Retirement confusion (social security, WEP, pensions, etc.)

Sorry to dredge this up again, but after speaking with two people (first person clueless) I am now under the impression (from the second person, who was somewhat churlish) that I am not able to top up anything because I wasn't in the UK tax system before I moved here in 2015. It sort of makes sense, since I didn't have a national insurance number, but can anyone here please confirm? Or do I need to call HMRC again and speak with someone who isn't quite so cranky?

My daughter is in the same situation and has been putting off calling the DWP. She attempted to apply to pay voluntary NI contributions through her HMRC government gateway account but was informed that she needs to call in and speak to someone.  But she hates the idea of calling so hasn't done anything about it yet.

Gawd, I can fully understand her reluctance (don't tell her about the churlishness or she'll be completely put off). Would you mind letting me know if she does finally speak to someone, especially if she gets a different response?

... I wasn't in the UK tax system before I moved here in 2015.

The test shouldn't be when you were given the NI number ('in the tax system'), but when you were eligible for it. For example, if you were born a UK citizen and left the UK aged 8 and returned to the UK in 2015, I'd expect you to be able to make voluntary contributions back to 2006. However, it sounds like you didn't have UK citizenship when you moved here in 2015, in which case I would only expect them to allow voluntary contributions back to 2015.

I (and others) may have read you posts as you moving back to the UK in 2015 rather than to the UK for the first time. Sorry if that was the case.

By the way, some unrelated good news: WEP has just been repealed and we no longer need to consider it for anything. In my case, my (predicted) pension will be 8.42% more :-)

Sorry to dredge this up again, but after speaking with two people (first person clueless) I am now under the impression (from the second person, who was somewhat churlish) that I am not able to top up anything because I wasn't in the UK tax system before I moved here in 2015. It sort of makes sense, since I didn't have a national insurance number, but can anyone here please confirm? Or do I need to call HMRC again and speak with someone who isn't quite so cranky?

It looks like this may be answered in my earlier post (two posts up).

Gawd, I can fully understand her reluctance (don't tell her about the churlishness or she'll be completely put off). Would you mind letting me know if she does finally speak to someone, especially if she gets a different response?

Will do.  At least she has made the effort, unlike our son who is in a similar position but hasn't taken my advice so I'll have to nag him some more to look up his NI record and apply to make voluntary contributions.  We took them both to the USA while they were aged 5 and 6 so they never had been issued with NI numbers, and when they returned in their late 30's, early 40's, entered the UK tax system for the first time.