Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many Universal Credit claimants have paid voluntary national insurance contributions to cover their time claiming Universal Credit because those credits are not automatically transferred to the electronic National Insurance Recording System in the last year.

HMRC does not hold information about the number of customers who have paid voluntary national insurance contributions (NICs) due to their National Insurance record not being updated with the credits they were due while claiming Universal Credit. If customers have paid voluntary NICs unnecessarily, they can be refunded once their record has been updated with their periods of Universal Credit. HMRC is aiming to have all customer NI records for years up to April 2023 updated by the end of the 2023-24 tax year.