Women who gave start in Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties may very well be lacking enormous £7,859 DWP fee

The HMRC has sent letters to 370,000 people who are owed an average of £7,859 due to application forms for Child Benefit failing to include National Insurance numbers before 2000

Mums who gave birth in the 80s and 90s could in line for huge pay-outs due to a major National Insurance error. HMRC is sending letters informing stay-at-home mums who made a claim for Child Benefit between 1978 and 2000, who make up the majority of the those being underpaid the state pension.

The error relates to those who missed out on Home Responsibility Protection (HRP) which reduced the number of years required on your National Insurance record to claim the state pension. To receive HRP, one needed to be claiming Child Benefit or Income Support due to having to take time off work because you were caring for someone.

An investigation has found that Child Benefit claim forms submitted before 2000 did not include a National Insurance number. This means thousands of people did not have the correct level HRP entitlement transferred across to their National Insurance record.

If you have gaps in your record, you may being underpaid the state pension, or are forecast to in the future. HMRC has sent letters to 370,000 people and the average amount of money due back is £7,859 per person. Of those who responded to the letters, HMRC identified 5,344 cases of underpayments between January 8 and September 30, 2024, totalling approximately £42million in arrears.

It’s believed 43,000 of those who are estimated to be affected by the historic error are now deceased, but their families can claim on their behalf. Those over pension age are being prioritised and contacted first by HMRC, reports the Mirror.

Have I been underpaid?

The main rules for qualifying for a year of HRP from 1978 are:

• You had to be receiving child benefit in your own name (not that of a spouse or partner)
• Your child was under 16 for the whole of the financial year in question
• You were not paying the married woman’s ‘reduced stamp’

If you suspect you have missed out, you should first check your state pension and your National Insurance record. For those who reached pension age after April 5, 2010, any year of HRP/credits should be showing as a complete year on your National Insurance record. If not, then you may have missed out.

For those who reached pension age on or before April 5, 2010, HRP was recorded in a different way and you need to phone the National Insurance helpline to check if there is HRP on your record. The Government has also created an online checker tool on GOV.UK to see if you’re likely to be eligible to make a claim.

If HRP is missing from your National Insurance record, HMRC will contact the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) who will then recalculate your state pension entitlement so you get the right amount going forward. You will also be sent any backpayments you are owed.

A DWP spokesperson previously told said: “The action we are taking now will correct historical underpayments made by successive governments. We are fully committed to addressing these errors, not identified under previous governments, as quickly as possible. We have set up a dedicated team and devoted significant resources towards completing this.”

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