Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if his Department asked HMRC to make an assessment of the socio-economic effect of the closure of the HMRC office at International House, Ealing, as a result of the economic effect of the covid-19 outbreak on that locality.

HMRC’s Locations Programme conducts People and Equality Impact Assessments (PEIA) at a regional and national level; the latter is updated and published on GOV.UK annually.

HMRC is in the process of refreshing the national PEIA published in July 2019. HMRC shared the regional PEIA for Stratford with staff in September 2019, which included impacts and mitigations relating to the workforce in Ealing.

HMRC have recently carried out and published internally an Equality Impact Assessment on the implications of COVID-19 on HMRC staff across the department. Work to mitigate impacts is in progress.

As is always the case, if there are ways in which HMRC can improve how they deliver their vital public services then they will seek to implement those improvements. This includes reviewing how HMRC have been able to respond to COVID-19 and determining whether and how they might be able to sustain any changes to ways of working that are proven to lead to better outcomes for both HMRC and taxpayers.