Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the requirement to have 35 qualifying years of national insurance contributions to be eligible for a full state pension is set out in correspondence sent to people in relation to (a) their national insurance record and (b) their state pension.

Reforms to the State Pension were recommended by the Pensions Commission in 2005, which was set up under the then Labour Government. These recommendations were taken forward in the design of the new State Pension by the coalition Government.

Since 2014, the Department for Work and Pensions has carried out a comprehensive communication campaign to bring the new State Pension to people’s attention with advertisements in newspapers, on social media and on radio stations across the country as well as working through Stakeholders to raise public awareness of the changes. There is also a significant package of on-line information about the State Pension at www.gov.uk.

Our online service, Check your State Pension (CySP), is key in supporting the communication campaign. This service provides a State Pension forecast (based on the individual’s current National Insurance record and an assumption that future years count towards their State Pension), and the earliest date the individual can get their State Pension. Users can look at their National Insurance record, where they will also find out how many qualifying years they have and any gaps in their contributions. Since February 2016, over 10 million State Pension forecasts have now been viewed online, helping millions of people to plan for their retirement. Those who are unable to use the online CySP service can request to get a State Pension forecast posted to them.

The CySP service also gives personalised information on whether the payment of (Class 3) voluntary National Insurance Contributions (vNICs) may improve their forecast. Whether or not an individual can improve their State Pension position by making vNICs will depend upon their own particular circumstances. It is entirely a decision for the individual to make but it may not always be beneficial. A person normally has six years in which to pay vNICs for a given tax year.

Anyone considering making vNICs payments should firstly check their State Pension using the CySP service on www.gov.uk. Where someone pays Class 3 vNICs and the payment does not result in an increase their State Pension, they can request a refund from HMRC.

People with no National Insurance record before the introduction of the new State
Pension on 6 April 2016 will need 35 qualifying years to get the full amount of new State Pension, when they reach State Pension age.

For people with an existing National Insurance record before this date, transitional arrangements apply and their existing National Insurance (NI) record to 6 April 2016 is taken into account. (It is therefore not the case that 35 years of National Insurance will result in the full rate of the new State Pension for these people; in these cases there is usually not a direct relationship between the number of years of National Insurance contributions and the amount of State Pension someone receives.)

People who qualify will receive at least as much from the new State Pension as they would have done from the old system, based on their NI record to 6 April 2018;

Many people will be able to build a higher State Pension amount than they previously could have done by adding further qualifying years until they either reach the full rate of new State Pension, or their State Pension age whichever comes first