Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 11 May 2023 to Question 183926 on Shipping: Fuels, how many marine voyages relief claims were submitted in each of the last 12 months; and how many and what proportion of those claims (a) required additional security checks and (b) were processed within 30 days.

HMRC aims to pay Oils Relief Repayment claims within 30 days of receipt or as soon as possible with interest accrued outside of the 30-day period. In November 2022, an internal restructure was put in place, moving the work to a different business stream to enhance HMRC’s capacity to deal with these claims efficiently. However, the new team inherited a significant backlog of claims and, to deliver the best customer service in these circumstances, worked the oldest claims on hand first. Additional resources have now been deployed and are being trained to action claims, with a view to clearing the remaining backlog and processing all new claims received from 1^st June 2023 within agreed timeframes. Customers who are concerned they have not heard from HMRC regarding their claims can contact them via their email address MorcExciseEast@hmrc.gov.uk which is monitored daily. They will receive a response to their queries within 5 working days.

All claims are checked against supporting documentation required. No records have been kept on the number of claims which require further information or security checking.