Guy Opperman, the U.K.'s longest-serving pensions minister, resigned Thursday amid a wave of top officials in the lead up to Prime Minister Boris Johnson stepping down.
In his resignation letter to Mr. Johnson, Mr. Opperman said the U.K. government "simply cannot function with you in charge."
"It should not take the resignation of 50 colleagues, but sadly the PM has left us no choice. He should resign," Mr. Opperman said in the letter.
Mr. Opperman became parliamentary undersecretary of state for pensions and financial inclusion within the Department for Work and Pensions in June 2017, and last month became the longest serving minister in the role.
In his resignation letter, he said he was proud of what the DWP had achieved, "growing workplace and state pensions to record levels" and passing the Pensions Scheme Act of 2021 "that dramatically reforms pensions in the U.K." Among other changes, the act added reporting and governance rules for pension trustees, including addressing climate-related risk, and expanded the powers of the U.K. Pensions Regulator.
Steve Webb, former pensions minister and now a partner at consulting firm Lane Clark & Peacock, said in an emailed statement that under Mr. Opperman, the U.K. pension system "has benefited from five years of continuity after the 'revolving door' of pensions ministers which we have seen too often in the past. It is hoped that the next minister is also given time to get things done."
Mr. Webb said Mr. Opperman deserves credit for advancing several issues, including tackling climate change and promoting new forms of collective pensions. "But there is a huge agenda of unfinished business. We have made no progress on automatic enrolment in the last five years, policy on superfunds remains in limbo, and too many errors in state pension payments are still unresolved." The next pensions minister "will need a strategy to deal with the Treasury obstruction which has held up progress in pensions policy for so long," Mr. Webb said.
In a separate email, Tim Middleton, director of policy and external affairs at the Pensions Management Institute, said that while the pensions minister's style could be challenging, "nobody could question his determination to achieve significant reforms within the workplace pensions sector," including establishing the pensions dashboard — which has not yet been completed.
"The pensions industry — and the country as a whole — must now prepare itself for a period of instability before normality is to be restored," Mr. Middleton said.
An email to the DWP for further information on a successor to Mr. Opperman was not immediately returned.
