Category: Home Office

At 7.25am the author used her personal email address to email the draft incomplete statement to the government backbench member of parliament John Hayes. [Para 12]

The covering message was:

“Dear John, What do you think? I’ll need to take a view this morning by 10am.” [Para 12]

What did he think of what?

Presumably the request was for his thoughts on the proposed amendments in the text from other departments, as he would know from previous briefings the position of the author.

This would accord with the 10am deadline, which would allow the author time to consider Hayes’ views in advance of the 1pm cabinet committee meeting.

We are then told about how the email was sent with an unintended recipient:

“I addressed it to Sir John’s parliamentary email and intended to copy his secretary’s parliamentary email address. However, I entered the incorrect email address for his secretary unintentionally and unknowingly.” [Para 12]

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Hayes did not reply by 10am, but somebody else did.

This unexpected reply was at 8:34am:

“‘This has been sent to me in error.’ I did not recognise the person who had sent this message, but noted that it was from a parliamentary email address with a similar name to Sir John’s secretary.” [Para 14]

The author then tells us that at “before or around 10am” she saw this 8:34am message from the unintended recipient.

The “before” here is vague.

Nonetheless, “[t]his was the moment that I realised that I had made a mistake by sending it to an unintended recipient.”

When was that moment?

The “before” could mean any time between 8:34 and 10am.

And what did the author decide to do?

Two things.

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First, the author sent an email at 10:02 to this stranger:

“Please can you delete the message and ignore. Thanks”.

Note that at this point the author says she does not know the recipient – just that it is someone with a similar name to the intended recipient.

Note also the author does not ask the recipient to confirm deletion, and just leaves it with it with a mere “Thanks”.

Perhaps she thought that was which was needed, and that is all that would come of it.

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The second thing we are told the author decides to do is “that I would inform my officials as soon as practicable”.

This term “as soon as practicable” is also vague.

But whatever it means it does not mean promptly or immediately, or indeed “rapidly”.

As it happens, the author does not seem to inform her officials for quite some time.

This is even though she is, on her own account, located at the Home Office. [Para 17-18]

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At 11:31am, the Chief Whip sends a WhatsApp message to the author asking her to speak to Andrew Percy, the member of parliament to whose assistant the email had been unintentionally sent.

The author tells us she did not see this message at the time.

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At 11:33am Percy emailed the author as follows:

“Suella

“I am really not sure that government documents should be being shared with members of your former campaign team via gmail.

“Can you tell me what the Ministerial Code says on this and what the processes are in the Home Office for the sharing of sensitive government documents via gmail.

“Simply asking my team to delete this email and ignore it is not an acceptable response to what appears, on the face of it, to be a potentially serious breach of security.

“I am considering a point of order on this issue and have raised it with the Chief Whip.

“I hope an explanation will be forthcoming. You are nominally in charge of the security of this nation, we have received many warnings even as lowly backbenchers about cyber security.

“Andrew Percy.”

The author claims not to have seen this Percy email at the time, and the Percy email is only quoted later in the letter which gives an impression that it was a later development.

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By 11.50am there is no indication that the author has informed her officials when she encounters the Chief Whip and Percy. [Para 19]

We are then told of a coincidence.

“At 11.50 in Members’ Lobby, and by coincidence, I saw the Chief Whip and Andrew Percy MP. The Chief Whip asked me to speak to Mr Percy MP. He told me that my email had been received by a member of his parliamentary staff. He was concerned about my having sent the email to Sir John and to his staff member.” [Para 19]

She then gives an apology (to which we will return), but there is still no indication that she had informed her officials.

This is now nearly two hours after her “Thanks” email and three-and-a-half hours after the 8.35am email alerting her to the mistake.

On her own account, it is only at this point she knows who the email was sent to – for at 10:02 she had not known who the recipient was and assumed that whoever they were they would just delete it as requested (without confirmation).

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It is now noon:

“At midday I decided that I would not attend PMQs as planned, so that I could take action regarding my mistake. I returned to my parliamentary office. This was the first opportunity I had had to communicate in full what had happened.” [Para 21]

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The “in full” here is doing a lot of lifting.

The author had been at the Home Office by her own admission between 10am and 11.20am.

Some communication with her officials would have been possible after the 8.34am email or the 10.02 email.

And who does she “communicate in full” to?

Her Private Secretary?

No.

Her Permanent Secretary?

No.

The Cabinet Secretary?

No.

It is to her Special Adviser (a political appointee), and not her Private Secretary or her department’s Permanent Secretary, or the Cabinet Secretary.

We are then told:

“There, I explained the above chronology to my Special Adviser and asked him to phone my Private Secretary immediately.” [Para 23]

She does not herself tell the Private Secretary directly, for some reason.

“I asked [my Special Adviser] to inform my Private Secretary of the chain of events set out above and make clear that I wanted to fully report the breach and follow official processes. I wanted official advice on what I needed to do next. This included any reviews that were deemed appropriate by senior civil servants.” [Para 23]

She does not herself tell the Private Secretary of the chain of events, for some reason.

