Thérèse Coffey: the new prime minister’s ‘closest political confidante’

The UK’s new Deputy Prime Minister Thérèse Coffey began her first full day in office by appearing on Nick Ferrari’s morning show on LBC radio. As the new health secretary, it was Coffey’s opportunity to discuss her plans for the NHS and its mounting issues, but the most revealing aspect may have been finding out what song the 50-year-old uses as her 8am alarm.

As Ferrari prepared to ask a question about Coffey’s residences, the opening bars of Still D.R.E by Dr Dre began to play, giving the public perhaps an unexpected insight into the minister’s taste in music.

An MP since 2010, Coffey has “a reputation for partying harder than almost every other MP”, said The Times, but has served in numerous roles in government and been part of the cabinet since 2019. She is a “stickler for detail”, and as a close friend of Prime Minister Liz Truss and her “closest political confidante”, she is likely to have significant influence in the new government.

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What is her background?

Coffey was born in Billinge in Lancashire in 1971 and grew up in Liverpool, attending St Edward’s College before graduating from Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied chemistry. She then went on to gain her PhD in chemistry from University College London.

She became politically active when the “hard-left Militant council” of Liverpool handed redundancy notices to her parents, both teachers, said The Times. Coffey told Sky News that she felt Liverpool was being ruined “by Militant Labour” and decided that “Margaret Thatcher was doing a great job in the rest of the country”.

Coffey worked in roles at Mars and the BBC before unsuccessfully standing in the 2005 General Election in Wrexham. She missed out on being elected to the European Parliament twice – in 2004 and 2009 – but became a Conservative MP in 2010 after winning the election in the Suffolk Coastal constituency, coincidentally not far from the South West Norfolk constituency of her friend Truss, who was elected at the same time.

Before being promoted to cabinet in 2019, Coffey sat on the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee, as well as holding roles as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons and as Minister of State in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Coffey was made Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2019 after Amber Rudd’s resignation, and held that role until Liz Truss took office as prime minister.

She describes herself as a “committed Liverpool fan” according to The Times, and is known for being able to work “without sleep”. A “devout Roman Catholic” she has been accused by a prominent abortion charity of “putting her personal beliefs above expert clinical guidance” according to comments made to the BBC.

Coffey is well known in Westminster for “hosting boozy karaoke sessions”, reported the London Evening Standard, who said a source told the newspaper “she’s famous for loving karaoke and hosting nights for MPs and staff”.

She was criticised in 2021 for appearing in a video performing karaoke at the Conservative Party Conference a day after “she sparked fury” by scrapping an uplift in Universal Credit payments.

What are her beliefs?

According to They Work For You, Coffey has generally voted against gay marriage, and recently voted against allowing access to at-home abortion pills. After becoming health secretary this week, she was criticised by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) for letting “personal convictions stand in the way of women’s ability to act on their own".

Coffey told Sky News that she doesn’t “wear her religion on her sleeve” and that while she “would prefer that people didn’t have abortions” she said she would not “condemn people who do”.

As work and pensions minister Coffey she saw “expansion of universal credit through the coronavirus pandemic and kept unemployment remarkably low”, wrote The Times, but she scrapped the credit uplift in 2021. She also faced controversy after becoming “embroiled in a bitter row” with Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford, said the Evening Standard, after he forced the government to extend its free school meals vouchers.

Since becoming health secretary, Coffey has said she will target an “A, B, C and D of the NHS: ambulance, backlogs, care, and doctors and dentists”. A former advisor to Coffey told the BBC that she has a “proven track record” in delivering as a minister and a “laser-like focus” that will help her in the new role. However, they said that the problems she faces in the NHS “are much more deep-rooted” and will be more difficult to fix than the issues she faced in her previous cabinet role.