If the government deletes state pension records it could be impossible to correct payment errors, a former pensions minister has warned.

Multiple errors in state pension payments have been unearthed in recent years, and in some cases, the people affected died before they could be put right.

The errors include underpayments exceeding £1 billion, as well as missing pension credits for parents and carers, resulting in significantly lower payments than expected.

Sir Steve Webb, a former Liberal Democrat pensions minister, said he has written to the permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Sir Peter Schofield, asking him to ensure that records are retained for as long as they may be needed to clear up any outstanding state pension errors.

So, what do you do if your state pension payments look lower than expected?

Yahoo News explains how to put it right.

What are the most common underpayment errors?

There are a number of underpayment errors that have repeatedly cropped up, according to the UK’s independent watchdog, the National Audit Office:

Missing payments for carers and parents

A lot of parents and carers have been underpaid due to inaccurate gaps in their national insurance record because they they were protected by an inaccurately recorded government scheme.

The Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) ensured parents and carers between 1978 to 2010 got national insurance credits to cover the years they cared for their children, meaning they could still qualify for a state pension.

The government effectively halved the number of years parents or carers had to contribute to their national insurance to qualify for the state pension — lowering them from in the 40+ years to 22 years — as their time caring or parenting caused large gaps in their record.

Woman helping her elderly mother preparing financial documents

About 130,948 cases of HRP underpayments have been identified so far (Getty)

However, many people affected by HRP never had these credits correctly recorded in their national insurance records, resulting in widespread underpayments mainly affecting women.

The government has acknowledged the issue and allocated significant funds (£1.2 billion) to rectify missing HRP payments, but so far, only a fraction has been claimed because of a lack of public awareness. The average payout sits at £8,377 per case.

Gaps in national insurance records

Around 53,000 married people have received less pension than they expected because their pension is linked to their spouse’s, whose rate is determined by their national insurance contribution records.

Even if someone is not eligible for a pension in their own right but is of pensionable age, once their partner claims a state pension, they can receive a category BL pension.

A category BL pension is a type of state pension paid to individuals who have reached state pension age but do not qualify for a full basic state pension based on their own national insurance contributions.

However, if the spouse who is automatically entitled to a state pension record has patchy national insurance contributions, and rectifies those contributions, their spouse’s state pension payments should go up in line with theirs.

But sometimes, this is not happening, leaving the spouse of those pensioners automatically entitled on a capped rate.

The error, described as a failure to provide a category BL uplift for married or civil partnership claimants, means that partners who can claim an uplift once their partner has claimed state pension are missing out on around £6700 a year.

Married people accidentally paid less

More than 100,000 widowed pensioners have not received the pension amount they are entitled to inherit from their late spouse.

While a widow or widower does not automatically get their late partner’s pension, they may inherit certain pension benefits based on their spouse’s national insurance record.

Even when the DWP receives a notification of death once a pensioner has died, they have historically not automatically prompted pension revisions, leaving widows underpaid for years.

In total, the DWP has found 130,948 state pension underpayments linked to widowed cases, paying out over £804.7 million so far.

Pensioners aged 80+ missing out on top-ups

Category D pensions are for pensioners aged 80 plus who have little or no entitlement to a basic state pension based on their national insurance contributions.

These pensioners are eligible for a government top up, bringing their weekly payments to a minimum level of £105.70 a week.

To qualify, the person must be aged 80 or above, have lived in the UK for at least 10 years in any 20-year period after the age of 60, and have either no other state pension entitlement or a state pension lower than the Category D amount, which is lower than £105.70 a week.

In some cases, the Category D pension payment was missed or not applied correctly, meaning that pensioners over 80 did not receive this age-related top-up to their pension.

In March, the DWP calculated that there were around 33,683 Category D pension underpayment cases, with an average payout of £2203 per case.

How do I check my pension for underpayments?

Unsure if you’ve been underpaid and want to find out? Follow the steps below.

  • Review your national insurance record to see if Home Responsibilities Protection credits for the years you spent caring for children or disabled adults between 1978 and 2010 are missing. This can be done through the government’s online national insurance record service.

  • Contact HMRC by phone at 0300 200 3500 to check your eligibility for HRP credits and to check your National Insurance record.

  • Check your state pension forecast regularly and read any letters about your pension from HMRC or DWP.

A DWP spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring pensioners get the financial support they deserve and have so far reviewed over 900,000 customer records, with awards totalling over £900m in arrears made.

“Where errors do occur we are committed to resolving them, which is why we have paused deleting State Pension records.”