Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman
On Wednesday, Rishi Sunak, British Prime Minister said that he had chosen not to pursue Home Secretary Suella Braverman for her handling of a speeding offense last year, citing the ministerial code.
Sunak made his decision after deliberating for four days on how to respond to a Sunday Times article that Braverman had urged officials to assist her in arranging a private driving-awareness course to prevent her speeding violation from becoming public knowledge.
“My decision is that these matters do not amount to a breach of the Ministerial Code”, Sunak wrote to Braverman.
He further said, “As you have recognized, a better course of action could have been taken to avoid giving rise to the perception of impropriety”.
Opposition parties demanded that the prime minister looks into whether Braverman violated the ministerial code in her handling of the issue. Ministers are not permitted to use government staff to assist them with their personal affairs.
In a letter to Sunak, Braverman stated that she had asked officials whether doing a speeding course was appropriate given that her new role as an interior minister meant she was a protected person, and that she had a lack of familiarity with protocol.
She stated that her chats were to protect her privacy and security and that she had stopped discussing them with officials after getting advice that it was not an acceptable topic for civil servants to investigate.
After determining that a speeding course was incompatible with her security, privacy, and political concerns. She ultimately decided to accept a driving penalty. She apologizes for causing the distraction.
“In retrospect, or if faced with a similar situation again, I would have chosen a different path. Given my personal circumstances as a security-protected minister, I sought to explore whether bespoke arrangements were possible”, she wrote to Sunak.
“I recognize how some people have construed this as me seeking to avoid sanction – at no point was that the intention or outcome”, Suella Braverman added.
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