A new Pensions Minister has been appointed after previous incumbent Laura Trott MP was promoted to be Chief Secretary to the Treasury in today's Cabinet reshuffle.

The new minister is Paul Maynard MP.

Ms Trott was Pensions Minister for just over a year having been appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions in October 2022.

Earlier this year she announced a major shake-up of private pensions to create “fairer, more predictable, and better-run pensions.” 

Ms Trott became a political adviser in the Number 10 Policy Unit in 2011 under David Cameron when he was Prime Minister and rose to become head of strategic communications by 2016. As a thanks for her work he awarded her an MBE in his resignation honours list.

She became an MP in 2019, winning the safe Tory seat of Sevenoaks.

The role of Pensions Minister has seemingly become a short-term one in recent years. The previous Pensions Minister before Laura Trott lasted just 37 days. Alex Burghart was appointed by former PM Liz Truss on 20 September 2022 and lost the role on 27 October 2022.

Before him Guy Opperman MP held the role for more than five years, from July 2017 to September 2022. But that still means four different people will have held the title Pensions Minister in little over a year.

Jon Greer, head of retirement policy at Quilter, said: "The tenure of any Pensions Minister should ideally be marked by stability and a long-term commitment, reflective of the very nature of pension planning itself. As such Laura Trott has been unable to achieve much in practice, which is possibly simply down where we are in the political cycle rather than due to her ability.

"She has overseen the start of reforms designed to bring fairness, predictability and better retirement outcomes for those invested in defined contribution schemes. However, while it may have been outside of her control, there has been a notable lack of specific political commitment to important policy issues like Collective Defined Contribution schemes (CDC), Defined Benefit superfunds, value for money framework and small pot consolidation. Without this commitment from the wider government, it is unclear what the timelines will be which leaves the industry in a state of flux."

In other Cabinet changes announced today, James Cleverly becomes Home Secretary, replacing Suella Braverman, and former Prime Minister David Cameron returns as Foreign Secretary and has been elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Cameron. Victoria Atkins becomes the new Health Secretary while Steve Barclay, formerly Health Secretary, replaces Therese Coffey as Environment Secretary