Pensions Minister addresses AMNT on 10th anniversary

Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion Guy Opperman MP gives a high level overview of the pensions scene for member nominated trustees, followed by Q&A session. Immediately after this the AMNT will discuss the new groundbreaking report into the challenges that trustees face in trying to get their voting policies implemented by fund managers and how best to overcome them. Session chaired by Janice Turner, Founding Co-Chair of AMNT. 

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1st December 2020 at 10:30 - 12:00

Speakers

Guy Opperman

Guy Opperman MP

Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion

Guy Opperman was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions on 14 June 2017.

He served as a Government Whip (Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury) from 17 July 2016 to 14 June 2017. He was elected Conservative MP for Hexham in May 2010.

Guy previously served as Private Parliamentary Secretary to Mark Harper, the then Immigration Minister. He served as an Assistant Government Whip from May 2015 until July 2016.

Guy was called to the bar in 1989. He spent 20 years as a barrister and was also Director of his family’s engineering business until 2009.

Guy was educated at Harrow School, he went on to read law at the University of Buckingham. He also gained a first class diploma from the University of Lille.

Guy is an amateur jockey and rode his first win in 1985.

The minister’s responsibilities include:

  • pensioner benefits, including new State Pension, Winter Fuel Payments and Pension Credit
  • State Pension age review
  • financial inclusion and guidance, including the Single Financial Guidance Body, Credit Union Expansion Project and Post Office Card Accounts
  • private and occupational pensions, including regulatory powers, Automatic Enrolment and the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST)
  • oversight of arms-length bodies, including the Pensions Regulator, Pension Protection Fund, Financial Assistance Scheme and Pensions Ombudsman

AMNT Roundtable Discussion

Janice Turner

Co-Chair AMNT

Janice Turner is founding co-chair of the Association of Member Nominated Trustees. She helped to found the AMNT because she believed that the voices of ordinary member-nominated trustees were not being heard. For over three years she has been putting forward the views of trustees to the industry and the government. In particular she has devoted a lot of time to campaigning in support of defined benefit pension schemes. Janice is a member of the Department for Work and Pensions Trustees Panel and on the Actuarial Users' Committee of the Financial Reporting Council. She has been a guest speaker at Harvard Law School's international pensions and capital stewardship conference. She has been named by Pensions Insight as one of the top 50 most influential people in the pensions industry. Janice's pensions background has been in the defined benefit sphere, having been a member-nominated trustee of the BECTU Staff Retirement Scheme for about 16 years. She has achieved the PMI Level 3 Award in Pensions Trusteeship. Janice is employed at BECTU, the film and broadcasting union, as the Editor of the union's journal Stage Screen & Radio magazine and she is also the union's award-winning diversity officer.

Dr Iain Clacher

Dr Iain Clacher

Pro Dean - International

Dr Iain Clacher is an expert on pensions and retirement savings, most notably on retirement decision-making, pension fund investment and governance, and fund management costs and fees. A central feature of Iain’s academic research is its translation to practice, and it has been used to advise a range of businesses, regulators, and policy makers both in the UK and internationally. He has advised organisations including, The CERN Pension Fund, The City of London Corporation, The Work Foundation, The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, Aon, The Office for National Statistics, and the Financial Conduct Authority. Most recently he was the expert advisor to the European Economic and Social Committee on Pan European Pension Products and was a board member of the Institutional Disclosure Working Group of the Financial Conduct Authority, which established a cost and fee disclosure template for asset management, which in now the industry standard.

Simon howard

Simon Howard

EX-CEO of UKSIF

Simon Howard was Chief Executive of the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (“UKSIF”) from 2013 to 2020.  Prior to that he had a career as a fund manager and Chief Investment Officer at 3i, Friends Provident and LV. Simon became interested in sustainable finance as he saw climate change beginning to bite whilst managing against market-cap weighted indices.

Simon’s team at UKSIF gave considerable attention to fund management. The team played an important role in getting a better understanding of fiduciary duties into pensions legislation and in getting ESG on the agenda of a range of regulators and politicians. In the retail space the UKSIF team grew Good Money Week into the UK’s longest running sustainable finance awareness building campaign. Simon now plans to stay involved in the sustainable finance sector, seeking to help accelerate progress in the fund management area.

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