From: Ian Jackson 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: How Much State Pension?
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:19:38 +0100
Bytes: 3622

In message <5o6va9Fkthi1U1@mid.individual.net>, Roger Mills 
 writes
>In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
>Ian Jackson   wrote:
>
>> Please could someone advise on the following?
>>
>> The present full basic State Pension is £87.30 per week for a single
>> person and £139.60 per week for a couple.
>>
>> A woman qualifies for her £87.30 at the age of 60.
>> A man qualifies for his £87.30 at the age of 65.
>> [If a man and his wife are the same age, the wife can therefore take
>> her pension five years before her husband.]
>>
>> If the wife has not paid sufficient NI contributions to qualify for
>> any pension at all, she will still get a pension of £52.30 when her
>> husband reaches 65 (provided by her husband's NI contributions).
>> This, added to the husband's £87.30, gives the married couple's
>> pension of £139.60.
>> My first question is about what happens if the wife has been receiving
>> her £87.30 since she was 60. When her husband reaches 65, will they
>> receive the married couples' pension of £139.60, or will they each
>> receive £87.30 in their own right (a total of £174.60).
>>
>> A second (similar) question is about what happens if the wife didn't
>> make sufficient NI contributions for a full pension, but has been
>> receiving a reduced pension of (say) £60. When her husband reaches 65,
>> will they then receive the married couple's pension of £139.60, or
>> will they receive the somewhat higher sum of £87.30 + £60 (a total of
>> £147.60)?
>>
>> Essentially, whatever their individual entitlements are, will they get
>> whatever is the higher amount? Or will they be penalised when the
>> couples' pension is less than the sum of their own pensions?
>
>My understanding is that they will each get what they are entitled to based
>on their own contributions - up to a maximum of two single pensions (plus
>any relevant earnings-related additions, of course). However, if the wife is
>entitled to less than £52.30 (being the difference between the single and
>married pensions) her pension will be made up to £52.30 as soon as the
>husband qualifies for his pension. That's what happened to us, anyway!

Thanks for confirming what I had hoped would be the case. It would be 
nice to see the pension information expressed as succinctly as you have 
above. It's funny how none of the documentation seems to be able to 
describe such situations. They must be fairly common.
-- 
Ian