Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the average passenger queue times at the UK border at Heathrow Airport over Summer 2020.

Operational pressures at Heathrow in July, August and September 2020 resulted in periods where wait time service level agreements (SLAs) have not been met. As you know, Border Force undertake 100% checks on everyone arriving in the UK and there will be occasions when large amounts of passengers arrive in an un-forecast short space of time, resulting in a longer wait. Like all public services operating throughout this unprecedented global pandemic, there have been additional pressures placed on Border Force, but the safety of the public and our staff remains our priority.

As well as being guided by social-distancing measures in relation to the number of officers that could be deployed on the Primary Control Point, a significant number of passengers had failed to complete the Passenger Locator Forms required as part of the health measures at the border processes. Ensuring that these forms are completed is an important part of the protection of the UK in respect to being able to complement the Government’s track and trace programme should anyone on a flight or entry route later discover to be infected with Coronavirus; and the ability for PHE and the police to follow up in-country if required.

If travellers refuse to provide their contact details, they could be fined. In addition to their routine checks, Border Force Officers conduct spot checks on passenger locator forms The failure of passengers to complete the passenger locator form and the ensuing increase to transaction times has been compounded by the commercial decision made by Heathrow Airport Limited to terminate their contract with Omniserv, who performed vital customer service roles in the arrival halls. This included directing passengers to the correct queue, directing passengers to Border Force Officers on the passport control, and hosting the e-Passport Gates. With no replacement for these roles, passenger flow and throughput has been detrimentally impacted

On top of this, airlines are adopting focussed marketing and pricing campaigns to stimulate the revival of the aviation sector. For the same reasons, Heathrow Airport Ltd has allocated several new airlines arrival slots at Heathrow. The cumulative effect of these measures has been to make travel to the United Kingdom more affordable and accessible to passengers changing their demographic. This means an increase in those passengers requiring further examination by a Border Force Officer in order to keep our country safe.