Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if the Government will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward the UK 2025 Border Strategy to ensure a frictionless border for international train travel in and out of the UK.

In order to achieve the transformation outcomes set out in the 2025 UK Border Strategy; to use upstream compliance to move processes away from the actual frontier where appropriate both for passengers and traders, there are a number of complex and dependent activities which need to be delivered.

All travellers (except British and Irish) coming to the UK will need to hold an electronic permission to travel ahead of departure and carriers will need to integrate with government systems to provide data and recognise electronic permissions to travel. The programme plans to engage with and onboard carriers, provide all customers with electronic permissions as well as a robust testing schedule of the enabling technology.

Most international train journeys into the UK are already through juxtaposed controls so a passenger has crossed the border before they board a train. Passengers can also use e-gates in juxtaposed ports so they do not need to be seen an officer which facilitates a quicker customer journey.

The published timelines have taken into account our ability to deliver this work as timely as possible with carriers such as Eurostar in order to realise the additional benefits to Traveller, Carrier and the UK Border as described in the 2025 strategy.