Every effort must be made to track down people who may be missing out on state pension money due to vital information being absent from their national insurance records, a former pensions minister has urged.
But former Liberal Democrat pensions minister Sir Steve Webb said that, because HMRC is having to make an “educated guess” as to which groups of people are most likely to be affected, it appears likely that not all of those who are being underpaid will receive a letter, meaning some may be dependent on seeing general publicity and proactively putting in a claim.
Sir Steve highlighted the case of a 74-year-old woman living in Cornwall, who was being paid a state pension based on her NI contributions and heard about HRP earlier this year. She made inquiries and was told by HMRC that she had been awarded HRP from 1978/79 to 1988/89.