We are then told it is only after she has asked her Special Adviser to tell the Private Secretary that she reads the Percy email of 11:33am. [Para 23]

And then we are told that it only after seeing the Percy email that she saw the Chief Whip’s message of 11:31am. [Para 24]

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Back to the Special Adviser being asked to inform the Private Secretary:

“Immediately after being told, my Private Secretary discussed the issue with the Permanent Secretary, and with his agreement then flagged the issue on my behalf to the Prime Minister’s Private Office and the Cabinet Secretary’s Private Office. This was the first time the Prime Minister’s Private Office or the Cabinet Secretary’s Office had been informed. As a result of my actions, the Cabinet Secretary was told for the first time. Separately, and unbeknownst to me at the time, the Chief Whip had also notified the Prime Minister of this issue. This was not known to me until after these events.”

There are two very interesting turns of phrase here.

The “Immediately” implies promptness.

And the “As a result of my actions” suggests that she was directly responsible for the Prime Minister’s private office and Cabinet Secretary’s office being informed, when in fact it had gone as follows: Author > Special Adviser > Private Secretary > Permanent Secretary > Cabinet Secretary.

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It is now almost 1pm on the Wednesday.

The original email had been sent at 7.25am; the email from the unintended recipient was at 8.34am; the thanks-and-please-delete email had been sent by her to a stranger at 10:02am; the Chief Whip’s message had been at 11:31am; Percy’s email had been at 11:33am; and the meeting with the Chief Whip and Percy had been at 11:50am.

But on the author’s own account, she still has not spoken or otherwise communicated directly with any Home Office officials (as opposed to her own Special Adviser) about the matter.

And then:

“At 12.56 and 12.57, I emailed all of the relevant emails to my Private Secretary as part of my referral to officials.” [Para 27]

There is no reason given why this did not happen before.

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Ministers are busy people, and they can be swamped with information and communications.

And so nothing in the above should be taken to mean that the author is not being accurate as to when she actually saw messages.

Indeed, this post is set out on the basis of the author being accurate in what she says in the further letter.

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But.

If we go back to the author’s resignation letter, we see the following:

“As soon as I realised my mistake, I rapidly reported this on official channels, and informed the Cabinet Secretary.”

This statement is not consistent with what the author said in the further letter.

If we accept that the 8.33am email was not seen at the time, the mistake was realised “before or about” 10am.

Her Special Adviser was not asked until after noon to contact officials , and there was no direct contact with officials until almost 1pm.

If her further letter is correct, then “[a]s soon as I realised my mistake, I rapidly reported this on official channels” cannot also be correct.

The author also did not inform the Cabinet Secretary.

On her own account, it was: Author > Special Adviser > Private Secretary > Permanent Secretary > Cabinet Secretary.

Yet the normal and natural meaning of “[a]s soon as I realised my mistake, I rapidly reported this on official channels, and informed the Cabinet Secretary” is that the author herself directly informed the Cabinet Secretary.

This was not the case, if her account in the further letter is correct.

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For completeness, the further letter also states:

“Following my referral and subsequent resignation, the Home Office conducted a review of my use of personal email and verified the above sequence of events. The review also identified that within the period between 6 September and 19 October, I had sent official documents from my government email to my personal email address on six occasions.”

Note: six.

Note also that it is not said that she only sent official documents to her personal email six times, but only that six occasions have been “identified”.

It would have been easier just to say that author only did this six times, but this other form of words was chosen instead.

Those six occasions would have been in addition to the incident described above.

We are also not told how many times those official documents had been forwarded.

And note the dates: there may have been, on the face of this wording, other occasions in her other government roles, outside of those specified dates.

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At the meeting with the Chief Whip and Percy, the author says she said:

“I apologised and said that this was the first time that I had used my personal email to send an official Home Office document to someone outside government, that there was no risk to security due to the content, and that I would ensure that this would never happen again.” [Para 19]

Note: “first time”.

The appendix to the letter lists six times the author had forwarded emails from her official email to her personal email:

The 19 October incident above is not one of these, because the relevant draft statement was forwarded to her from her Special Adviser.

If what the author says what she assured the Chief Whip and Percy is correct, then the position would be that not one of these six documents was then forwarded.

We must also assume that none of the times official documents were forwarded to her by her Special Adviser (such as above) that they were not also sent outside of government.

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The letter of 31 October 2022 from the home secretary to the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee is carefully drafted and, as with any carefully drafted document, rewards careful attention.

There are turns of phrase and framing of information in that letter that could give an impression different to that which would be gained from a close reading.

But a close reading shows that the portion of the resignation letter that says “[a]s soon as I realised my mistake, I rapidly reported this on official channels, and informed the Cabinet Secretary” cannot be correct.

The further letter raises more questions than provides answers.

Either her resignation letter is correct or this further letter is correct.

But not both.