PENSIONS minister Steve Webb has made his debut at the House of Commons despatch box and admitted afterwards it was easier asking awkward questions than answering them.

The Thornbury and Yate Liberal Democrat MP appeared on the front bench alongside Conservative Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith at the first departmental question session yesterday.

Mr Webb fielded questions over women's pension rights, and compensation for Equitable Life savers who lost their nest eggs when the organisation was brought to the brink of collapse.

Both are areas he has in-depth knowledge of after campaigning on them for many years.

Last year, Mr Webb handed over a petition with hundreds of signatures from local residents calling on the government to pay out the compensation to victims that it was ordered to by the Parliamentary ombudsman.

For the first 45 minutes of the session, the ministerial team have an idea of the issues MPs will raise, but the last 15 minutes is allocated for topical questions.

Mr Webb told the Evening Post: "The last 15 minutes you really are on your toes because literally anything can come up and it is only half way through the question that the Secretary of State nods in your direction that you should answer it. You have to have your wits about you, it is an awful lot easier to be asking the awkward questions.

"But it was great to actually be able to say we will legislate on this. So much of what is raised is hypothetical but to say on issues like Equitable Life that there is action was great.

"I did have a sense of trepidation on the first question. It's silly things really such as working out which MP is asking the question because there are more than 200 new faces."