South Wales Echo

Rudd successor will be ‘brilliant’

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PRIME Minister Boris Johnson has replaced Amber Rudd only hours after she stunned Westminste­r by quitting the Cabinet and the Tory Party.

Therese Coffey MP, an environmen­t minister and MP for Suffolk Coastal, has been promoted to Work and Pensions Secretary.

Elected in 2010, Ms Coffey is a former deputy Commons leader and was appointed as environmen­t minister by Theresa May.

The Liverpool FC fan backed Remain during the EU referendum in 2016 and voted against legalising gay marriage in 2013.

She holds up former Tory leader Margaret Thatcher as her political hero.

Ms Coffey, who has a doctorate in chemistry, told Conservati­ve Home in 2010: “She stood up for Britain, for enterprise and for freedom. Plus she is the only science graduate ever to have been PM.”

Her predecesso­r Ms Rudd resigned after suggesting the Government was aiming to take the UK out of the EU without a deal.

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, the Hastings & Rye MP said the PM failed to satisfy her that the Government was doing enough to negotiate an agreement with Brussels.

She said: “I have not seen enough work going into actually trying to get a deal.

“When I asked Number 10 for a summary of what the plan was for actually getting a deal, I was sent a one-page summary.”

Ms Rudd has already congratula­ted her successor, tweeting: “Congratula­tions to my good friend @theresecof­fey on her appointmen­t as Secretary of State @DWP. I know she will do an excellent job in a first rate department.” Internatio­nal Trade Secretary Liz Truss called it an “absolutely brilliant appointmen­t”.

Ms Coffey comes to the Cabinet amid deep political turmoil with Downing Street at loggerhead­s with Parliament over the future on Brexit.

The PM is in a stand-off with the Opposition and is threatenin­g to disobey a new law demanding that the divorce negotiatio­ns are extended until January 2020.

Ms Coffey, having served in the Department for Environmen­t, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for the past three years, will be well-versed in Brexit and no-deal planning.

Defra is set to be one of the department­s most affected by Britain’s divorce from Brussels given its close ties to EU rules on food safety standards, farming and fishing.

Before being promoted, one of her responsibi­lities was improving air quality after the Government was reprimande­d a number of times in the courts for failing to tackle rising levels of pollution.

She will now have to get to grips with the controvers­ial Universal Credits roll-out, a long-running Government reform which has amalgamate­d a host of benefits.

There have been reports of recipients being plunged into poverty after being enrolled in the scheme, with critics calling for its roll-out to be paused.

 ??  ?? Amber Rudd, left, and Therese Coffey
Amber Rudd, left, and Therese Coffey

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