HMRC warns women who claimed state pension in these years will 'miss out' on £5,000

Female state pensioners may miss out on money owed from HMRC following a Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP ) error, a former pensions minister has said. HMRC is trying to trace 180,000 pensioners who may have been underpaid.

The gaffe largely affects mums who took time out of work to look after children and claimed Child Benefit between 1978 and 2000. These people may be missing Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) on their National Insurance record.

It means they may have been underpaid the state pension and could be owed money. Former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb has warned that many people may be put off from acting as these letters only mention how to claim online.

READ MORE UK tourists ordered to 'leave' Tenerife and Lanzarote warn 'it's scary'

The main rules for qualifying for a year of HRP from 1978 are you had to be receiving child benefit in your own name (not that of a spouse or partner), your child was under 16 for the whole of the financial year in question and you were not paying the married woman’s ‘reduced stamp’

If you suspect you have missed out, you should first check your state pension and your National Insurance record. For those who reached pension age after April 5, 2010, any year of HRP/credits should be showing as a complete year on your National Insurance record. If not, then you may have missed out.

The Government has also created an online checker tool on GOV.UK to see if you’re likely to be eligible to make a claim. To get the full new state pension, you’ll need 35 qualifying years if you don’t have a NI record before 6 April, 2016. If you have fewer than 35 qualifying years, you’ll receive a lower amount.

A qualifying year is a tax year in which you paid NI contributions, or you were treated as having paid them. This could be through working, receiving NI credits, or paying voluntary NI contributions.