Pulaski

Neither. When they changed the number of years you need to have contributed to get a "full pension", they give you the opportunity to pay for the additional years if you had previously been "fully paid up". Another BE member, who unfortunately no longer posts, had paid for thirty years (a mix of years employed in the UK, deemed years, and voluntary years while overseas), and had been told by the DWP to stop paying. He has not yet retired.

He was contacted by the DWP and told how much to pay to get credits for five additional years. ..... That said, I assume they would be years at the Class 2 rate. If he had stopped paying five or more years ago, there would be single payment due for the five years. If it was less than five years, it would be a mix of arrears, plus current and future years, presumably at the relevant Class 2/3 rate for the year.

The most complicated situation is for those very close to retirement, where there aren't enough "current and future years" to reach the new 35 years target, and who had been paying for each year in recent years i.e. the gap(s) in their contributions were more than, six years ago. I heard that they were contacted and offered the chance to pay an additional amount to get the extra five years credit. If someone is in this situation and hasn't been contacted by the DWP they would need to contact the DWP and ask.