Reform wants to pay you £30 for waiting on hold with HMRC
Key Points
- Reform UK would pay a £30 tax credit for HMRC phone waits over 30 minutes
- The credit is capped at two claims a year and is non-refundable
- HMRC's average wait fell to 12 minutes 35 seconds in 2025-26
- Around half of callers still wait longer than 10 minutes
- Senior HMRC officials would have pay tied to customer service under the plan
Reform UK would pay taxpayers a £30 tax credit for any HMRC phone call that leaves them waiting more than 30 minutes.
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, set out the policy on Wednesday (26 August), and framed it as compensation for time lost on hold.
The credit would apply twice in a tax year at most, and it would be non-refundable, so only people with a tax bill could use it.
Reform would also tie the pay of senior HMRC officials to customer service performance, and officials who fail to cut waiting times would lose their jobs.
“We will restore basic fairness to the taxpayer,” said Jenrick.
Reform claims HMRC wasted 14 million hours of callers’ time in 2023-24, which it values at £275 million in lost productivity using 2025 employee earnings data.
The Federation of Small Businesses puts the annual cost of tax compliance at 44 hours and £4,500 for the average small business owner, a rise of 10% since 2021.
What HMRC’s own figures show
HMRC answered calls in an average of 12 minutes 35 seconds across 2025-26, and 85.1% of callers reached an adviser, clearing its 85% service standard for the first time.
The year before was far worse, at 18 minutes 38 seconds and 71.5% of attempts handled.
In 2023-24 the average wait passed 23 minutes, and only 66.4% of attempts reached an adviser.
Waits are still much longer than they used to be, with HMRC recording an average speed of answer of 4 minutes 28 seconds in 2017-18.
The published figure measures the time from the end of the automated menus until an adviser picks up, so a caller’s total time on the line runs longer than the average suggests.
| Period | Average wait | Waited over 10 minutes | Adviser attempts handled | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 2025 | 14:57 | 57% | 82.8% | Summer peak, one of the slower months in the run |
| Oct 2025 | 11:45 | 46.5% | 86.5% | Best month for callers reaching an adviser |
| Dec 2025 | 16:45 | 55% | 83.1% | Waits climb ahead of the Self Assessment deadline |
| Jan 2026 | 12:14 | 44.6% | 83.7% | Deadline month, despite the higher call volumes |
| Year to Jan 2026 | 13:27 | 51.4% | 84.1% | Around half of callers waited longer than 10 minutes |
Industrial action hit HMRC’s employer helpline from December 2024 and pushed waits up on that line, and it ended in June 2025.
Webchat answers in around a minute on average, and HMRC’s digital services score roughly 83% on customer satisfaction against 55% to 59% for the phone lines.
The Public Accounts Committee said HMRC may have degraded its telephone service to drive taxpayers onto digital channels, and HMRC estimates 66% of the calls it receives could be handled online instead.
The 2025 Spending Review gave HMRC £500 million to hit a target of 90% digital self-serve customer interactions by 2029-30, up from 70% in summer 2025.
