I am 67 years old and have a 17 year shortfall on my state pension record. Should I buy refills? STEVE WEBB responds

I am writing about a 17-year deficit in National Insurance stamps. I was self-employed for 30 years with second class contributions.

Now I am 69 years old and I have been working since I was 15, but the Government sent me a statement saying that I was missing a stamp here, a stamp there, and you have to pay for a full year, otherwise they will take away the entire year. outside of you.

I tried to contact them again but they are all working from home. They said if I pay £8,240 before April they can give me back the 10 year stamps.

I receive £145 a week state pension, have never received benefits and worked for 53 years.

I don’t know what to do, and if I should get a loan to pay £8,240, it would give me an extra £50 a week, but that wouldn’t cover the loan.

I also have a lung disease, pulmonary fibrosis. They gave me three to five years to live at 62.

I have not applied for pension credit because my wife receives a full pension.

SCROLL DOWN TO FIND OUT HOW TO ASK STEVE HIS PENSION QUESTION

Steve Webb responds: For anyone looking for a New Year’s resolution, checking whether they can top up their state pension through voluntary National Insurance contributions should definitely be a priority.

The deadline to fill the gaps over six years ago is April 6, 2025, so I would encourage anyone thinking about doing this to find out where they stand and take action before the deadline.

In your case, some of your “gaps” arise because you did not pay enough contributions in some years to count as “qualifying years” for your state pension.

To be more specific, self-employed people have historically paid a weekly ‘Class 2’ rate of NI contributions.

If you don’t pay every week in a given year, you will lose that entire year.

The good news for someone in your situation is that you can, in principle, top up those partial years at a relatively low cost.

As long as you pay within the time limit (which currently allows you to go back to 2006/07), you should be able to cover these gaps very cheaply by paying voluntary Class 2 NI contributions.

The figures quoted to you seem to imply that they do not take into account the NI you have already paid for several years, nor the fact that you have been self-employed.

For those who were employed and not self-employed, it would be normal for them to pay the slightly higher rate of ‘Class 3’ voluntary contributions.

Covering a full historical year usually costs £824 at the Class 3 rate, which is why you have been quoted £8,240 to cover ten years.

To resolve a query like this, I usually suggest you call Center for Future Pensions at the DWPbut since you are already over the state pension age, you will have to call the Pension service iinstead.

I understand that it can be difficult to achieve, but you have to persevere until you can talk to someone.

If you have a printing your NI record at hand and I can explain which years are already shown as partial contributions, this may be helpful.

However, I am sorry to read that you are in poor health and may have a limited life expectancy.

In terms of spending money to top up your state pension, you will naturally want to compare how much it would cost you with how much you can expect to get back.

While this cannot be known for certain, you would need to collect your enhanced pension for more than three years to recover what you paid, assuming you have to pay the full Class 3 rate.

But the payback period would be much shorter if only the odd-numbered gaps could be filled, and particularly if it could be done at the Class 2 rate.

If you find that you simply can’t get a sensible answer over the phone, you can enlist the help of your local MP and ask them to raise your situation with both HMRC (who keep National Insurance records) and DWP.

We must underline the urgency of resolving all this in the coming months, before the deadline of April 6, after which it will only be possible to go back six years.