Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb has called for the present freeze on deleting state pension records to be extended so errors affecting deceased people can carry on being investigated.
Old records are normally wiped four years after both an individual and their spouse have died, but the Government started retaining all of them after Webb and This is Money uncovered widespread underpayments five years ago.
Webb says due to the number that has built up, millions of state pension records could be deleted immediately when the embargo is lifted.
This is understood to be in place until the end of next year, with no decision taken yet to revert back to business as usual.
But Webb is demanding a firm public commitment to retain state pension records for as long as necessary to resolve errors known about now, and others which may arise in the future.
He says his attempts to find out officially when the freeze will end, or when a decision is likely to be taken about it, have been unsuccessful to date.
State pension underpayments: Steve Webb fears bereaved families could lose out due to undiscovered errors if freeze on record deletions is lifted
He has written to the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, asking him to put a hold on restarting what could be a massive deletions programme until it is absolutely clear these records are of no further value.
There is still a live investigation into errors that created holes in many mums’ National Insurance records, points out Webb, who is This is Money’s retirement columnist and a partner at pensions consultant LCP.
Earlier this year, relatives who waited years to find out if their late mothers had lost out on state pension were outraged after learning from DWP letters it had abandoned further investigation of their cases because records were destroyed before the deletion freeze began in 2021.
Those cases related to the underpayments scandal which led to some 130,000 married women, widows and widowers and people aged over 80 receiving some £800million-plus in payouts to date.
The DWP’s correction exercise has resolved most of those cases now. But many elderly women died while unwittingly being underpaid untold sums, and some families will never see a penny they were owed because state pension records were already destroyed.
Meanwhile, separate HMRC errors linked to ‘Home Responsibilities Protection’ that affected many mums’ state pensions have cost the Government a further £104million so far according to the most recent figures.
That probe is still active, with elderly women able to investigate their records online or by post (scroll down to find out if you might be owed a higher state pension and arrears).
Webb says out of an estimated 194,000 people affected by errors relating to HRP, up to 43,000 died having never received the right pension, and these women were underpaid an estimated £104million.
Their ‘representatives’ – the executors appointed in their will, or administrators of their estate if they had no will, or their next of kin – are entitled to check their eligibility and make a claim, using the same process as a living claimant.
Webb says: ‘I often hear from people who are trying to sort out errors in the state pension of loved ones who are no longer with us, but are told nothing can be done because the records have been destroyed.
‘Whilst we cannot get back the records that have already been deleted, it is essential that DWP does not in future decide to delete millions more records, especially given the live process of trying to fix errors around Home Responsibilities Protection.
‘The least we can do for people who were never paid the right pension is to do all we can to make sure that at least their families get the money they missed out on.’
Webb put in a freedom of information request about when the DWP plans to restart deletions, and says the answer boiled down to ‘not yet, but we will’.
The FOI reply says: ‘Once the embargo is lifted, then we will look at deletion of records that are no longer required and re-apply the retention policy.’
Webb says: ‘With roughly 500,000 people over state pension age dying each year, a decision to now delete data for deaths in 2017-2020 inclusive – which were originally retained but are more than four years old – would result in roughly two million records being deleted.
‘Some of these would include women who missed out on HRP and whose family could no longer get things put right.’
Earlier this year, when we covered cases of bereaved families whose loved ones’ records were already gone, This is Money learned the pause on deletion of state pension records is currently meant to last until 31 December 2026.
But we were never given an official statement about the timing, and it has still not been openly confirmed.
A DWP spokesperson says: ‘We are committed to ensuring pensioners get the financial support they deserve and have so far reviewed over 900,000 customer records, with awards totalling over £900million in arrears made.
‘Where errors do occur we are committed to resolving them, which is why we have paused deleting state pension records.’
Many women who were either refused or underpaid state pension were tipped off by Steve Webb’s campaign, Mothers Missing Millions
Are YOU owed state pension due to missing HRP?
Many elderly parents, mostly mums, have missed out on state pension due to holes in their child benefit records
Some parents aged in their 60s and 70s now, who claimed child benefit between 1978 and 2000, have been affected.
If they have already died, their beneficiaries are in line for payouts.
The blunder happened because it was not compulsory to include National Insurance numbers on child benefit forms until 2000, so parents’ entitlement to state pension got missed off their records.
Many women who were either refused or underpaid state pension were tipped off by Steve Webb’s campaign, Mothers Missing Millions, that this vital information had been omitted, but others are still unaware.
Child benefit records are deleted five years after the claim ends for data protection reasons.
Therefore, it is impossible now to identify everyone whose record is wrongly missing ‘home responsibilities protection’ – an entitlement which counts towards a state pension, and was replaced by the current system of annual NI credits in 2010.
HMRC has searched through NI records to find as many people as possible with no HRP who might nevertheless have been entitled to it, and has written to those it thinks might have been affected.
If they make a claim and an error is found, HMRC will update their NI record, and the DWP will recalculate their state pension and let them know whether they are due any arrears. Some backpayments are modest, but others run to tens of thousands of pounds.
If someone suspects a deceased relative was underpaid, a representative – an executor, administrator or next of kin – can make a claim on their behalf.
It is possible to do this online or by post. Go here to make a Home Responsibilities Protection claim.
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