Glossary · UK
What is Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP)?
A now-replaced scheme that protected the State Pension of parents and carers between 1978 and 2010 by reducing the number of qualifying years needed, later replaced by National Insurance credits.
Full Definition
Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) was a scheme that ran from April 1978 to April 2010, designed to protect the State Pension entitlement of people -- overwhelmingly women -- who spent years out of paid work caring for children or a disabled person, and who would otherwise have missing years in their National Insurance record. Rather than crediting a full qualifying year directly, HRP worked by reducing the number of qualifying years a person needed to reach the maximum basic State Pension, based on the number of complete tax years they received Child Benefit for a child under 16 or provided certain other care, though it could not reduce the requirement below a set minimum number of years. HRP was replaced from April 2010 by National Insurance credits for parents and carers, which credit a qualifying year directly onto the NI record rather than adjusting the target number of years needed, a more generous and easier-to-understand mechanism. HMRC and the DWP identified in 2022 that many people, again mostly women who claimed Child Benefit before 2000 when National Insurance numbers were not always recorded on the claim, were missing HRP from their records entirely, leading to underpaid State Pensions; anyone who thinks this may apply to them can apply to have their record corrected, which can result in a State Pension increase and, in some cases, considerable back payment.