Suella Braverman: ‘I don’t have mum guilt – it’s less exhausting being back in the Cabinet’

Suella Braverman is looking remarkably bouncy for a woman who has spent six sleepless months with a newborn and a two-year-old.

Excited to be back at her desk in the Attorney General’s Office, where she has just returned to her role as chief legal adviser to the Crown and the Government, the 41-year-old admits that even the constitutional crisis sparked by Brexit felt easier than managing two under two.

“You know, you’re up at 3am. I’ve not had an uninterrupted night’s sleep in six months. I love them and they’re adorable, but coming back to work is a bit of a break from being in this exhausting role at home, I must admit!,” she says.

As the daughter of immigrant parents who won a scholarship to a private school before reading law at Cambridge, you’d have thought the MP for Fareham had professional life sussed. Yet it seems motherhood has brought a whole new dimension to the career of a woman so highly valued by Boris Johnson, he insisted a new law be enacted to allow her to become the first minister of state to take maternity leave.

Thanks to the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Act 2021, Braverman was designated as the first ever “minister on leave” after Gabriella’s birth in March. “They should have called it Gabriella’s Law,” she jokes. “The Prime Minister was incredibly supportive... I was just really moved by the compassion I was shown.

“There was no opposition [to the Bill] so it went through really quickly... I became this sort of accidental trailblazer.”

The move meant that Braverman could claim six months’ paid maternity leave – and be guaranteed that her job, which was covered by Michael Ellis in her absence, would be there on her return.

Although she admits to having “given up on hair and make-up and looking glamorous” after spending recent months running around after Gabriella and two-year-old George, there is very much a sense that she has come back to work with a host of surprising new skills. “Multi-tasking, stamina, managing without sleep,” she reels off over Zoom from her office overlooking Westminster Abbey. “Patience within a relationship as well; definitely teamwork.”

People told her things might be a challenge, but “nothing can prepare you for how hard two is compared with one,” she admits. “It feels like military-style planning that goes on in our house nowadays.” It’s all served a wider purpose, though: “I genuinely do think I’ve improved my stamina and my ability to get things done. I probably spend a lot less time mindlessly browsing social media; less time with my trolls!”

Still, there was no twinge of ‘mum guilt’ when she waved goodbye last week. “I also know at the end of this second time of maternity leave, I’m not really designed for full-time childcare either.”

Having never considered herself ‘mumsy’, “it’s taking me time to transition into motherhood. Work is such an important part of my life – it’s a privilege to have this job. I hope it makes me a better mum... I certainly feel like a happier mum [for going back to work].” Braverman’s parents – her mother worked as a nurse in Brent, her father for a housing association – and her in-laws are helping out with some of the childcare, she adds. “We’ve created this little village.”

Braverman had all but “given up” on becoming a mother when she met her husband Rael, a manager at Mercedes-Benz, through friends in 2014. Then seeking selection as a Tory MP, the couple enjoyed an unconventional first date at the House of Commons – so it was fitting that they married there in 2018.

“I hadn’t really put motherhood first; my career was so important,” she reflects. “Being called to the bar, it’s a very consuming profession and incredibly competitive. It had taken everything for me to get established as a barrister and then also to get into politics. I did kind of give up. I thought: it’s getting later and later; I’m going to need some kind of miracle.

Then, she met her husband; “we got married pretty quickly and we both wanted children so we didn’t really waste any time because of our ages. We know we’ve been incredibly lucky and are so grateful. Both my husband and I say we really should have done this 10 years ago when we had more energy. I love being a mum and I never realised that I would love it so much, actually. I think it appeals to the big kid in me.”

Braverman grew up in Wembley, the only child of father Christie and mother Uma, who emigrated to Britain in the 1960s from Kenya and Mauritius respectively.

“My dad stepped off the plane from Kenya in 1968 with nothing. He was not even 20, seeking refuge in this country. My mother came with nothing as well, recruited by the NHS in Mauritius, as an 18-year-old girl.”

But it was when her dad lost his job in the early 1990s, soon after Braverman won a partial scholarship to Heathfield School in Pinner, that the foundations of her Conservatism were built.

“My father was redundant for about three or four years and that was a really difficult time,” she says. “Financially, times were tough for our family... it put a huge burden on my mum. And that was a wake-up moment for me... I really saw the significance of my education, and I saw it as a ladder, and I saw that it was precious.”

Recalling seeing her mother work “so hard”, she adds: “I realised they were putting what little money they had into my education. I thought: I can’t mess this up, I’ve got to take it seriously, and I started applying myself. I was a solid student, I really loved school. I was one of those annoying kids that got involved in everything and asked a lot of questions.”

Seemingly inspired by their daughter winning a place at Queen’s College, Cambridge, both of Braverman’s parents went on to become mature students.

Having carved out a successful – and lucrative – career as a barrister, what on earth made her decide to run as an MP?

Explaining how the Conservative Party became “part of an extended family” after her mother was elected as a Tory councillor in 1990, she suggests it was inevitable she would one day follow.

“I feel very much at home in the Conservative Party, philosophically and also personally. It’s always been a part of my life. And I really do see being elected as an honour,” she says.

Winning her seat in 2015 also appears to have been the proudest moment of her parents’ lives. “It was beyond their wildest dream. It felt like a family achievement for my parents and a symbol of the welcome and tolerance of our country, which is a reason why I love this country so much.”

Earmarked as one of the party’s rising stars, she soon became a vocal Brexiteer, chairing the influential European Research Group (ERG) of Tory backbenchers before Theresa May promoted her to become a Brexit minister in 2018. She worked throughout her first pregnancy; it will be up to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), rather than the Government, to decide whether ministerial maternity rights should be extended amid lobbying by a number of female MPs, including Stella Creasy, who is expecting her second child this autumn.

Braverman is unequivocal when it comes to pregnant women facing discrimination in the workplace. Last week, former estate agent Alice Thompson was awarded £185,000 by an employment tribunal after being denied the right to work shorter hours to pick her daughter up from nursery.

“I really hope that by taking this action, the Government sends a message to employers, right around the country, to look more closely at their maternity leave policies and ask themselves whether their female employees are treated fairly,” Braverman says. “Are they valued as a team member or seen as a problem?”

It may have been designed to help the women of Westminster, but as she returns to her role as the highest legal adviser in the land, Braverman has high hopes Gabriella’s Law will be of benefit to working mothers everywhere.