Women pensioners could be eligible for significant windfall

Some women receiving as little as £1 a week for their pension could be owed sums equivalent to lottery wins, a former pensions minister has said.

Sir Steve Webb, who is now a partner at consultants Lane Clark & Peacock, said some women may be entitled to huge refunds but could be missed by data searches being carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions.

It is thought that as many as 5,000 women could be due a windfall.

Sir Steve estimated the total bill if all these women claimed could easily be £250 million.

He said women he had helped recently included one who was entitled to £56,000 in back pension, another to £33,000 and a third to more than £60,000. Some women were until recently on pensions of only around £1 per week, he added.

Sir Steve said that under a little-known rule, women in this specific group were allowed to claim back pension to before a 2008 rule change, which has prevented many other married women from making backdated claims.

Three main elements made up the old state pension system: a basic state pension, an earnings-related pension (also called Serps) and an older graduated retirement benefit (GRB), which ran from 1961 to 1975 and was a forerunner of Serps.

The women qualifying for this special concession are those with no basic pension but who are receiving a tiny amount of GRB. They can now make a backdated claim all the way back to when their husband turned 65.

As many as 5,000 women could be due refunds.