Labour MP for Stockton North Alex Cunningham has been appointed to the post of Shadow Pensions Minister.

Cunningham succeeds Angela Rayner who departed from the position to become shadow minister for education and shadow minister for women and equalities in July this year.

Rayner welcomed her peer writing on Twitter: “Congratulations to my colleague @ACunninghamMP on becoming shadow pensions minister.

Cunningham was formerly shadow minister for environment, food and rural affairs before resigning from the position in the aftermath of the EU referendum.

The new shadow pensions minister also took to Twitter stating: “Delighted 2 accept @Debbie_abrahams invitation 2 join shadow Work and Pensions team as Shadow Pensions Minister. Tories in a right mess on it.”

Cunningham was previously part of the Work and Pensions Committee and has previously stated his support of the WASPI campaign.

Hargreaves Lansdown head of retirement policy Tom McPhail: “It is good news that a new shadow minister has been appointed by the Labour party. There are a number of significant current issues affecting people’s retirement plans on which government policy needs to be subjected to scrutiny and challenge.

“The forthcoming pensions bill, the current review of state pension ages, next year’s auto-enrolment review, the funding and governance of workplace pensions, the development of Nest, as well as broader questions around pension taxation and the ongoing development of retirement savings policy all need to be given due consideration from both sides of the House. After a period of fairly rapid turnover of political personnel dealing with pensions right across parliament, it would be nice to have some stability for a while now.”

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