms Braverman had “raised” the matter, indicating he meant she had brought it up with him rather than before she was forced out, an account that has been disputed.

“Now, as I said in Parliament earlier this week, she raised this topic with me when I discussed reappointing her as Home Secretary,” he told broadcasters during a visit to a hospital in Croydon, south London. “And I’m confident that she’s learned from her mistake.”

Mr Sunak insisted he does not regret the appointment despite the backlash, saying: “No, as I have said, she’s accepted her mistake and learned from it and I’m confident of that.”

But Sir Keir maintained that Mr Sunak has brokered a “grubby deal, trading security for support” in the Tory leadership contest, which he won after receiving Ms Braverman’s backing.

“It really matters. I’ve been the director of public prosecutions, I know how important it is for the Home Secretary to be trusted, because others have to share documents with her,” he said during a visit to Thurrock, Essex.

“To be sacked last week for breach of security and now be put back in place as the Home Secretary is an act of weakness from the Prime Minister. He should sack her – that will be the strong thing to do. That’s what I would do if I was prime minister.”

Mr Sunak rehired Ms Braverman this week in the same role that she was forced to leave by Liz Truss while she was prime minister.

Meanwhile, Mr Sunak was confronted yesterday by a patient about nurses’ pay, during a visit to a hospital in Croydon.

Catherine Poole, a 77-year-old patient who is recovering from surgery, gave the Prime Minister a short lecture when he arrived for a chat on her ward.

The south Londoner, who told him she was hoping to go home from Croydon University Hospital in south London in the coming days, was asked by Mr Sunak how the hospital’s nurses were looking after her.

As Mr Sunak crouched down to have a word with her, she could be heard telling the Prime Minister about pay for nurses.

“You need to pay them,” Ms Poole instructed the Prime Minister. Mr Sunak, wearing a mask as he toured the hospital, said his Government was trying.

“You are not trying, you need to try harder,” she told him.

Mr Sunak went on to say that the NHS was important. “Yes, and look after it,” Ms Poole told him.