Business of the House

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

I echo the Leader of the House’s words about the intolerable and increasingly unsurvivable situation in Gaza. I urge the Government to do everything in their power to help remedy the situation.

My Chelmsford constituent, who is self-employed, regularly has to deal with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. He recently wrote to me about the unacceptable waiting times on HMRC’s customer service helpline. In his experience, this issue has been going on for years but has recently grown considerably worse. He tells me that he sometimes has to wait for up to 40 minutes before giving up and hanging up. It is all very well having services online, but if they are not fully accessible, people will still need an HMRC helpline that is responsive. Sadly, that is not the case.

The unacceptable level of customer service has been the subject of cross-party criticism in this House many times over the years. This year, the Public Accounts Committee agreed that the situation has indeed got worse. It found that 44,000 HMRC customers were cut off while waiting more than 70 minutes to reach an adviser—more than six times the figure for the whole of the 2022-23 financial year. I am sure the whole House will agree that spending time on the phone while waiting to resolve tax issues is not something that many of us or our constituents particularly enjoy doing, and it does not do anything to help productivity. Businesses need to spend their time selling their goods and services and generating tax receipts for the Treasury, not languishing on the end of a phone. Will the Leader of the House ask for a statement to be made about when we can expect to see improvements?

[Lucy Powell]

First of all, as I said in my opening remarks, the situation in Gaza is truly intolerable and awful to see.

The hon. Lady raises what is, unfortunately, an all too familiar issue that many of our businesses and constituents face when trying to contact HMRC and other services. It is simply not good enough that people have to wait as long as she describes, which is incredibly frustrating for them. As she says, it has a real impact on the time that they could otherwise spend on their businesses and on doing what they need to do. She may be aware that, later this year, HMRC will publish a transformation road map to ensure that its services significantly improve, particularly at the customer end. I will make sure that a statement is given about that plan when it is ready, and that she gets an update from the Minister in the meantime.