Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment HMRC has made of the causes of customs delays affecting parcels entering the UK from the European Union during the period 1 November 2024 to 31 January 2025.

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.