Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government is taking to encourage people to check their national insurance contribution records in advance of their retirement.

Checking your National Insurance record regularly is very important and the Government has designed services and supporting communications to make this as easy for people as possible. Our online service, Check your State Pension (CySP), is key in supporting the communication campaign. This service provides a State Pension forecast (based on the individual’s current National Insurance record and an assumption that future years count towards their State Pension), and the earliest date the individual can get their State Pension. Users can look at their National Insurance record, where they will also find out how many qualifying years they have and any gaps in their contributions.

The Department has carried out a comprehensive communication campaign to bring the new State Pension and the role of people’s National Insurance records to people’s attention. This has been through advertisements in newspapers, on social media and on radio stations across the country as well as working through Stakeholders to raise public awareness of the changes. There is also a significant package of on-line information about the State Pension at www.gov.uk.

Between April 2000 and the end of April 2018, the Department provided more than 22 million personalised State Pension statements to people who requested them (either online or by telephone or post, and based on both old and new State Pension rules). We continue to encourage people to request a personalised State Pension Statement as part of our on-going communications.