§ Dr. Lynne JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) in what circumstances the Benefits Agency informs citizens of gaps in their contributions; and if it is practice to inform citizens in time to make up these contributions before the year in which they reach pensionable age;
(2) what policy or guidelines his Department has laid down for the executive agency on advising married women who have elected to pay reduced contributions about the state of their contribution record;
(3) if he will issue new instructions that married women or widows paying reduced contributions are advised about their records several years before reaching pensionable age in order to be in time to make a choice on changing to full contributions.
§ Mr. HagueApproximately 18 months after the end of each tax year the Contributions Agency issues statements to those people who, according to their records, have paid insufficient national insurance contributions for that year to count towards entitlement for the basic state retirement pension or widows pension.
The statement gives details about the amount of voluntary contributions the person needs to pay to make up the deficiency for that year. Voluntary contributions must be paid within six years of the end of the tax year in question, but in any case they should be paid before the date of claim to retirement pension in order to maximise benefit entitlement.
The statements are targeted towards those who are most likely to benefit from information about the deficiency in their contribution record. There are therefore a number of circumstances where the statements are not issued, for example where the person is aged 59 or over for a woman or aged 64 or over for a man, where no currrent address is held or the person is known to be abroad or where no contributions were received for the year in question and the preceding year. Even so, the latest issue entailed some 3.5 million statements.
Married women who have elected to pay reduced rate contributions were exercising a free choice, no longer 366W available, and would usually expect to rely on their husband's national insurance contribution record in order to qualify for a basic retirement pension. The implications of that choice were set out in an explanatory leaflet accompanying the election form.
This Department does not inform such women of deficiencies in their contribution record because they have exercised a choice not to pay standard rate contributions. It is however open to any person, including women who have elected to pay reduced rate contributions, to request information about their contribution record or a forecast of their expected state retirement pension from the Benefits Agency. If a woman has elected to pay reduced rate contributions, the pension forecast will tell her that if she wishes to improve her benefit position by paying more years of full contributions, she will have to cancel her election to pay reduced rate contributions. From then on she would be able to pay contributions which do count towards retirement pension, subject always to her achieving a minimum entitlement of 25 per cent.
The Department is continually looking at ways of developing procedures to make information even more readily available to people about benefits and contributions.