Missing historical Child Benefit payments

stuhow20

When checking our NI contributions re pension entitlement we noticed my wife had missing years. When looking into it further it turned out there was no record of child benefit payments from 1996 - 2005. We contacted them and they said they could only check back to 2005 on their system and would have to request the records from HMRC. Just received the records after 6 weeks and they only go back to 2005 also. Our first child was born in 1996 so we know that’s when child benefit started but have no way of proving it. If HMRC don’t have a record where do we go?
All very strange.
Any advice welcome.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Who received the Child Benefit?

stuhow20

The wife received since 1996

sheramber

Are you sure it was in her name and not your name?

stuhow20

Yes I have never claimed it, HMRC confirmed that as well. 

sheramber

If your wife was working during that time and  elected to pay the small married woman's stamp credit would not be given.

NIC credits were only introduced in 2011.

Prior to that is was Home Responsibility Protection.

Most people were given that automatically but , if not, you can claim it

https://www.gov.uk/home-responsibilities-protection-hrp/how-to-claim

Spoonie_Turtle

sheramber said:

If your wife was working during that time and  elected to pay the small married woman's stamp credit would not be given.

NIC credits were only introduced in 2011.

Prior to that is was Home Responsibility Protection.

Most people were given that automatically but , if not, you can claim it

https://www.gov.uk/home-responsibilities-protection-hrp/how-to-claim

That could be very useful indeed to know for my Mum as well, thanks.

stuhow20

sheramber said:

If your wife was working during that time and  elected to pay the small married woman's stamp credit would not be given.

NIC credits were only introduced in 2011.

Prior to that is was Home Responsibility Protection.

Most people were given that automatically but , if not, you can claim it

https://www.gov.uk/home-responsibilities-protection-hrp/how-to-claim

2011? Her file shows credits from 2005

p00hsticks

stuhow20 said:

sheramber said:

If your wife was working during that time and  elected to pay the small married woman's stamp credit would not be given.

NIC credits were only introduced in 2011.

Prior to that is was Home Responsibility Protection.

Most people were given that automatically but , if not, you can claim it

https://www.gov.uk/home-responsibilities-protection-hrp/how-to-claim

2011? Her file shows credits from 2005

I'm not 100% sure, but my understanding is that HRP didn't give credits, but rather reduced the number of years required to get the old basic state pension. However, if you hadn't reached state pension age at the point that HRP was replaced by NI credits in 2010, then your record was adjusted to add back in the years required but to retrospectively add credits for the same number of years so as to leave the person in the same position.     

So if your wife claimed Child Benefit (and was therefore entitled to HRP) between 1996 and 2005, the number of years she needed to get the full basic state pension would have been decreased by ten years (at that time, from 39 to 29).  But when HRP was dropped, the number of years would have been increased but she would have been allocated credits for those ten years. 

(To add to the mix, the number of years a woman needed for a  basic state pension was also reduced from 39 to 30 years in 2010, before the basic state pension was replaced by the new State Pension in 2016, with transitional rules then determining how many years individuals needed). 

sheramber

My pension statement stated how many years HRP  I had  and how many years of NIC.

molerat

MrsM's record simply shows credits from 1978-79 when the scheme was introduced to 1996-97 when No2 was 16.  Never had any correspondence or explanations of how that came about or changes to the scheme.