A SEARCH has been launched to find up to 500,000 women over the age of 60 who may be losing out on more than £1 billion in state pension entitlement.

Liberal Democrat pensions campaigner Steve Webb MP last week met James Purnell, the pensions minister, over concerns that the women are missing out on home responsibilities protection (HRP) – a scheme designed to help women with gaps in their National Insurance contributions (Nics) record because they took time off work to care for children.

Why has this happened?

The HRP system reduces the number of qualifying years to receive a full state pension from 39 to 20 for women who have taken time off work to bring up children.

HRP should have been given automatically to women who were not working and receiving child benefit at any time after April 1978, when the system was introduced.

However, this did not happen because of the incompetence of successive governments in recording women’s tax details and because of imperfections in the pensions system.

Thousands of women are unaware that they qualify for HRP and as such are not receiving full pensions because the government’s system has failed to automatically adjust their qualifying pension years.

Who qualifies for protection?

HRP should be given automatically to women who have stopped work since 1978 to bring up children and claimed benefit, registered foster carers (since April 2003) and those receiving attendance allowance or income support because they are caring for a sick or disabled person.

Women who elected to pay the reduced stamp because they were married and their husbands were contributing, or they were working part time, would have qualified once they had been off work for two years.

Those who paid full-rate Nics whenever they were working, even with one year out of work in receipt of child benefit, should have qualified straightaway for HRP.

For women who opted for the married woman’s reduced rate, a period of two consecutive tax years is required.

How much more could I get?

A woman born in 1948 who worked for 10 years between 1968 and 1978 but then stopped work to have a child would have 10 qualifying years.

For the following 16 years with no further employment, she should have been entitled to 16 years HRP, which would have boosted her pension from £22.70 a week, or £1,180 a year to £38.42 a week or £1,998.

What should I do?

If you are over 60 or within four months of retirement call the Pension Service on 0845 6060 265 or 0845 3000 168.

You can also go online at thepensionservice.gov.uk.

Ask whether your state pension is calculated with the benefit of HRP.

The Pension Service should investigate on your behalf and arrange repayments if necessary. If you have not yet retired you can still ask for a pension forecast from the Pension Service.

What is the government doing about it?

Labour has agreed to investigate a sample of case studies.

If you think you may not be receiving your full pension entitlement, contact Webb by e-mail at webbs@parliament.uk or write to him at House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA, with details of your state pension entitlement, work and family history.

He will then put a sample of cases to the government, both to see whether the individual women concerned are missing out and to identify if there is a wider problem.

Webb especially wants to hear from women who are now drawing a less than full state pension; from those whose pension papers did not mention HRP; and from women who spent time after 1978 in receipt of child benefit and did not pay Nics.

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