Home Secretary: Resignation and Reappointment

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) (Urgent Question)]

To ask a question of the Home Secretary about her resignation and reappointment.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

I was disappointed, on leaving my previous Department last night, that I would no longer be seeing the right hon. Lady across the Dispatch Box, and I am so glad that she has put that right for me today. She has a good memory, and I know she will recall that last week the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office—my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith)—said, in responding to a question that she had tabled, that questions relating to

“breaches of the ministerial code”

or related issues

“are a matter for the Cabinet Office, not the Home Office”.—[Official Report, 22 October 2022; Vol. 720, c. 834.]

That is why I, not the Home Secretary, am here answering the question today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw set out the circumstances regarding the departure of the Home Secretary last week. The Home Secretary made an error of judgment. She recognised her mistake, and she took responsibility for her actions. The ministerial code allows for a range of sanctions when mistakes have been made. The Home Secretary recognised her mistake, raised the matter and stepped down. Her resignation was accepted by the then Prime Minister.

The right hon. Lady will be aware that ministerial appointments are a matter solely for the Prime Minister, as the sovereign’s principal adviser on the appointment, dismissal and acceptance of resignations of Ministers. The Prime Minister was very clear in his speech to the nation yesterday when he said:

“This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.”

He has said that he will work “day in, day out” to earn the trust of the country and live up to the demands and expectations that the public rightly have of their Prime Minister. The Prime Minister expects all Ministers to uphold the values and standards set by the ministerial code, as the public would rightly expect.

As I have said, the Home Secretary made an error of judgment. She recognised her mistake, and she took accountability for her actions in stepping down. After consideration, the Prime Minister has decided, given the apology issued by the Home Secretary, to reappoint her to the Government. They are now focused, together, on working to make our streets safer and to control our borders. However, while we should learn from mistakes, we should also look to the future, and the Prime Minister has appointed a team of Ministers to lead the country through the issues that it faces.

All Ministers are bound by the ministerial code, and the Prime Minister expects his Ministers to uphold the code and hold the highest standards. As I have noted, the code allows for a range of sanctions for breaches, and on the recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the code was updated in May to make that clear. On an ongoing basis, we will need—every Minister—through our actions and in how we conduct ourselves, to demonstrate that we can continue to command this Prime Minister’s confidence as we tackle the huge challenges that are to come for the country.

[Yvette Cooper]

My questions are about security breaches and the protection of our national security. They are questions to the Home Secretary, who was here just five minutes ago and who then left.

Yesterday the Prime Minister promised “integrity, professionalism and accountability”, yet the Government have discarded the ministerial code and reappointed someone who breached core professional standards and has now run away from basic accountability to this House. It is the same old Tory chaos, and it is letting the country down.

I have questions for the Home Secretary that the Government need to answer. The Home Secretary accepted that she had sent an official document via her personal email to someone who was not authorised to see it. Is that the only time she has done that? Has she shared other documents, or other sensitive information? The Home Secretary is responsible for national security, so has the Home Office, the Cabinet Office or the Security Service now undertaken an investigation of her security breaches to establish how many others there have been? If not, may I urge the Minister to ensure that that happens as a matter of urgency?

What security clearance has the Home Secretary been given? Does she still have access to the most sensitive documents and information, and did the Cabinet Secretary warn against her reappointment? She has been Attorney General, she has been a Minister on and off for four years, so she knows the rules about Government documents, yet she sent one to her own private email, to someone outside the Government, and also copied it by accident to someone else entirely. How is anyone supposed to believe that she is such a novice that she did not know exactly what she was doing, and if she really is that much of a novice, why on earth are the rest of us supposed to trust her with our national security? It has been reported that she sent this as an error of judgment because she was tired after going on an early-morning raid. Is the Home Office just supposed to block her phone and email if she has been up half the night because she might do stupid things while she is tired? There are suggestions that the Home Secretary while she was Attorney General was investigated for a leak of information relating to the Security Service; is that true?

The Minister is a former policing Minister; does he think that if police officers breached their code of ethics and were sacked or forced to resign, they should then be reappointed to their jobs six days later because they said sorry, or is it just one rule for the Cabinet and another for everyone else? Everyone knows this was a grubby deal to get a coronation, to put party before country, but national security is too important for this.

[Jeremy Quin]

The Prime Minister has made it clear that this Government will act with professionalism, integrity and accountability; that is exactly what this Government will be doing. As the right hon. Lady will be aware, I cannot comment on what the Cabinet Secretary may or may not do; that is a matter for the Cabinet Secretary. On the speculation the right hon. Lady raised—I am not going to comment on speculation either; the right hon. Lady would not expect me to do so.

At the end of the day, it is very simple: the Home Secretary made a mistake, and has acknowledged that she made a mistake, but she offered her resignation and stood down. The Prime Minister has looked again, and has decided, as is his right, that she can return to Government. I believe in redemption; I hope the right hon. Lady can as well. The Home Secretary is busy today, doing the job of the Home Secretary: keeping our borders secure and helping the police do their job—and I am sure that the right hon. Lady welcomes, as I do, the fact that we now have over 15,000 additional police officers, delivering day in, day out for the country. That is what this Government can be relied upon to do.