Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information her Department holds on (a) the average call answer time and (b) time spent on hold for people calling the HMRC employers general enquiries line in the last year.

HMRC’s average call answer time for the Employers helpline in 2025/26 was 24 minutes 50 seconds. The definition of ‘average call answer time’ is the average time spent waiting in the queue for an adviser. This is from the time that the customer finished listening to HMRC’s automated messages and completed their selection from HMRC’s automated menu to the time when they get to speak to an adviser.

The average time spent on hold was 2 minutes 14 seconds. This measures the time after a call has been answered by an adviser when the caller is subsequently put on hold.