Mums who were raising children in the 1980s or 1990s are being urged to apply themselves to check if they are owed extra state pension, rather than use a claims management firm that could take a large chunk of any payout.
‘We encourage anyone who thinks they’re missing Home Responsibilities Protection to check if they’re eligible using our online tool,’ says an HMRC spokesman.
‘Claiming via Gov.uk is free and means they will keep 100 per cent of what they’re owed – without having to pay fees of up to 40 per cent to third parties.’
Many older mums have lost out on large sums in state pension due to holes in their National Insurance records, and HMRC is responsible for contacting those people – see below for the cause of the error and what to do if you are affected.
HMRC has paid out £100million in arrears and the average payment is around £8,000.
But it has seen some claims companies charging up to 40 per cent, which is around £3,200 for something people can quickly and easily do themselves for free in about 15 minutes.
Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb, who is now a partner at LCP, says: The claim form for Home Responsibilities Protection is one of the simplest official forms I have come across.
‘Provided that you know the names and dates of birth of your children and a few other bits of information, you should have no trouble filling it in.’
Claiming HRP: Could YOU be owed extra state pension – find out more on how to apply below
Mr Webb, who is This is Money’s pension columnist, adds: ‘With the typical successful application from a pensioner generating thousands of pounds in arrears, this is an opportunity not to be missed if you think this could apply to you.’
HMRC has been publicising the issue since 2023 via hundreds of thousands of letters, social media posts, radio adverts and other communications.
It is urging anyone thinking of using an agent to claim Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) on their behalf to consult its guidance, which explains that you should check an agent’s website to see what tax services they offer.
You should read their terms and conditions so you fully understand the fees you will pay; the legal contract you may be agreeing to; the service you’re signing up for; and that they are aware of and meeting HMRC’s agent standards.
HMRC has a range of powers to deal with agents that are not meeting its standards, and when it receives high volumes of claims via agents this may lead to longer processing times.
The kind of information you will need to supply to HMRC to find out if you are owed state pension due to an HRP error is the names and dates of birth of all of your children, and details of the other parent.
In the event you still have paperwork around child benefit this will help with your claim, but a claim can be successful without any paperwork.
Webb says: ‘The Government has previously admitted that there are probably tens of thousands of parents who should have been awarded HRP and have missed out, and has so far paid out over £100million in state pension arrears where this probably has subsequently been corrected.’
He explains how HRP worked below.
What is Home Responsibilities Protection?
Steve Webb: HRP was replaced by NI credits in 2010
Introduced in 1978/79, HRP is a way of protecting the pension record of parents – mostly mothers – who were not able to make National Insurance Contributions because they were looking after a child, writes Steve Webb.
When HRP was introduced, you could get it for any complete financial year in which you were receiving child benefit for a child who was under 16 for the full year.
From 2010/11 the upper age limit dropped from 16 to 12. But you could not get HRP for any year in which you were paying, or were eligible to pay, the reduced ‘married woman’s stamp’ rate of NI contributions.
For a woman who reached pension age before 2010, you needed 39 years of NI contributions to qualify for a full basic state pension. However, each year of HRP when you were at home with a child knocks one year off your target for a full pension.
So, for example, if you had nine years of HRP, your target for a full pension would fall from 39 years to 30 years.
In April 2010, the rules around HRP changed. For those retiring after this point, all pre 2010 HRP years were converted into full qualifying years and count exactly the same as if you had been in paid work and paying NICs.
The system is now known as NI credits rather than HRP. Women who reached pension age from April 2010 onwards will see these years as full qualifying years on their record.
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Are YOU owed state pension due to missing HRP?
Many elderly parents, mostly mums, have missed out on state pension due to holes in their child benefit records
Some parents aged in their 60s and 70s now, who claimed child benefit between 1978 and 2000, have been affected.
If they have already died, their beneficiaries are in line for payouts.
The blunder happened because it was not compulsory to include NI numbers on child benefit forms until 2000, so parents’ entitlement to state pension got missed off their records.
Child benefit records are deleted five years after the claim ends for data protection reasons.
Therefore, it is impossible now to identify everyone whose record is wrongly missing ‘home responsibilities protection’ – an entitlement which counts towards a state pension, and was replaced by the current system of annual NI credits in 2010.
HMRC has searched through NI records to find as many people as possible with no HRP who might nevertheless have been entitled to it, and has written to those it thinks might have been affected.
If those people make a claim and an error is found, HMRC will update their NI record, and the DWP will recalculate their state pension and let them know whether they are due any arrears. Some backpayments are modest, but others run to tens of thousands of pounds.
If someone suspects a deceased relative was underpaid, a representative – an executor, administrator or next of kin – can make a claim on their behalf.
It is possible to do this online or by post. Go here to make a HRP claim.
There is further guidance on HRP here.
You can call the NI Helpline on 0300 200 3500 for help, and there is also extra support available for people who need it.
You can also contact Steve Webb and This is Money at pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk.
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