Ask a member of parliament why parents have to wait three years for the National Pension to be revised

• Many parents do not claim child benefit if they are not eligible for it.
• Missed credits are worth around £300 a year, or £6,000 after 20 years of retirement.
• Waiting to apply for lost credit? Let us know: pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk

MPs questioned the three-year delay in filling holes in parents’ state pensions and called for details of a “simplification” plan to help parents claim the valuable credit.

After years of ignoring their pleas, the government revealed last spring that parents who make mistakes over child support can have their state pension records repaired.

Last month, it announced that insurance claims would be allowed from April 2026.

But MPs on the Finance Committee objected to the wait and also asked whether eligible parents would be proactively identified and encouraged to come forward.

“If not, why not?” Will there be an advertising campaign to encourage those who may have missed out on the application? If so, is there a budget for this? ?” Chair Harriet Baldwin said in a recent letter to HMRC.

HMRC responded that it was prioritizing announcing details of the policy before implementation in order to “provide certainty to affected individuals as soon as possible”.

It said it could not specify who would be targeted, but added that it would promote the changes through the UK government, social media channels, parenting groups and media commentators.

Former pensions minister Steve Webb said the plan felt like a “band-aid” solution, but it was “better than nothing”. He is calling for his parents’ state pension credit to be linked to their birth registration. See below for details.

Mothers who were denied public pension benefits can receive them.

It is a five-year campaign for fair treatment for parents, mainly mothers, who are not eligible for child benefit but who stand to lose tens of thousands of pounds in retirement if they don’t claim anyway. This is the money I went to.

Missing one year of credits can result in a loss of 1/35 of your state pension amount. Around £300 a year at current rates, over his standard 20 year retirement period he will earn over £6,000.

Have you missed out on your National Pension credits?

If you’re a parent waiting for a hole in your state pension record to be fixed, we’d like to hear your story.

We would also like to hear from grandparents who were unable to receive credit due to this issue, and we hope this issue will be resolved.

Also, have you already purchased top-ups to make up for the National Pension entitlement years you assumed were lost?

Please tell me here. child allowance Subject: pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk

By the time of last year’s government cuts, some parents who had unknowingly had a 10-year gap in their National Insurance records stood to lose £60,000 in retirement if they didn’t fill the gap somehow. Some people were.

Many new mums and dads say they had no idea that an innocent misunderstanding of vague child benefit rules could have a dramatic impact on the amount of state pension they receive decades later.

They believed that children should not claim child benefit if they were not entitled to it.

The government has now announced that the changes will cover all affected parents, going back to the 2013 review of child benefit after finally abandoning its defense of the current National Pension rules.

The Act previously stated that parents must claim child benefit within three months of giving birth to ensure they receive all State Pension Credit due to them, regardless of whether they are entitled to a payment or not. was making a point.

Child benefit will be reduced for those earning more than £50,000 a year and cut off completely for those earning more than £60,000.

Parents can submit a claim for Child Benefit, but opt ​​out of receiving payments by checking a box and can only receive State Pension Credit. Those who have not yet done so are being urged to do so by HMRC.

Steve Webb, Money’s pensions columnist and partner at LCP, launched a high-profile petition in 2018 calling for his mother’s pension entitlement to be fully retroactive rather than just three months. Raised.

However, the government rejected his call, saying it was too difficult to verify child benefit claims that were over three months old.

Mr Webb said today: “Creating yet another NI credit to provide relief to those who put off claiming child benefit and were unable to get the first NI credit is certainly a ‘band-aid’ solution. It feels like a ploy,” he said.

It feels like a ‘band-aid’ solution to create yet another NI credit to provide relief to those who put off claiming child benefit and didn’t get the first NI credit. Steve Webb, former pensions minister

“It’s better than doing nothing, but ultimately it’s not a good place to be.

“The challenge is certainly to take it up, given that the route to getting credit (claiming child benefit but checking ‘credit only’ on the form) is not working, making sure the right people take it up.” Are you sure you can claim new credits now?

Mr Webb said that ideally the problem needed to be tackled at its root, and if the government did not abolish the high-income levy, the best solution would be to break the link between child benefit claims and credit. There is.

“For me, the obvious thing to do is to link credits to birth registration. It’s not perfect (some people register their birth and still don’t qualify for benefits), but it’s more systematic.

