Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the average customs clearance time was for parcels entering the UK from the EU during the period 1 November to 31 January in each of the last three years.

HMRC understands the importance of consumers receiving their parcels on time and has robust procedures alongside Border Force to help maintain the flow.

HMRC have confirmed there were no significant system outages during the period requested but has not conducted an assessment of what factors may have negatively influenced clearance times during that period.

Whilst HMRC does have average customs clearance times for declarations made on the Customs Declaration Service, it is not able to identify parcels specifically from this data and does not hold data on the average customs clearance time for parcels imported by the UK’s designated postal operator, Royal Mail.