Ex-deputy PM Therese Coffey claims civil servants advised her to break the law
Former deputy prime minister Baroness Therese Coffey has claimed she was advised by civil servants to knowingly break the law.
Lady Coffey, who also held several other cabinet positions, including work and pensions secretary, health secretary and environment secretary, became a Conservative peer earlier this year.
She told the House of Lords on Friday: “There were several occasions when I was advised by civil servants to knowingly break the law.
“Now, they may have only been minor infringements, but I challenge about how is that possible under the Civil Service Code that, in your advice and in your inaction, you are advising me to knowingly break the law? And I wasn’t prepared to do it.”
Code
Lady Coffey went on to recall another situation when she felt the Civil Service Code was not adhered to.
She said: “I learned that my shadow secretary of state had written to me on Twitter, and I knew it because he also published my response to him on Twitter.
“I’d never seen the letter from the shadow secretary of state. I had never seen the letter written in my name, but there it was: my response and my signature.
“And these sorts of things, unfortunately, in the Civil Service Code should be more serious than it was.”
The Tory peer added: “Sometimes people try and suggest it’s just politicians trying to do this, that and the other.
“I’m not accusing the Civil Service, but their job is to try and manage and, ultimately, I could go on about another legal case where I was named as the defendant.
“I didn’t know until a ruling had come against me, formally.
“These things, I’m afraid, do happen.”
Swipe
Her comments came as peers debated a report from the Constitution Select Committee entitled Executive Oversight And Responsibility For The UK Constitution.
Lady Coffey was deputy prime minister in the Liz Truss government in September and October of 2022.
After her brief premiership, Ms Truss took swipes at the Civil Service and blamed the so-called deep state for “sabotaging” her.
Speaking at a conference in the US in 2024, the former prime minister said: “I wanted to cut taxes, reduce the administrative state, take back control as people talked about in the Brexit referendum.
“What I did face was a huge establishment backlash and a lot of it actually came from the state itself.”
Ms Truss added: “Now people are joining the Civil Service who are essentially activists.
“They might be trans activists, they might be environmental extremists, but they are now having a voice within the Civil Service in a way I don’t think was true 30 or 40 years ago.”
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Wasn’t it her party that set a precedent that the law could be broken in a “specific and limited way”.
This specimen utterly failed in all posts and then got elevated to the Lords.
Why would I believe her when her own minister at the time of brexit said they will break the law regarding brexit in a “very specific and limited way”.
Sadly despite the messenger the message has a ring of truth about it. The Civil Service is totally out of control and a feral loose group with its own agenda. How mishaps like the abuses arising out of the Windrush Affair could come about or how the frankly criminal way the blood transfusion scandal could be handled beggars belief. And that is still ongoing like the now two Post Office scandals. Exactly how these errors continually fail to be put right is a mystery.
Wasn’t she the person who admitted to distributing her unused prescription medication (aka dealing drugs). Which is not just illegal, but also risks increasing antibiotic resistance.
“I was only following orders.” Hmm?
If you break the law, blame a civil servant. Does that not count as conspiracy to pervert the course of justice – compounding one offence with another? At this rate we should stick an ankle tag on her and put her on 9pm-7am house arrest for oh, I don’t know, six months should do it.