DWP sending people born before this year letter with £5,000 boost

Millions of people born before this year will be handed a Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP ) letter with a £5,000 boost. Some 210,000 women in their 60s and 70s may be entitled to a back payment and higher State Pension payments due to historical errors.

The latest DWP update indicates that some £1.5 billion has been underpaid in State Pensions. HMRC omitted chunks of years where parents claimed child benefit while bringing up children - officially called 'home responsibilities protection' - from some National Insurance records.

Steve Webb says HMRC has written to more than 250,000 people over pension age who are potentially eligible and is starting to write to those under pension age. "Anyone who has received such a letter should make sure that they respond so that their position can be checked," the former Liberal Democrats pensions minister said. You could be entitled if you claimed child benefit during the years from 1978/1979 onwards.

READ MORE: Huge 950g Celebrations chocolate box is now on sale at Amazon for Black Friday

READ MORE: DWP gives 81,000 state pensioners £3.9k boost and access to Winter Fuel Payment

READ MORE Urgent 'stay at home' warning issued over nasty bug 'sweeping all age groups'

If your partner claimed, it is possible to swap when the 'wrong' parent claims child benefit. If you paid the married women's stamp during the same period you claimed child benefit, HRP cannot be used to increase your pension.

Also, if you paid standard rate NI contributions and earned enough for it to be counted as a full year for pension purposes while claiming child benefit, HRP will not increase your pension. Ros Altmann, who now sits in the House of Lords, says: "This seems to be a further display of DWP lack of resource. I'm sure the Department wants to help as many people as possible.

"The trouble is that with the latest disaster of winter fuel payments and the desire to boost pension credit take-up, so much resource has been diverted to processing those claims rather than sorting out backlogs on state pension."

"I don't know what the answer is but clearly there is a lack of sufficient people to assess and approve or pay claims," she said.