Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment the Government has made of the potential merits of the provision of financial restitution to people who (a) were working in Northern Ireland at ages 14 and 15 between 1947 and 1957 and (b) continue to be subject to a discrepancy as a result of having worked longer than their GB counterparts when the working age changed to 14 in 1947.

No such assessment has been made. Following the fundamental reforms of the National Insurance scheme in 1975 the law provided that only paid contributions and credits from the year in which a person reached age 16 to the year before the one in which they reached State Pension age should count for the purposes of entitlement to the State Pension. The Government has no plans to review the position reached by Parliament and which has been in place since 1975.