news story

17th December 2007

West MP Seeks to Help Divorced Pensioners

Northavon MP Steve Webb has launched a campaign to help tens of thousands of pensioners across the West who may be receiving a smaller pension than they should be. The issue affects women pensioners who divorced before pension age and never remarried.

Under current pension rules, a divorced woman can generally get a higher pension by using her ex-husband's record of National Insurance Contributions for the period of their marriage in order to boost her pension. But it is believed that many divorced women may only know limited information about their ex-husband, especially if they divorced some years ago. As a result, the Pensions Service may struggle to identify their ex-husband's National Insurance record and may therefore be unable to boost the woman's pension.

Lib Dem MP Steve Webb has already found one woman who had been underpaid over £400 of pension because of the failure to identify her ex-husband, and he believes that many more women may be in the same position. Now he is asking local pensioners to contact him so that he can investigate whether the same has happened to them.

Steve Webb said:

"The state pension system is very complex, and many people have little or no idea how their state pension has been calculated.

"I believe there may be significant numbers of divorced women, now over pension age, who may not be getting the full pension to which they are entitled.

"I would be happy to investigate some sample cases to see if this is an issue that needs to be addressed systematically by the Government".

Any local woman pensioner who is divorced and not drawing a full state pension is invited to contact Steve Webb with details, either via e-mail to pensions@stevewebb.org.uk or by writing to the MP at House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The information needed would be their name, address, date of birth and National Insurance number, together with full details of their ex-husband.