Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to Answer of 17 January 2019 to Question 208357, for what reasons his Department delayed the closure of the HMRC office in Peterlee.
HMRC has decided to keep its office in Peterlee, Emerald Court, open until 2022-23 in order to respond to changing priorities.
HMRC now expects that there will be more people in the Department in 2021 than it anticipated when its location plans were originally announced in 2015. This is due to the recruitment of people into Customer Services, extra staff to support new compliance work, the need for more operational staff to support EU Exit work and the change to the Department for Work and Pensions’ approach to rolling out Universal Credit, all resulting in more staff staying with HMRC.
There are no current plans to retain any more other offices for longer, other than those which HMRC had previously announced.