Smoking ban: Liz Truss takes aim at ‘unelected’ health department officials

Former PM launches apparent attack on civil servants over plans she said had been put in the bin'

Liz Truss has blamed unelected individuals" in the Department of Health and Social Care for the government's planned smoking ban as she launched an apparent attack on civil servants such as the chief medical officer for England, Sir Chris Whitty.

The former prime minister also claimed Therese Coffey, her friend and health secretary in Truss's short-lived government, had put the plans in the bin" but that they had re-emerged like a bad penny".