People widowed before they turn 66 are being urged to check they are not losing out on state pension they should inherit from their spouses.

A worrying new pattern of errors detected by This is Money columnist Steve Webb suggests some people might be shortchanged if their late husbands or wives reached state pension age before 6 April 2016, or died before that date.

The former Pensions Minister has demanded the Government launches an urgent investigation after blunders he fears are 'the tip of an iceberg' that could affect many thousands of bereaved pensioners.

In cases discovered by Webb, staff at the Department of Work and Pensions have given bogus information to widows and widowers, who were told they could not inherit state pension.

The DWP has previously made vast state pension errors that meant many married women and widows, and both men and women aged over 80, were underpaid a total of more than a billion pounds in a scandal uncovered by Webb and This is Money.

Webb, who is now a partner at pension consultancy LCP, has launched a free new tool on his firm's website to help widows and widowers who began drawing a state pension in recent years to check payments are correct.

And he is calling on anyone who might be underpaid to contact him so he can investigate further. Find out what to check and the information to send Webb below.

'Having had to spend years checking hundreds of thousands of historical state pension calculations for errors, you would hope that DWP would be making sure that new claims are handled correctly,' says Webb.

'But we have found worrying evidence that this is not the case. There seems to be a particular problem for people who are widows or widowers when they claim their state pension.

'In some cases DWP seems to have failed to automatically add any inherited state pension they were due from a late partner.'

Widow wrongly told she CANNOT inherit is owed £2k a year

Birgit Fischer (whose name we have changed) contacted This is Money because she does not receive a state pension, but wanted to know if she was owed something from her late husband's record.

The 68-year-old former charity worker, who lives in the north of England, had reached state pension age in 2021. Her husband died earlier this year aged 79.

When Mrs Fischer rang the DWP she was wrongly told that because she had no state pension in her own right, she couldn't inherit anything.

This contradicted a letter the couple received several years ago explaining that she would inherit state pension if he were to die before her.

After Webb raised this case with the DWP, Mrs Fischer was given around £1,000 in arrears, and is due more than £2,000 a year in state pension.

'What is particularly shocking is that Mrs Fischer was told on the phone that because she didn't have enough contributions for a pension in her own right she also wasn't entitled to inherit anything from her late husband,' says Webb.

'This is simply untrue, and DWP needs to make sure front line staff are better trained so that they do not give out such misleading information.'

Webb has helped several other men and women who were wrongly told by the DWP on the phone or in writing they had no right to inherit anything from a late spouse.

However, he discovered they were owed extra state pension that in some cases amounted to thousands of pounds more a year, plus arrears for the period they were denied correct payments.

Webb says: 'These cases may well be the tip of an iceberg, with many thousands of people potentially underpaid.

'The DWP needs to launch an urgent investigation into the scale of this problem. In the meantime I hope that our new online tool will help people to check what they are entitled to and to report any errors.'

Can you inherit state pension after you turn 66?

If your late spouse either died before 6 April 2016 or reached state pension age before then you can inherit between 50 per cent and 100 per cent of their additional state pension (S2P or Serps) and half of any graduated retirement benefit.

In the cases Webb has found, this wasn't done.

He says each year around 65,000 to 70,000 widows and widowers apply for their state pension.

That means since the new state pension started in 2016 around half a million new claims will have been made by people who were widowed at retirement.

So, even if a small percentage are wrong this could mean many thousands are affected.

Webb says the DWP has its own online tool on inheriting state pension but it is confusing to use.

This is because you go to a page that says 'you are not entitled to a pension based on your spouse's contribution' (meaning the basic pension), then if you scroll down it talks about your potential for inherited second state pension or Serps.

The amount of state pension that can be inherited will depend on individual circumstances, but will be more if a late spouse was employed rather than self-employed, and a surviving spouse is not receiving a pension from a company scheme that might replace part of anything that is due.

It can also depend on whether the living spouse comes under the old or new state pension system, whether the late spouse did, when they died, and whether they were a member of a 'contracted out' occupational pension scheme

Where both spouses reach pension age under the post 2016 system there are limited inheritance rights. This is because the post-2016 system is mainly based on your own individual National Insurance record.

What does the DWP say?

'We want to ensure pensioners receive all the support to which they are entitled and have a tool to help them understand what state pension they can inherit,' says a DWP spokesperson.

'Delays can occur to a customer's state pension award when not all the information we need is provided.

'In these cases, we will make a state pension award based on the customer's own National Insurance record until we have the required information.

'Once we have the necessary documentation, we will then revise the customer's claim as soon as possible.'

The DWP has a tool here to help those receiving the new state pension - those who qualify from 6 April 2016 onwards - assess their eligibility for inherited amounts.

It also has a guide here on inheriting or increasing a state pension.