National Insurance Act 1965

Subject to the provisions of the Act, graduated retirement benefit shall be payable to any person who is over pensionable age and who F3is entitled to a retirement pension, and shall be an increase in the weekly rate of his retirement pension equal to F3716.43 pence for each unit, ascertained in accordance with subsections (2) and (3) of this section, of the graduated contributions properly paid by him as an insured person, the result being rounded to the nearest whole penny, taking ½p as nearest to the next whole penny above.

For the purpose of graduated retirement benefit F4, a unit of graduated contributions shall be £7.50.

Where a person’s graduated contributions calculated at the said rate do not make an exact number of units any incomplete fraction of a unit shall, if it is one-half or more, be treated as a complete unit.

For the purposes of subsection (4) of this section, the Secretary of State may by regulations provide for treating all or any of the graduated contributions paid by a person in the tax year in which he attained pensionable age as having been paid before, or as having been paid after, the day on which he attained that age, whether or not the contribution in question was so paid.

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In this section and in section 37 below—

• “graduated contributions” means graduated contributions under the National Insurance Act 1965 or the M1National Insurance Act 1959;

• “insured person” means insured person under the National Insurance Act 1965 or the M2National Insurance Act 1946;

• “retirement pension” means retirement pension of any category F24under the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992;

• “the Act” means the M3Social Security Act 1975;

• F29“the 2005 Regulations” means the Social Security (Graduated Retirement Benefit) Regulations 2005,

and any reference in section 37 below to “section 36 of this Act” or to any of its subsections is a reference to that section or subsection as it is here set out.

This section and section 37 below and the Act shall be construed and have effect as if this section and section 37 below were included in Chapter I of Part II or that Act (contributory benefits); and references to that Chapter, that Part of that Act in any other enactment or in any instrument shall be construed accordingly:

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For the purposes of subsection (1) of this section, the weekly rate of the deceased spouse’s F32or civil partner's graduated retirement benefit shall (whether or not he or she was receiving or entitled to receive any such benefit) be taken to have been the weekly rate appropriate to the amount of graduated contributions paid by him or her (determined as if any orders which have come into force under section 124 of the Act (increases in rates of benefit) since the date of the deceased spouse’s F32or civil partner's death had come into force before that date), excluding any addition under section 37(1) of this Act, but including any addition under section 36(4) thereof (and for the purpose of calculating the addition under section 36(4), taking into account any addition under section 37(1)); and where at his or her death he or she had attained pensionable age but had F13not become entitled to graduated retirement benefit, that addition shall be computed as if he or she had F14... become entitled to graduated retirement benefit immediately before his or her death.

A person’s right to graduated retirement benefit by virtue of this section shall be brought into account under section 36(4) of this Act in determining the graduated retirement benefit payable to him or her under the said section 36:

A person’s right to graduated retirement benefit by virtue of this section in respect of a spouse he or she marries F34, or as the case may be, a civil partner he or she forms a civil partnership with, after attaining pensionable age shall be subject to such additional conditions as may be prescribed; and except as may be provided by regulations a person more than once married F35or who has formed a civil partnership more than once or who has been both married and a civil partner shall not be entitled for the same period to any graduated retirement benefit by virtue of this section in respect of more than one of his or her spouses F36or civil partners.

Regulations may provided that where a woman is entitled to graduated retirement benefit and to a widowed mother’s allowance the graduated retirement benefit shall be an increase in the weekly rate of that allowance; and where the benefit is such an increase, section 36(7) of this Act shall not apply.