§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many records of individuals were stored in the national insurance record system as at 31 December 2001; how many of these records concerned individuals who are known to be deceased; and in how many of these records there has been no contributions activity since 1 January 2001. [54723]
§ Dawn PrimaroloOn the basis of information held, the position is that 69,852,367 individual records were stored in the national insurance record system at 31 December 2001.
5,987,933 of those concerned individuals who are known to be deceased. Records are retained beyond death because of potential and ongoing claims by dependent spouse.
There has been no contributions activity on 5,784,733 of these records since 1 January 2001.