By Abbie Llewelyn
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: 鈥淭here were several occasions when I was advised by civil servants to knowingly break the law.
鈥淣ow, 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鈥檛 prepared to do it.鈥
Lady Coffey went on to recall another situation when she felt the Civil Service Code was not adhered to.
She said: 鈥淚 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.
鈥淚鈥檇 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.
鈥淎nd these sorts of things, unfortunately, in the Civil Service Code should be more serious than it was.鈥
The Tory peer added: 鈥淪ometimes people try and suggest it鈥檚 just politicians trying to do this, that and the other.
鈥淚鈥檓 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.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know until a ruling had come against me, formally.
鈥淭hese things, I鈥檓 afraid, do happen.鈥
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 鈥渟abotaging鈥 her.
Speaking at a conference in the US in 2024, the former prime minister said: 鈥淚 wanted to cut taxes, reduce the administrative state, take back control as people talked about in the Brexit referendum.
鈥淲hat I did face was a huge establishment backlash and a lot of it actually came from the state itself.鈥
Ms Truss added: 鈥淣ow people are joining the Civil Service who are essentially activists.
鈥淭hey 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鈥檛 think was true 30 or 40 years ago.鈥