The Home Secretary Suella Braverman has admitted to sending official documents to her private email account on six occasions – but said they ‘did not pose any risk to national security’.
Braverman,who has given a statement in the House of Commons this afternoon is under pressure after she made the decision to stop booking hotels for Manston migrants, according to six current and former senior Government sources
The decision led to unlawful detentions and was a ministerial code breach.
Braverman,it is said,stopped the hotels policy due to the cost.
The decision was taken despite legal advice that doing so would mean longer stays at Manston that would be against the law.
Manston is a temporary triage centre designed for a maximum stay of 24 hours
When Grant Shapps briefly became Home Secretary after Braverman’s resignation was made aware that under Braverman the numbers at Manston had gone from 1,600 to over 3,0000 in a matter of weeks and immediately reversed the hotels ban with Home Office officials working through the night to book rooms
Speaking in the Commons Braverman says it is “practically impossible” to secure thousands of beds at no notice, but was “working tirelessly” to find them, and would “look at all available options”.
She also denied ignoring legal advice about sending migrants to hotels saying that as a former Attorney General she knows importance of taking it into account
Yesterday, hundreds of arrivals were moved to Manston in Kent after the petrol bomb attack on a Dover facility.
Some 4,000 migrants are being held in Manston, which has the capacity for 1,600.
