Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much HMRC has received in each tax year since 2013 from voluntary National Insurance contributions made to purchase missing qualifying years for the UK state pension; and how many additional qualifying years of entitlement were created in each year as a result.

HMRC does not have comprehensive records showing the total number of people who have purchased missing qualifying years, or the full value of these contributions paid across the range of available payment channels. As such, DWP have not been able to estimate the additional State Pension lifetime entitlement associated with these payments.

However, since the online State Pension forecast service was launched on 29 April 2024, 138,000 people have paid £180 million of contributions through this service.

HMRC collects residency and tax contribution history as part of the application process for paying voluntary National Insurance contributions . However, the cost of producing reliable statistics would represent a disproportionate cost.