Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of extending deadlines for additional voluntary National Insurance contributions from April 2006 to April 2017.

The Government on 12 June 2023 announced through a Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) an extension to the deadline for eligible individuals to retrospectively fill gaps in their National Insurance (NI) record to 5 April 2025. A link to the WMS can be found at https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-06-12/hcws843.

HMRC have worked with HMT and DWP to raise awareness of this extension by issuing a press release, through content on HMRC’s own social media channels signposting to guidance on GOV.UK, through local radio interviews, and via HMRC’s regular bulletins, and newsletters through June and July.

Additionally, the extension will provide HMRC and DWP with the opportunity to make improvements to the digital service, with the intention that ultimately the majority of individuals should be able to complete the process of paying voluntary NICs online.

More generally, individuals are encouraged to take responsibility for ensuring their NI record is correct and up to date. There are resources available to individuals to help them achieve this, including their Personal Tax Account and the ‘Check your National Insurance record’ and ‘Check your State Pension forecast’ services on GOV.UK. This extension will allow men born after 1951 and women born after 1953 with more time to review their NI records. Those men born before 1951 and women born before 1953 are unaffected by this extension.