“I was asked to be at the Department for Work and Pensions, and I rang up Damian [Green, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions] and asked if I can have pensions and he said fine. So I asked for this and I'm glad to be doing it.”

Under Secretary of State for Pensions Richard Harrington was determined to show his passion for his pensions role when speaking to delegates at the PLSA 2016 annual conference today. As he said: “You are all in the industry and you should at least know who I am.”

Explaining his philosophy as a Minister, he stated that he “was not a crony of anyone”, despite knowing both Prime Minister Theresa May and his boss Damian Green at university.

“People think I'm here to do Theresa's dirty work or some other stooge or that he's an non-entity, so I thought I should explain the actual background to it,” he said, and explain he did.

The still quite new Pensions Minister never considered a career in pensions until recently, stating that eight or nine years ago the idea never crossed his mind, and upon entering politics, his friends thought he was having a “mid-life crisis”.

In contrast to many people who are “lifetime political hacks”, having the previous two Pensions Ministers being known to the industry they cover is quite unusual, he stated

“I do have an advantage I think over my two immediate predecessors, only in one way; it so happens that the key Ministers at the Treasury happen to be good personal friends of mine. I think sometimes personal relationships help a lot,” he added.

Richard Harrington is the Conservative MP for Watford and was appointed Pensions Minister within the Department for Work and Pensions in July this year.

Harrington became the MP for Watford in 2010 and was re-elected in 2015. Previously, he was the newly-created Under Secretary of State for Syrian Refugees, holding the position from September 2015 until 16 July 2016.

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