Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I know my hon. Friend’s passionate commitment to that cause, and I would be delighted to meet her to discuss it.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

T7. If a civil servant were to use their private email to send confidential Government business, they would rightly be expected to face the harshest penalties and lose their security clearance. Does the Minister agree, therefore, that reappointing the Home Secretary just six days after she made significant breaches of the ministerial code in that way smacks of having one rule for them and another for our hard-working civil servants?

[Oliver Dowden]

The Home Secretary has accepted that her conduct was not acceptable. That is precisely why she resigned and accepted that responsibility. However, I have to say that Labour Members’ obsession with a mistake for which she has apologised stands in stark contrast to their failure to answer questions on crime or immigration. That says it all about their priorities for the British people.