Basic State Pension (pre-April 2016)

• Qualifying years (full amount) – 30 years of National Insurance (NI) contributions or credits.
• Top-up option – You could claim additional State Pension (SERPS/S2P) if you were contracted in.
• Additional Benefits – Can receive additional state pension through SERPS or S2P.
• Contracting-out impact – Yes, if contracted out of SERPS/S2P, Basic State Pension might be reduced, but you would get additional pension from private schemes.
• Inheriting pension – Partner can inherit deceased partner’s pension, subject to certain conditions.

New State Pension (post-April 2016)

• Qualifying years (full amount) – 35 years of National Insurance (NI) contributions or credits.
• Top-up option – No additional top-up option, though voluntary contributions can be made for gaps.
• Additional Benefits – No additional state pension, but protected payments may apply if your pre-2016 pension was higher.
• Contracting-out impact – Contracting-out ended, but your starting amount in 2016 may be affected by previous contracting-out.This is why figures sometimes look odd on the GovUK website.
• Inheriting pension – Cannot be inherited, but some protected payments (accrued pre-April 2016) can.

Current New State Pension is £221.20 per week or £11,502.40 per year. Set to rise by about £460 per year from April 2025.

Everything You Need To Do

• Check your State Pension forecast.
• Top up any gaps eligible in your National Insurance record.
• Check your eligibility for National Insurance Credits.
• If you are working abroad, or recently returned, check how that affects your New State Pension.
• Plan for the state pension to be there when you retire.

We’re going to spin out the listener questions into a separate Q&A show which we’ll drop into the feed every 2-3 weeks or so. These will be in addition to the main feed, most likely, but they’re easier for us to produce because they require less writing! Send your questions to hello@meaningfulmoney.tv Subject line: Podcast Question

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