§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what estimate he has made of the(a) value, (b) percentage and (c) numbers of national insurance contributions that were received by the Inland Revenue but remained unrecorded on an individual's national insurance record, in each of the last 10 years; [102603]
(2) what assessment he has made of the number of occasions in each of the last 10 years where national insurance contributions were deducted by employers and passed to the Government but not allocated to individual national insurance records; and if he will make a statement. [102608]
§ Dawn PrimaroloThe Inland Revenue estimate that around 50 million end of year contribution returns are received each year. Around 4 per cent. of these contain incomplete or incorrect identifying details and cannot be allocated to an individual national insurance account without further information. Most of these non-matching items have no or little impact on people's benefit entitlements. The Inland Revenue works with employers to trace and match contributions, concentrating on cases where they are likely to have a significant impact on entitlement. Information about the value of these and number of contributions received254W but which remain unrecorded on individual's national insurance records for each of the last 10 years would be available only at disproportionate cost.