Graduated pension

Graduated Retirement Benefit, or graduated pension, is worked out according to the amount of graduated NI contributions you paid between April 1961 and April 1975 (the period when this scheme was running). You may be entitled to graduated pension even if you do not receive a basic or additional pension.

Over-80s pension

The over-80s pension is non-contributory – you don’t have
to have made NI contributions to receive it. The over-80s
pension stands at £54.35 a week. If you are 80 or over and get
no basic pension at all you should receive this full amount of
over-80s pension. If you get some basic pension, but it is less
than £54.35 a week, you will get over-80s pension to make up
the difference.

You can apply for the over-80s pension in the four months leading up to your 80th birthday. Ask your local benefits office or pension centre for a claim form. Look in your phone book or call The Pension Service on 0845 60 60 265 for contact details for your nearest pension centre.

When you turn 80 you will receive an age-related addition of 25p a week on top of your State Retirement Pension.

Invalidity addition

You will get an extra payment on top of whatever pension you
are entitled to if you were receiving an invalidity allowance or an age addition with long-term Incapacity Benefit at any time during the eight weeks before you reached pension age. However, the amount you receive will be reduced if you are getting any additional pension.

Extra pension

You can get an extra amount added to your pension each week if you defer claiming it for at least five weeks.

Increases for dependants

If you receive some basic pension, you may be able to get extra pension if your husband, wife or civil partner is dependent on you. The amount you get will depend on how much basic pension you are entitled to.

• If your wife or civil partner is dependent on you
  
  You may be able to get extra pension of up to £54.35 a week if your wife or civil partner is dependent on you. Generally, your partner must be under pension age to be classed as dependent on you. If your partner is over 60 they will be able to claim a State Retirement Pension in their own right or, for a dependent wife only, a Married Woman’s Pension through your contributions. There is more information about the Married Woman's Pension in the section below: 'Have I paid enough National Insurance?'.
  
  A pension increase will not be paid if your partner gets a State Retirement Pension, or any other state benefit (excluding Disability Living Allowance or Attendance Allowance), of £54.35 or more each week. If your partner has earnings of more than £60.50 a week, this pension increase will not be paid.Any pension that they get from their job or a personal pension scheme counts as earnings.
  
  
• If your husband is dependent on you
  
  An increase of up to £54.35 a week may be payable if your husband is dependent on you and you were entitled to an addition to your Incapacity Benefit for him immediately before you started to claim your pension. This increase is not given if your husband is earning more than this amount a week (a personal or occupational pension counts as earnings). Nor is
  the increase payable if he is receiving a State Retirement Pension or another state benefit (except Disability Living Allowance or Attendance Allowance) of £54.35 or more each week.

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How much personal pension will I get?

The amount of State Retirement Pension you get will depend
on the level of your NI contributions, when you made them and
the amount you were earning at the time. Your pension may be made up of a combination of the different types of pension and additions that were explained over the last few pages. You may receive a full basic pension, a reduced one, or none at all. You may also get different amounts of additional or graduated pension.

You will be told how your pension is made up in the decision
letter that you receive from The Pension Service once you have claimed State Retirement Pension. If you disagree with the decision, you can ask for it to be reviewed - see What if I have problems with my pension? for more information.

If you want to know more about the various entitlements, leaflet State Pensions Your Guide (PM2), covers them in detail. You can get a copy from your local benefits office or pension centre. Or you can call The Pension Service on 0845 60 60 265 and ask for a copy.

Pension forecast

If you haven’t yet reached pension age you can ask for a pension forecast from The Pensions Service. However, the service is reduced until Autumn 2008. Until then you can only request a forecast if you are:

• living in the UK

• more than 30 days away from State Pension age

• reaching State Pension age on or before 6 April 2010

(Once the full service is resumed you will be able to request
a forecast if you are more than four months away from 60 if
you are a woman, or 65 if you are a man.) The forecast will
tell you what pension you can expect to get when you reach
pension age.Ask your local benefits office or pension centre
for a copy of form BR19 which explains the process, or phone
0845 300 0168. Alternatively you can download a form from
The Pension Service’s website.

Have I paid enough National Insurance?

If you have not paid enough NI contributions to qualify for a full
basic pension, you may be able to get a reduced pension, or you may not get one at all.

You might be able to pay extra National Insurance contributions so that you get more basic pension. This must be done before you reach pension age. For advice about National Insurance contributions contact the National Insurance enquiries on 0845 302 1479.

However, married women, divorcees, people whose civil
partnership has dissolved, widows, widowers and surviving
civil partners may be able to claim a pension on someone else’s NI contributions.

Married women

• Married women over the age of 60
  
  You may be entitled to a basic pension in your own right when you reach the age of 60, because of the NI contributions you built up during your working life.
  
  If you are not entitled to a State Retirement Pension on reaching the age of 60 (perhaps because you did not do any paid work) you may be able to get a basic pension based on your husband’s NI contributions. This is called the Married Woman’s Pension. If your husband gets the full basic pension then you will get £54.35 a week (you will get less if he is getting a reduced pension). If you are entitled to your own pension, but it is less than £54.35 a week, your pension will be made up to a maximum of this amount.
  
  You can’t claim Married Woman’s Pension unless your husband is drawing his pension. If you are over 60 and your husband has not yet reached 65, you are only entitled to any State Retirement Pension you receive on your own contribution record.
  
