Recommendation 29

In our January 2022 report, we warned that, given the nature of underpayments identified, there was a risk that similar, unidentified errors existed in the State Pension caseload.60 In 2021–22 the Department identified several new groups of pensioners potentially affected by underpayment, the most significant relating to Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP). For people reaching State Pension age before 6 April 2010, HRP reduced the number of qualifying years of National Insurance contributions needed for a basic State Pension where someone stayed at home to care for children for whom they received Child Benefit or a person who was sick or disabled. The Department identified that HRP was missing from the National Insurance records of claimants who should have been entitled to it. National Insurance records are held and maintained by HMRC, which was unaware of the issue until the Department flagged it.61 We asked the Department what was its best estimate of the scale of the underpayments as a result of HRP. The Department explained that it did not yet know the extent of the underpayment in relation to HRP because it was dependent on HMRC to help identify affected cases before it could estimate the total value of any underpayment and reimburse pensioners.62