The MP Mel Stride has been appointed as the new secretary of state at the Department of Work and Pensions, by Rishi Sunak’s in his first cabinet reshuffle.
Stride, the MP for Central Devon, was Sunak’s campaign manager during his bid to become Prime Minister.
Stride replaces Chloe Smith as secretary of state. He has previously held a number of senior government roles, including Leader of the House of Commons, Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General.
He has also chaired the influential Treasury Select Committee.
Punter Southall Aspire CEO Steve Butler welcomed the appointed but said a period of stability was needed within the DWP: “We are now on our third Work and Pensions Secretary this year. Change of leadership in the department is not conducive to delivering the long-term reform that the pensions system needs.
“The pensions system is critical to the UK’s financial wellbeing. The cost-of-living crisis will inevitably impact the living standards of retirees and deter people from saving for the long term – we are already seeing evidence of this. It is vital that the government provides help to people during this crisis, but I also want to see the government tackle structural issues within the pensions system to improve and encourage lifetime savings in Britain.
He says that there were three major issues that the new Work and Pensions Secretary must address:
- Auto enrolment rules need to be changed to address the gender pension gap and help women save more. Changes should allow employers to continue to contribute to AE pensions while women are on maternity leave. He addsthat the minimum age and salary level for AE should also be lowered so that younger or part-time workers can save – this would also benefit female employees.
- Rules for accessing pension savings and annual savings allowances must be more flexible to reflect that we’re living longer and spending more time in retirement. He says the Money Purchase Annual Allowance is a major blocker to true pension freedom, and it should be reformed so that people aren’t penalised for accessing their long-term savings.
- The DWP needs to build awareness of the Pension Tracing Service to help people locate their lost pensions. There is nearly £20bn in unclaimed pensions, so the government should be doing more to encourage people to find their misplaced savings.
Commenting on the appointment Quilter’s head of retirement policy Jon Greer says the DWP needed a period of stability, with a minister in place to oversee longer term changes to the pensions landscape.
“Pensions by their very nature are long-term and complicated and Stride needs to take this role on for the long term and not use it has a springboard into another role so that any changes in policy are carefully planned and crucially don’t create unintended consequences,” he says.
It is not yet been announced when the new minister for pensions Alex Burghart, also appointed by Liz Truss just a month ago, will remain in his post or be replaced as part of a wider reshuffle.
Yesterday Sunak also confirmed that Jeremy Hunt would remain as chancellor with John Glen being appointed as chief secretary to the Treasury.