Revealed: 80 million calls to HMRC go unanswered as Lib Dems demand tax body launch “Retiree Red Phone” hotline

EMBARGO: Immediate release 

• Research by the House of Commons Library commissioned by the party’s trade spokesperson shows HMRC has failed to pick up 1 in 5 taxpayer calls over the last decade, with the tax service leaving the best part of a hundred million calls unanswered in the last ten years.
• The Lib Dems are calling for a new “Retiree Red Phone” hotline to quickly process calls from pensioners as the state pension approaches an income tax cliff-edge.

Bombshell new analysis by the Lib Dems has revealed over 80 million calls to HMRC have gone unanswered as the party calls for a new “Retiree Red Phone” hotline for pensioners.

The Liberal Democrats have castigated the previous Conservative Government for driving HMRC customer services into the ground, warning that the current Government is failing to deliver a “decent service” to taxpayers. Last year saw the second-longest average waiting time in the last decade.

Research by the House of Commons Library commissioned by the party’s Investment and Trade Spokesperson, Joshua Reynolds, shows that HMRC has failed to pick up 83 million calls from Brits in the last ten years – with 6 million of those being in just the last year. Analysis shows 17,700 calls a day went unanswered. Rates of successful pickup were as low as 72.5% as recently as 2022/23, with the latest figures for 2024/25 showing that 1 in 5 callers did not get through to the tax service.

The average waiting time for calls to the tax service in 2024/25 was a painful 18 minutes and 38 seconds, the second highest in the last decade after the 23 minutes and 14 seconds recorded in 2023/24.

The analysis comes after it was confirmed last week that the state pension will rise by 4.8% under the triple lock, taking the full new state pension to £12,547.70 from next April. This means that retirees whose only income is the new state pension will be just £22.30 a year away from having to pay income tax for the first time, after the Conservative party froze the tax-free personal allowance at £12,570 until 2028.

The Liberal Democrats are warning that many people may be excluded if HMRC keeps failing to get a grip on its phone service, and that retirees, who are among the likeliest to seek tax information over the phone, risk being particularly badly hit when more and more are dragged into income tax.

With many pensioners hit by the double whammy of digital access difficulties and the previous Conservative Government’s stealth tax, the Liberal Democrats are calling for a dedicated “Retiree Red Phone” hotline to properly support state pensioners with their tax queries.

Liberal Democrat Investment and Trade Spokesperson, Joshua Reynolds MP, said:

“Pensioners trying to make sense of tax rules, young people battling the logistics of their first job and small business owners trying to get payday right are being hung up on by the very people whose help they need.

“It’s simply disgraceful to think that those people haven’t been able to access the decent service they deserve from HMRC -- all because the previous Conservative Government drove the agency into the ground and the current Government has so far failed to turn things around.

“Pensioners are already struggling with the price of food, heating their homes and worrying that their state pension is just pennies away from the income tax threshold – they don’t need ‘try the taxman again’ on their to-do lists. The Government should work with HMRC to launch a new Retiree Red Phone hotline to make sure they can finally get through to the proper support they need.”

ENDS

Notes to Editor:

Please see research by the House of Commons Library, appended with further analysis by the Liberal Democrats, here.

Historical phone waiting times data from HMRC (“average speed of answer”) can be found here.

The current rate of the new full state pension is £230.25 a week, or £11,973 a year, and can be found here. Under the triple lock, the state pension is increased each year in line with the highest of the inflation figure for September, the wage growth figure for July, or 2.5%.

On Wednesday (Oct 22nd) the ONS published the inflation figure for September (3.8%), which confirms that the state pension will be increased by 4.8% in line with July’s wage growth figure.

This will take the full new state pension to £241.30 a week, or £12,547.70 a year, which is just £22.30 below the Personal Allowance, which has been frozen at £12,570 until April 2028.