Mr Lewis has warned that it is now a personal responsibility to check if you’re owed money from ‘Home Responsibilities Protection’
Martin Lewis is urging anyone who had children between 1978 and 2010 to make an urgent check as they “may be owed thousands” by HMRC. Hundreds of thousands of people could receive £10,000s back from HMCR following a “State Pension error”, according to the Money Saving Expert.
If you took time off work from 1978 to 2010 to look after children or someone with a long term disability you could be owed money back due to Government underpayments.
This is because you may have a gap in your National Insurance contributions – that could reduce your State Pension – if you should have received ‘Home Responsibilities Protection’ but you didn’t.
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Posting on X yesterday, Mr Lewis said: “State Pension error! Did you take time off work (1978 to 2010) to look after children or someone with long term disability? You could be owed £10,000s
“In brief: 100,000s wrongly have Nat Insurance gaps that reduce your State Pension as they should’ve got ‘Home Responsibilities Protection’. The Govt was contacting people, but isn’t any longer. Thus the onus is on YOU to proactively check.”
He went on to explain one case where a woman received an incredible £31,000 back from HMRC.
The money-saving guru added: “Cilla emailed us, ‘I’ve just received 15yrs’ back pay from HMRC of £31,674 for underpayment of my pension.'”
It comes after recent figures revealed there is more than £800 million owed by the government in State Pension underpayments.
The figures come after the DWP announced in 2021 that they would be checking hundreds of thousands of pension records to see if people have been underpaid.
One of the State Pension correction exercises it is looking into is the missing historic periods of HRP. Between January 8 and September 30, 2024, the exercise identified 5,344 underpayments, with total arrears of around £42 million.
Sir Steve Webb, a former Liberal Democrat pensions minister, who has been exposing State Pension errors, said the amounts paid out under the current HRP exercise are expected to rise sharply as it gathers momentum.
A previous HRP correction exercise over a decade ago led to State Pension arrears payments of £83 million.
Sir Steve, who is now a partner at consultants LCP (Lane Clark & Peacock), said: “The vast majority of those who lost were women, some of whom were underpaid for decades or even went to their grave never paid the right State Pension.
“The remaining corrections need to be handled as a matter of urgency. This should never be allowed to happen again.”
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Rachel Vahey, head of public policy at AJ Bell, said: “This is one of the biggest benefit scandals of modern times. DWP miscalculations have left thousands of pensioners – mainly women – short on their State Pension payments.
“It is absolutely critical all those affected by this scandal receive the money they are owed as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “Our priority is ensuring pensioners receive the dignity and security they deserve in retirement and that State Pension underpayment rates remain as low as possible.
“We have now completed the vast majority of cases in the exercise as planned with a small number of outstanding cases due to further documentation needed from the customer.”
The DWP recently said that it is expecting to resolve all remaining State Pension underpayment cases by the end of March 2027.
