Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2025 to Question 77620 Self-assessment: Fines, what the average response time was of HMRC’s dedicated support service to those facing personal difficulties over the latest 12 months for which data is available.

HMRC are committed to being aware of customers’ wider personal situations and will provide extra support if customers need it, as set out in the HMRC Charter.

All HMRC advisers are given training and guidance on how to identify customers who need extra help and how to either provide tailored support themselves or refer the customer to HMRC’s specialist extra support provision. HMRC increased the size of its Extra Support Team (EST) by 28% over 2024 to 2025. In 2024 to 2025, HMRC’s dedicated Customer Service EST helped over 150,000 customers in vulnerable circumstances.

The average response time for those contacting the EST in the past twelve months (October 2024- September 2025) was:

• Referrals via telephony - an average wait time of 44 seconds.
• Webchat - average wait time of 3 minutes and 14 seconds.
• Post - 81.18% of correspondence cleared within 15 working days.