“So, in my view, new credits can be helpful if they can be claimed retrospectively to resolve past issues, but ideally we will not rely on this approach going forward.”

John Greer, head of retirement policy at financial services firm Quilter, said MPs criticized HMRC for how long it would take to introduce the new rules and whether they would actually simplify the system or make it more complex. He said that

“Given frozen income tax and high-income child benefit thresholds, and high inflation-driven wage growth, this issue is becoming increasingly relevant.

“If the HICBC had risen in line with inflation, we would now be paying around £65,000 in tax, and according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, there would be an additional 2.1 million higher rate taxpayers and 350,000 more people in five years’ time. There will be more additional rate taxpayers.”

“Many of these taxpayers who are also parents may not have claimed child benefit because they mistakenly believed that child benefit would not benefit them. There is a misunderstanding that it is necessary to go through defamatory proceedings.”

Mr Greer said the Treasury Committee’s concerns about HMRC’s approach to rectifying this issue showed that there was a three-year delay and that questions remained about the effectiveness and scope of this initiative.

“Relying on basic communication channels such as parenting groups may not be enough. This is especially true for parents whose children are over 16 and do not participate in these groups.

“The committee also questioned the labeling of this initiative as ‘simplification’, arguing that it could add complexity to an already complex tax system and create burdens for both individuals and HMRC. did.”

What are MPs saying and what are HMRC’s plans?

Chair of the Finance Committee, Harriet Baldwin MP, asked HMRC the following questions about its legislative plans to enable parents and carers who have not claimed child benefit to claim NI credit (see her letter Read the full text here).

– Why was this policy announced as a “simplification”, even though it seems that further contact with the tax system is needed?

– The announcement states that those affected will be able to make a claim from April 2026. This initiative was first announced in his April 2023. Why did it take him three years to implement it? Did he advise the Treasury that the scheme could not be launched sooner?

– Will HMRC proactively identify those eligible to claim and encourage them to claim proactively? If not, why not?

– Is there an advertising campaign to encourage people who may have missed a claim to claim? If so, is there a budget for this?

Jim Harra, chief executive of HMRC, made the following points in his response (read his letter in full here):

– The Ministerial Statement reiterates four principles of simplification, one of which is that “tax policy should not unnecessarily distort taxpayer decisions and lead to uninformed choices.” That is what it is.

Child benefit claim rates have fallen over the past decade, so individuals may be unintentionally missing out on NI credits associated with child benefit claims. The measures will provide a route for parents who miss out on the state pension to fill gaps in their NI records.

This measure will be delivered through HMRC online and app services to minimize the number of interactions individuals need to have with HMRC and ensure a positive customer journey.

– The Government wants to provide affected individuals with certainty as soon as possible that they will be able to claim NI credits and fill any gaps in their state pension, and has confirmed that it will publish details of the policy ahead of implementation. It’s a priority.

HMRC continues to advise customers eligible to claim child benefit that child benefit is the primary route to accessing credit.

Implementation of the credit is dependent on both the passage of legislation and the development of IT systems, and work undertaken to date on IT development suggests that the earliest possible delivery date is April 2026. Masu.

Individuals will not be penalized by this implementation schedule as they will be able to claim NI credits for previous periods back to 2013.

– HMRC continues to advise customers who are eligible to claim child benefit that child benefit is the primary route to accessing credit.

In relation to communicating with eligible customers, HMRC will not be able to identify individuals who were eligible for child benefit but did not claim. This is because without a child benefit claim it is not possible to establish who is responsible for the child and therefore who is entitled to child benefit.

However, HMRC and DWP will promote the NI Credit through relevant channels, including existing child benefit communications on GOV.UK, social media channels and availability through third party parenting groups. HMRC and DWP will also liaise with media commentators and all other relevant parties.

What else does HMRC say?

An HMRC spokesperson said: “This change will allow parents who have never claimed Child Benefit before to be able to claim important National Insurance deductions back to 2013.”

“We are raising awareness of this change and developing a comprehensive plan to ensure parents do not miss out on their state pension entitlement.”

HMRC says the earliest possible enforcement date for the measure is April 2026, adding that this will require both legislative and IT changes. Affected parents will be able to retroactively apply for her NI credit online.