Maternity allowance - please help!

[raindrop83]

Hello,

I wonder if anyone can help me - I'm currently 10 weeks pregnant and trying to work out if I'd qualify for maternity allowance. My understanding is that you need to have been employed or self-employed for 26 weeks in the 66 weeks before your due date.

I was made redundant in November however my last 13 weeks of employment fall within my qualifying period of the 66 weeks so that's 13 weeks employed with a good income.

I then registered as self-employed in February however due to the Coronavirus I've only done a single piece of work so far and I'm not sure how long it will be before things pick-up.

My question therefore is if I opt to pay my class 2 national insurance contributions will my self-employment still go towards making up my remaining 13 weeks I need in my qualifying period despite my low income and will I still qualify for maternity allowance?

Any help really appreciated as I'm so worried about this!

Years ago I back paid 3 years worth of NI so I could get MA so it was an option then. Although those payments corresponded with tax returns etc so I don't know if you can just randomly pay it and get MA. It's worth a try at the very least though, so long as your dates fit.

I need to do my current tax return from setting up as self employed in Feb so I'll be paying 9 weeks national insurance then which takes me up to 22 weeks including my 13 weeks employed. So by the time I put in my claim for MA I'll only be 4 weeks short of not paying national insurance as that will be the new tax year.

So I suppose I'm asking a couple of things,

Is it possible to volunteer to pay national insurance when your self-employed despite a low income?

And as I won't have done my tax return for the new financial year by the time I claim can I pay the remaining 4 weeks early?

Or also can you mix and match with employment and self employment to get to the 26 weeks?

Hope that makes sense!