HC Deb 28 January 2002 vol 379 cc38-9W
16. Mr. Heathcoat-Amory

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many uncancelled national insurance numbers there are in issue. [28156]

Malcolm Wicks

As I explained in a reply to the right hon. Member on 7 November last year, the national insurance numbers (NINOs) currently in issue are needed for a variety of purposes.

Since 1998 we have removed over 375,000 NINOs from the system. We are also marking suspected fraudulent NINOs when they are discovered. However our main focus is to tighten up the identification process to prevent false numbers being allocated in the first place.

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