Passport e-Gates Network Outage

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and for advance sight of it. I join him in paying tribute to the staff who responded swiftly to resolve last night’s e-gate network outage, whose actions should be commended. It is also right to pay tribute, as he did, to the passengers who waited patiently for hours—some after very long flights.

Our border security is not and should not be a dividing issue. The Minister has done the right thing by coming to the House today with the aim of providing clarity and reassurance on this extremely important matter. However, I am sure that the House will agree that the chaotic scenes across many of the UK’s major airports last night were unacceptable, not least because e-gates have failed on several occasions in recent years. The system collapsed at the start of the late May bank holiday weekend in 2023 because of a failed system upgrade, and technical issues in 2021 caused the gates to fail three times in two months.

That is unacceptable, and it brings into sharp focus how the current high-capacity e-gate system is no longer reliable enough and risks further damaging public trust in the Government’s management of our border security. Furthermore, although the Minister has made it clear that last night’s e-gate failure was down to technical issues rather than malign activity, the Home Office and Border Force must make every effort to ensure that any such technical issues do not expose vulnerabilities in the system that could be exploited by our adversaries, be they state or non-state malign actors. Britain’s border system should at all times allow lawful entry into our country and stop illegal entry. The safety and security of our country depends on it.

I would be grateful if the Minister answered the following questions. First, at this stage, is he able to confirm whether the same technical issue responsible for previous e-gate failures is behind last night’s events? If so, what urgent action will be taken to ensure that it is finally resolved? Secondly, does he believe that the contingency plan for a national e-gate failure worked last night, and what does he deem to be an acceptable wait time for processing entries into the UK when e-gates fail? Thirdly, is he able to share figures on how many Border Force officers were redirected from other vital duties to manually process entries in the UK last night, and were there backlogs in other parts of the border system as a result?

While he is answering questions about mobility and security at the border, can the Minister give a guarantee that full preparations are in place at Dover to avoid queues when the European entry and exit checks are introduced in the autumn? Finally, will he take this opportunity to give an assurance that no other national e-gate failure will happen on his watch? I hope that the Minister will take those questions in the constructive spirit in which they are intended. If he is not able to answer them today, will he write to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), and to me?

There cannot be another repeat of the chaos seen at Britain’s border last night. The Government must do everything they can to resolve these persistent problems for once and for all. The public must have faith that the UK’s border security system still works.