UK’s interior minister admits to more lapses

LONDON: British interior minister Suella Braverman admitted on Monday she had used her personal phone to consult official documents six times -- but refused to resign anew.

The right-wing home secretary, whose brief includes policing and domestic intelligence, has been under mounting fire since Prime Minister Rishi Sunak controversially reinstated her to the cabinet on taking office last week.

Braverman defended her record in parliament for the first time since being forced out by then prime minister Liz Truss -- as another scandal intensified over the government´s treatment of cross-Channel migrants.

Conservative MP Roger Gale accused the Home Office of “deliberately” and illegally allowing squalid conditions including diseases to fester at one overcrowded detention facility in Manston, near Dover in southeast England.