Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent steps he has taken to reduce the backlog of voluntary National Insurance contributions.

HMRC has worked with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to agree upon a further extension to the 31 July 2023 deadline up to April 2025 (freezing the payment rates) giving customers more time to contact both DWP and HMRC.

In addition, since April 2023 HMRC has deployed an additional 254 colleagues into National Insurance (NI) voluntary contributions work due to the increased levels of customer contact.

HMRC is also working on a digital solution across both departments to allow customers to pay voluntary NI contributions online. Please see the GOV.UK Website here https://www.gov.uk/government/news/deadline-for-voluntary-national-insurance-contributions-extended-to-april-2025 for more detail on the extension as well as how people should check whether they can and should make any such contributions.