HM Revenue and Customs

3. Mrs U complains HMRC rejected her claim for Home Responsibility Protection Credits (HRP). She tells us HMRC rejected her claim because it found she had elected to pay a reduced rate of National Insurance (NI) known as Married Woman’s Reduced Rate Election (MWRRE).

4. Mrs U said HMRC’s decision and its rationale are flawed because her NI record is incorrect.

5. Mrs U tells us she has been receiving a reduced state pension since 2012 because of the mistakes in her NI record. She wants HMRC to look again at its decision to award her HRP and pay any arrears of state pension she has missed out on since 2012.

6. Mrs U tells us she saw an article in a newspaper in December 2023 which raised concerns that NI contribution records for many married women were incorrect.

7. The article advised women who were worried about their NI contribution record to contact HMRC. This represents the date Mrs U became aware of the matters she now complains about.

8. Mrs U contacted HMRC in January 2024 to raise her concerns.

9. HMRC issued its final response on 12 March. It directed Mrs U to the Adjudicator’s Office (AO). The AO is the second tier and final stage of HMRC’s complaints process.

10. Mrs U contacted the AO on 22 May and received its final response on 16 September. It advised Mrs U that she could ask an MP to refer her complaint to our Office if she remained dissatisfied.

11. Mrs U first contacted an MP on 20 June 2025.

14. Before we can look into the concerns someone has raised, we have to check their complaint passes our initial tests. These are set out in the law that covers our work.

15. The law says a person needs to make their complaint to an MP within a year of becoming aware of the problem. We cannot investigate complaints brought to an MP after one year, unless we consider there are clear and strong grounds for doing so.

16. We are satisfied Mrs U became aware of the matters she now complains about in December 2023. We would therefore expect Mrs U to have contacted her MP by December 2024.

17. Mrs U did not contact her MP until June 2025. This means her complaint is around six months outside of our time limit. We will now consider the events in more detail.

18. Mrs U received a final response from the AO on 16 September 2024. The AO advised Mrs U that if she remained dissatisfied, her next step was to ask an MP to refer her complaint to our Office for further review.

19. She did not contact an MP until 20 June 2025. This is around nine months after the AO provided its final response and, as set out above, is over six months outside of our time limit.

20. We asked Mrs U why there was a delay in contacting an MP.

21. Mrs U tells us she spent several days in hospital with pneumonia in October 2024. She said it took several months before she was both physically and mentally well enough to continue with her complaint.

22. Mrs U said she then sent her HMRC complaint paperwork to the Cabinet Office in January 2025. She explains the Cabinet Office had previously assisted her in a dispute concerning her civil service pension and thought it might be able to assist her again.

23. Instead, Mrs U said the Cabinet Office forwarded all her paperwork to HMRC.

24. We are sorry to hear Mrs U was unwell in late 2024 and we are glad she is now feeling better. We also appreciate she must have experienced some frustration when she learned the Cabinet Office had forwarded her documents to HMRC, rather than offering to help her.

25. After taking all this into account, we do not see it is proportionate to put our time limit to one side.

26. While we recognise Mrs U was unwell in late 2024, she appears to have been well enough by January 2025 to send her complaint paperwork to the Cabinet Office.

27. We acknowledge Mrs U thought the Cabinet Office may be able to help her, but we can see the AO had already explained what her next steps were in September 2024. It advised Mrs U to contact an MP who could then refer her complaint to our Office.

28. Had Mrs U contacted an MP in or around January 2025 we would likely have viewed the delay as reasonable, based on her reported illness in late 2024.

29. We do not see the additional five-month delay which resulted from her contact with the Cabinet Office is a good enough reason to put our time limit to one side.

30. For the reasons set out above, we cannot justify exercising our discretion in relation to the time limit and have therefore decided to take no further action in this complaint. we are sorry we are unable to assist Mrs U in the way she would like us to.

31. We recognise our decision will likely come as a disappointment, but we hope Mrs U is assured that we have carefully considered her explanations of delay and that we have clearly explained the reasons for our decision.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs U’s complaint about HMRC. We recognise how important this complaint is to her and we were sorry to hear of her concerns about the service she received from HMRC.

2. The complaint falls outside of our time limit. Having considered the timeline and Mrs U’s reasons for the delay, we have decided we cannot put our time limit aside to consider it further. We have explained our reasoning in this decision statement.