Your State Pension

The State Pension is an income that’s provided by the Government. Everyone receives a State Pension once they reach State Pension Age, and the amount you receive depends on how many ‘qualifying years’ you have when you reach that age.

‘Qualifying years’ just means how many years you’ve paid National Insurance (NI) contributions for, or years you’ve been credited with paying contributions for (such as while caring for children).

If you have been a member of a contracted out pension scheme, which the DB section of the Plan was, you won’t have paid contributions to the State Earnings related Pension Scheme (SERPS) and then the State Second Pension (S2P), during your contracted out years. That will affect how much State Pension you receive. Contracting out was a system where members of a company pension (such as the DB section) could pay lower National Insurance contributions because they were also paying into their own private pension. The idea was that your own pension would replace some of the benefits that would otherwise have been paid by the State Pension.

There’s been a few changes to the State Pension age lately, and you can check at what age you’ll reach State Pension age by using the Government’s calculator.

You can also use this to see how much you’re likely to receive. From 6 April 2023, the maximum you can receive on the new, flat-rate State Pension is £203.85 a week.

You’ll receive the new, flat-rate State Pension if you reached State Pension age after 6 April 2016. However, if you reached State Pension age before 6 April 2016, you’ll receive the State Pension based on the previous system.