BBC expert shares 'deeply frustrating' HMRC rule affecting women born before April 1950

BBC expert shares 'deeply frustrating' HMRC rule affecting women born before April 1950 The rule has been criticised by one of the UK's top pensions experts One of the UK's top pensions experts has criticised a HMRC state pension rule he says is 'deeply frustrating'. Sir Steve Webb, a former UK government pensions minister, said the issue affects many women who reached pension age before April 2010 - and were thus born before April 1950. Sir Steve is a partner with pension consultants LCP who often appears on TV and radio in programmes including the Martin Lewis Money Show, Radio 4 Moneybox, and BBC Breakfast. He raised his concerns as he shared the story of a woman whose case he has investigated recently. The woman is in her seventies and came to him about an issue she had faced with the way her state pension had been worked out. Sir Steve explained the rules that affected her case - rules that could apply to many other women from that period. And he said one aspect of the regulations in particular is 'deeply frustrating'. The expert said that in the 1970s, the woman had paid something called the married woman's reduced stamp. This was a reduced rate of national insurance that allowed married women effectively to opt out of building a pension in their own right, Sir Steve said. What is the married woman's reduced stamp? The government's gov.uk web page on the issue explains that until April 1977, married women could choose to pay a reduced rate of National Insurance. Explaining the rule, Sir Steve said the woman on the stamp would get a 60% married woman's pension when her husband retired. As a result, she saved the money at the time but got less state pension later. But he told followers of his YouTube channel Steve Webb Explains that things changed in 1978. Sir Steve said that in that year, the ability to opt to pay the reduced stamp ended. What happened to woman on married woman's reduced stamp after 1978? Sir Steve said that 4 million women were paying at the reduced rate when it ended. Under the changes, they were allowed to continue at the reduced rate if they wanted to. Yet the catch was that if they had a 2-year gap later and then went back to work, they would have to pay at the full rate - and he explained that that is roughly what happened to the woman who contacted him, who had worked at the reduced rate, had children in the 1970s and then returned to work in the mid-1980s. But she raised with Sir Steve the issue of Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP). This was a scheme to help protect parents’ and carers’ State Pension. It aimed to protect, in part, their National Insurance contributions while they were out of work raising children. The government says people should have received HRP automatically if between 6 April 1978 and 5 April 2010 they were awarded Child Benefit for a child under 16; Income Support because they were looking after a sick or disabled person and were not available for work. National Insurance credits replaced HRP in 2010. How did HRP affect women on the reduced stamp? Sir Steve said that "when HRP was introduced, it was decided not to give it to women who are on the reduced stamp on the basis these women had effectively opted out of the system altogether." Later, after the 2-year gap passed and she returned to work, the woman should have qualified. But she said there was no mention of HRP in her online record. She said she was not getting it in the years before she went back to work in 1985. This is where the 'deeply frustrating' issue comes in. Sir Steve looked into her case. He said that in fact she was getting four years of HRP. "But annoyingly, HMRC don't display this on your online record," he said. "There are various technical reasons for this, but none of them I find convincing and it would help everyone if they did. "So for women who reach pension age before April 2010, your HRP could be present but not shown on your online record. So you have to phone them up and ask." He said that all women who paid the reduced rate and could carry on doing so did not get HRP. He said: "But when that lapsed, they could get HRP, but the women who reached pension age before April 2010 can't see that on their online record, which is deeply frustrating." In his column on the issue, Sir Steve also said of the lack of online record for people getting HRP: "This is true for anyone who reached pension age before April 2010." An HMRC spokesman told This Is Money, where Sir Steve also wrote about the story: "We’re happy to reassure your reader that her National Insurance record is correct and that Home Responsibilities Protection has been correctly applied." If you think Home Responsibilities Protection is missing from your National Insurance record, contact HMRC. The government says you may have missed out if your National Insurance number was not linked to your Child Benefit claim at the time. This could lead to underpayment of your State Pension. For more, visit the gov.uk web page. To find out more about Reduced rate National Insurance for married women, visit the government web page on the topic. To see more videos from Sir Steve, visit his YouTube page.