Even though Liz Truss won’t start forming her government until after she has seen the Queen at Balmoral, many of the top roles are already nailed down. The latest dead cert is Thérèse Coffey, who will be Health Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister. The seniority of this role tells us a number of things. One is that Truss wants her strongest supporters close to her. Not only was Coffey pro-Truss from the outset, she is also one of her closest friends in politics. Linking the deputy and health jobs also signals that the new Prime Minister is taking the NHS backlog seriously.
It would be a bizarre choice for a government to embark on yet another NHS reorganisation just 18 months before an election
That backlog will consume Coffey’s attention. She is a minister known for being across the detail, which bodes well for such a large problem. She is not afraid of asking for more money and having a fight with the Treasury to get it: she stood up to Rishi Sunak over the end of the £20 uplift to Universal Credit when she was Work and Pensions Secretary, for instance.
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