The security services reportedly still trust Suella Braverman despite her mishandling of sensitive documents and embroilment in another leak inquiry.
The Home Secretary will still be receiving intelligence briefings from MI5 despite concerns by other senior figures about her fitness for the role.
Ex-Home Secretary Lord Blunkett and a slate of Conservative MPs have spoken out after Ms Braverman’s reappointment by Rishi Sunak just six days after she resigned for sending sensitive government information via her personal email account.
Ms Braverman had sent the documents to a backbench Tory MP and someone she thought was his wife, but turned out to be a parliamentary assistant for another MP, who raised the alarm about the leak.
But a security source told the Times newspaper that it was “completely untrue” that MI5 could withhold information from the Home Secretary and said they had “a strong and trusted working relationship”.
“She will continue to receive regular intelligence briefings, as was the case when the home secretary was in post previously and with other home secretaries,” they said.
Former Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett had told the House of Lords that that the security services might be “reluctant to provide the briefings and the openness needed”.
He also warned that it was possible “other international security agencies will be reluctant to share with us if they are fearful that their information will be passed out of government itself”.
Ms Braverman has reportedly gained the nickname “Leaky Sue” among Whitehall officials because of her conduct. It was reported on Thursday that she had been probed by a Cabinet Office leak inquiry in January, though the findings were inconclusive.
The Home Secretary, who served under Liz Truss’s brief premiership, had admitted to a “technical infringement” of the ministerial code over the most recent incident.
“I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign,” she wrote, six days before her reappointment by Rishi Sunak.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused Mr Sunak of doing a “grubby deal” with Ms Braverman to secure her support in the brief Conservative leadership contest.
