I had the good fortune to meet with the Paul Maynard, our new pension minister yesterday morning. I won’t go into my agenda , though I hope that I will be able to talk more openly about what we discussed in the new year.
Nor do I want to turn this blog into a gossip column. But since we know very little about our minister, I thought to talk a little about the man.
Although we’ve never met, he greeted me in the Caxton House reception with an “I’m looking forward to speaking with you in a few minutes” and an enormous smile and very engaging laugh.
After the usual meets with his staff , I and a colleague were greeted again by the Minister and his policy people and we got straight down to work.
It didn’t feel like work. Our discussions were punctuated by the infectious good humour coming from the Minister, whose wit was as sharp as his questions.
I should say at this point , that Paul has suffered from Cerebral Palsey all his life. He seems to have overcome this affliction and it never occurred to me, till after we had left the meeting that he was at a physical disadvantage.
Infact nothing in our meeting suggested that this lifelong affliction was getting in the way of his job or his very evident joie de vivre.
He’s from Blackpool and represents Blackpool North where he told me, his average constituent couldn’t expect to live long enough to pick up the state pension. It is one of the most deprived areas of the country.
At no point did the conversation get round to him, but there was much that reminds me of Frank Field in him.
He told me that when they built the motorway to Blackpool , they stopped a few miles short, he likened this to building workplace pensions that stopped a few steps short of providing a pension (more on this later).
My colleague , a financier, mentioned that he’d financed a dome in Blackpool, the Minister replied that “we’ve just pulled it down”. There’s a bluntness about how Paul Maynard talks that kept a smile on my lips throughout.
And it turns out he’s a philatelist, which got the stamp of approval from my financier, indeed it was hard to stop the meeting as it careered off into appreciation of the Victorian postal system (an example if ever there was one – of how Britain does infrastructure right).
The Pension Minister is a good listener, he’s bright and he’s very good fun. As with all Ministers new to the job, he’s way off full speed and he may never get totally on top of his brief, he has but a brief year before what looks a difficult election at which he has a very small majority to defend.
But if people win their seat on character, I would expect to see Paul Maynard in parliament, the other side of a general election.
