New prime minister Liz Truss is in the process of choosing her cabinet and junior ministers, so what’s changed for pensions? 

 

Truss has appointed Chloe Smith MP to be the new work and pensions secretary. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be led by Simon Clarke MP, while the transport sector – embroiled in disputes with unions over pay and pensions – will have Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP. An announcement about the pensions minister role has not been made yet. 

 

Smith will lead the Department for Work and Pensions, taking over from Thérèse Coffey, who has been promoted to secretary of state for health and social care and to deputy prime minister. 

 

Before taking up politics, Smith had worked at professional services firm Deloitte, describing her role as 'business consultant’ on LinkedIn. 

 

Most recently, for a year the MP for Norwich North had a more junior role in the DWP as minister for disabled people, health and work. She had been moved there having been minister for the constitution and devolution between February 2020 and September 2021. 

 

Elected in 2009, she was parliamentary under secretary of state for Northern Ireland and assistant government whip for the House of Commons from June 2017 to January 2018, before becoming a parliamentary secretary at the Cabinet Office for two years until February 2020 – a role she had already held in 2012-13. Until September 2012, she had been an economic secretary to the Treasury for one year under David Cameron. 

 

So far, there has been no announcement on the pensions minister role. The incumbent Guy Opperman has held the brief since 2017 and is expected to be reappointed despite having backed Rishi Sunak in the Conservative leadership contest. 

 

At DLUHC, Michael Gove – who had also backed Sunak – has been replaced by Clarke as secretary of state for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland is a former chief secretary to the Treasury but had previously had a stint at what was then the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. 

The rebranded department is in charge of the Local Government Pension Scheme and has recently issued a consultation on climate risk reporting by local authority funds. 

   

 

Elsewhere, Trevelyan has taken over the role of transport secretary from outgoing Grant Shapps. She will be faced with labour disputes between rail and underground operators and transport unions that include strike threats at London Underground over potential pension changes the department wants to see plans for.

 

   

The MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed clashed with the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme trustees about a controversial surplus sharing mechanism when she was at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy last year. She resisted calls from the BEIS select committee and the trustees to change the controversial pension surplus sharing agreement, which has meant that £4.4bn has gone to the government instead of pensioners in exchange for a guarantee that to date has never been drawn on. Most recently, she was international trade secretary and president of the board of trade.

We will keep you updated as new announcements are made.