Another pensions minister. @stevewebb1 & @GuyOpperman the exceptions to the trend. pic.twitter.com/3f9hsmcmva

— Toby Nangle (@toby_n) November 13, 2023

So long Laura, it was good to have you as our Pensions Minister. Having you in post was like playing alongside Lionel Messi when your team’s in the National Conference. We knew that someone would snap you up, but didn’t think you’d jump to Treasury number two this soon. A future prime minister? It has to be on the cards

Your civil servants were in awe of you, your workrate, your ambition, your vision. You left us the Mansion House reforms, or most likely left them to another Government.

You managed to swerve deciding on the new state pension age, you permitted a private member’s bill to pave the way for an extension of auto-enrolment and you did good work on the the pension gender gap.

Your year in charge was however blighted by problems with the state pension , These administrative problems aren’t going away and are going to make the pension minister job a poisoned chalice.

Now you are in a position to take forwards what really matters in the Mansion House reforms, the investment of pension funds into real assets that drive productivity into a stagnating UK economy.

I hope that this promotion keeps you in politics. You weren’t a bulshitter, you never patronised our conferences or interacted on social media. But when your Government needed someone to take the flack at question time , or at parliamentary questions, they relied on you.

We may not see your like again in the Junior Minister’s pension minister post. My surprise is not that you left, but you didn’t get promotion sooner.

But then I didn’t think that you’d climb quite so far up the slippery pole in one go. You may not have been with us long , but you will be remembered as a good pensions minister

Now I’m really looking forward to what comes out on 22nd November from the Autumn Statement!