  
• Married women under the age of 60
  
  You can’t get a State Retirement Pension in your own right until you reach the age of 60. But if you are dependent on your husband when he starts to claim his pension, he may be able to get an increase on his basic pension for you. This increase will be a maximum of £54.35 a week (the same as the current level of Married Woman’s Pension). The rules for working out whether your husband can get an increase on his pension for you are explained above in the section on 'Extra pension for dependants'.

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Divorced people and people whose civil partnership has dissolved

If you are not entitled to a full basic pension on your own
contribution record, you can claim on your ex-partner’s
record, up to the date when you divorced or dissolved your
civil partnership, if this will make you better off. In this way
you can receive up to a maximum of the single person’s
basic pension – £90.70 a week. Under this system you are not entitled to your former partner’s graduated or additional pension; however, you can start to claim before he or she begins to draw their own pension. If you have been married and divorced or registered and dissolved a civil partnership more than once, your most recent partner’s record will be used.

If you get married again or register a new civil partnership
before reaching pension age you can’t claim a pension based on your former partner’s contributions. If you get remarried or
register a new civil partnership after pension age, you can.

If you are a woman and are separated from your husband you
should be able to claim the Married Woman’s Pension of up to £54.35 a week if you are not entitled to a pension in your own right. You can’t claim this until your husband starts to claim his own pension; if you are not in touch with your husband you can contact your local benefits office or pension centre to find out whether he has started to claim.

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Widows

If your husband died before you reached 60 and you have not
re-married, you have three main choices when you reach state retirement age. Seek advice on which option would be best for you before making a decision.

• You can draw your State Retirement Pension, based on your NI contributions, your late husband’s contributions or a combination of both.
  
  
• If you were widowed before April 2001 and receive Widow’s Pension, you can either continue to receive this until you reach the age of 65 or you can claim your State Retirement Pension. The basic amounts will often be the same. However, you might get some additional or graduated pension on top of your State Retirement Pension through your late husband’s
  contributions (if you were both over pension age when your husband died). This could mean that you would be better off claiming State Retirement Pension. There are very few cases where you would be better off staying on Widow’s Pension until the age of 65. If you receive Widow’s Pension you will lose it if you re-marry.
  
  
• If you were widowed after April 2001 and you are receiving Bereavement Allowance, you can continue to get this until you have been on it for 52 weeks. Or you can claim your State Retirement Pension as soon as you reach pension age. Most people will be better off claiming their pension as soon as they can.

If you were widowed after the age of 60 and are not entitled
to a pension in your own right, you should be able to get a State Retirement Pension based on your late husband’s contributions. If you receive some pension, but not the full basic pension, you may also be able to use his NI contribution record to bring your basic pension up to a higher level. You will continue to receive this pension even if you re-marry.

Widowers and surviving civil partners

If you are not entitled to a full basic pension in your own right, your partner's NI contribution record may be taken into account to give you a better pension.

For more details on widows’, widowers’ and surviving civil
partner’s pensions see leaflets NP45, A Guide to Bereavement Benefits, and State Pensions Your Guide. You can get a copy from your local benefits office or pension centre. These are available from your local benefits office or pension centre or The Pension Service website.  Or you can call The Pension Service on 0845 60 60 265 and ask for a copy.

Home Responsibilities Protection

Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) was introduced in 1978 to help protect the pension of people who do not work because they are caring for a child or a sick or disabled person. It works by reducing the number of years for which you have to satisfy the NI contribution conditions in order to get the full basic pension. The number of these ‘qualifying years’ can be reduced through HRP to as few as 20 years (compared to the current 39 for women or 44 for men).

You should have got HRP automatically if, throughout a whole tax year from April 1978, you:

• received Child Benefit for a child under 16 – you must have been the named recipient; or

• claimed Income Support and did not have to be available for work because you were looking after someone at home.

You may also have got HRP if, for any whole tax year, you were
regularly looking after someone (for at least 35 hours a week)
who was getting Attendance Allowance, Constant Attendance
Allowance (paid with War Disablement Pension and Industrial
Injuries Benefit) or the middle or higher rate of Disability Living
Allowance for personal care. But you will have had to apply for
it before you reached State Retirement Pension age. If you want to claim HRP for any years you spent caring since April 2002, you must apply within three years. You can also receive it if you have been a registered foster carer for the tax years from April 2003. Contact The Pension Service for more information on applying for HRP.

If you were receiving Carer’s Allowance you probably won’t have needed to get HRP because you should have got NI credits. You won’t have got HRP for any years that you were looking after someone before 1978.

From 2010 HRP will be replaced with a new weekly National
Insurance credit for people caring for children or severely
disabled people. For those reaching state pension age after 2010 past years of HRP will be recalculated into years of NI credits which will count towards the basic state pension.

Pensions for Women

The Department for Work and Pensions has produced a free
leaflet Pensions for Women (PM6) to help women understand
the status of their pension and their options. Call them on
08457 31 32 33 to order a copy.

What if I can't get any pension at all?

If you can’t get any State Retirement Pension, or if the amount
you receive is small, you may be entitled to other welfare benefits which will help you to meet your living expenses. Depending on the amount of income you have coming in each week, and on your savings, you may be entitled to claim Pension Credit, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. If you need help with your personal care you could receive help through disability benefits such as Disability Living Allowance or Attendance Allowance. If you are a carer you may be entitled to Carer’s Allowance.

If you need advice on these benefits and on how to claim them, call SeniorLine on 0808 800 6565 (0808 808 7575 in
Northern Ireland) for guidance and information. Help the Aged
also produces two free advice leaflets, Can You Claim It? and
Claiming Disability Benefits, which may help.