The best kept secrets of gov.uk - these pages will help you sort all kinds of pension problems says STEVE WEBB - but they can be tricky to find

Steve Webb published his 500th pension column for This is Money on Monday. He will appear on This is Money's popular podcast to answer pension questions on Friday – there is still time to pose yours.

Having written 500 columns for This is Money over the last decade or so, I'm always keen to help readers know where to go to get reliable information about all things to do with pensions.

It often turns out that there is really useful and accurate information on the Government website, gov.uk. But there's a catch.

If you don't know it is there, it is almost impossible to find. The site is so vast and covers such a wide range of topics that getting to the exact information that you need can feel like quite an achievement.

So I thought it might be helpful to flag some of the 'best kept secrets' on gov.uk – the pages I return to on a regular basis.

1. Check if you can inherit a spouse's state pension 

The first helpful page is one which enables you to check whether you are going to be entitled to any inherited state pension when your spouse or civil partner dies.

It's not a cheerful topic, but knowing where you would stand can be vitally important in making financial plans for later life.

The catch is that the rules are not straightforward, as they depend on things like your date of birth and that of your spouse, when they died, when you married and so on.

But the tool Your partner's National Insurance record and your state pension enables you to answer a few questions and find out most of what you need.

2. See if a pension letter, email or text is a scam 

A second useful site – regrettably – is one that can help you to avoid being taken in by a scam text, email or letter pretending to be from HMRC.

Scam messages are so common that HMRC has set up web pages with the specific purpose of helping people to check if the message they have received is genuine or not.

This page covers letters and also the growing problem of fake QR codes, whilst this page covers text messages.

3. Understand your tax code

Another site is helpful when I get asked to help people make sense of their 'tax code'.

As readers will know, these are often a mix of letters and numbers which make little sense in isolation.

But HMRC has now provided a page where you can make sense of the letters and numbers in your code and potentially check if the code is correct or not. 

You can find this at: Tax codes: What your tax code means.

4. Find out when you'll get the state pension

A controversial topic in my first decade of writing for This is Money has been changes to state pension age, and we are currently going through another change in pension age at the moment.

Since April 2026, the state pension age (for men and women) has started rising above 66 and will reach 67 by April 2028.

If you are not sure what your pension age is, you can quickly find out here: Check your State Pension age.

It is worth keeping an eye on this site, particularly if you are expecting a state pension some time after the late 2030s, as new legislation is likely which could increase your pension age, and it is worth making sure you know where you stand.

Steve Webb joins This is Money's podcast for a special pensions Q&A on Friday 16 October

Would you like to hear our star pensions columnist Steve Webb answer your question personally...?

He will be joining hosts Georgie Frost and Simon Lambert on This is Money's popular podcast next Friday.

If you want a chance of getting your question tackled by Steve in our podcast event, write to pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk and put PODCAST in the subject line.

5. Get help finding an old work pension 

Another issue on which readers regularly contact me is for help with tracking down a pension from a past job.

If you no longer have paperwork, a good place to start is the Government's 'Pension Tracing Service'.

This is quite a limited service, as it doesn't actually go looking for pensions. 

But what it does do is provide contact details for schemes, provided you can remember the name of the company you worked for.

Hopefully, the forthcoming Pensions Dashboard will largely remove the need for this kind of information, but for now it remains a useful resource.

There is, of course, a lot of useful information on non-government websites – including www.thisismoney.co.uk!

But it is all too easy to find yourself on a site which looks official but which is actually either a scam or a rip-off, trying to charge you for information or claims which you can get for free by going direct to gov.uk.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has written to my column with their pension questions. I look forward to getting started on the next 500!

Ask Steve Webb a pension question

Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb is This Is Money's Agony Uncle.

He is ready to answer your questions, whether you are still saving, in the process of stopping work, or juggling your finances in retirement.

Steve left the Department of Work and Pensions after the May 2015 election. He is now a partner at actuary and consulting firm Lane Clark & Peacock.

If you would like to ask Steve a question about pensions, please email him at pensionquestions@thisismoney.co.uk.

Steve will do his best to reply to your message in a forthcoming column, but he won't be able to answer everyone or correspond privately with readers. Nothing in his replies constitutes regulated financial advice. Published questions are sometimes edited for brevity or other reasons.

Please include a daytime contact number with your message - this will be kept confidential and not used for marketing purposes.

If Steve is unable to answer your question, you can also contact MoneyHelper, a Government-backed organisation which gives free assistance on pensions to the public. It can be found here and its number is 0800 011 3797.

Steve receives many questions about state pension forecasts and COPE ¿ the Contracted Out Pension Equivalent. If you are writing to Steve on this topic, he responds to a typical reader question here. It includes links to Steve's several earlier columns about state pension forecasts and contracting out, which might be helpful.  

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