DWP 'has no legal duty to safeguard vulnerable' says Thérèse Coffey

[Borg Refinery]

https://welfareweekly.com/dwp-has-no-legal-duty-to-safeguard-vulnerable-claimants-says-therese-coffey/

Given that you provide services to vulnerable people then if there isn't something in statute, should there be?

"And shouldn't there also be a moral obligation under the government in recognition of the services they provide to vulnerable people?"

Coffey responded: "The line of questions submitted by the Committee ... implied that we had a statutory duty.

"That's why I was being quite careful in trying to point out that we do not. I do not actually think it is the responsibility of DWP to have that statutory duty. We are not the local council, social services, the doctors and other people...

"I want to be clear ... I don't want it to be construed by the Committee or by Parliament that ... we have a legal duty in that regard."
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More info about Therese Coffee..

wiki;

She is a supporter of the Free Enterprise Group.[17]

On 6 July 2011, she defended Rebekah Brooks over the News of the World's involvement in the news media phone hacking scandal. She said a "witch hunt" was developing against Brooks, and that simply to say Brooks was editor of the newspaper at the time was not enough evidence against her. Coffey became a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry into the hacking scandal in 2012. In that committee, she declined to support any motions critical of Rupert and James Murdoch.[18]...Coffey's decision to author a paper for the Free Enterprise Group recommending pensioners should be forced to pay National Insurance provoked a backlash among older constituents, who claimed that in an already tough economic environment, it was wrong to tax pensioners further. However, she said that she had "no regrets writing about National Insurance" and that it was "a policy proposal – it is by no means, at this stage, anymore than that."[27]

Coffey also faced criticism from Suffolk residents over her support for the Government's proposal to sell off forestry and woodland in public ownership, in 2011. Protestors argued that "previous experience shows us that when private landowners come in they close car parks and make access as difficult as possible."[28] Coffey voted for the bill,[29] but the proposal was afterward dropped by the government.[30]

In October 2016, she was criticised by the then Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron for accepting hospitality worth £890 from Ladbrokes after supporting the gambling industry in parliament as part of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Coffey denied that she had been "influenced in her considerations on matters of related policy by any hospitality received".[31]

In January 2016, an amendment intended to force rented homes to be maintained as "fit for human habitation" was defeated in parliament. Coffey was one of the 72 MPs voting against it who were themselves landlords who derived an income from a property.[32]
...
In June 2020, Coffey responded to footballer Marcus Rashford's campaign for free school meals for children during the COVID-19 pandemic by replying "Water cannot be disconnected though" to a tweet from Rashford urging the government to remember Britain's poorest families, and which included the sentence: "When you wake up this morning and run your shower, take a second to think about parents who have had their water turned off during lockdown." Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said "Imagine having priorities so warped that a snarky comment is your response to Marcus Rashford's powerful campaign. Therese Coffey do the right thing: apologise and vote for free school meals for children in poverty this summer." Coffey subsequently deleted her earlier comments and stated her help and support for Rashford.[35][36]

She's a very fine and bigly ostrich, so bigly. She will go far.

Related: https://bylinetimes.com/2019/09/10/therese-coffey-the-worrying-votes-and-views-of-boris-johnsons-latest-right-wing-appointment/

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24771/therese_coffey/suffolk_coastal/votes