Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on how many occasions since 1 July 2014 border gates at Heathrow Terminals 1 to 5, other than e gates, have been closed to EU passport holders.

Border Force Heathrow does not record desk occupancy as they operate a flexible approach in resourcing the immigration control. Fixed resources are deployed at each terminal between the non-EEA control and the EEA/EU control and, if required, flexible teams from across the estate are deployed to support the fixed terminal staff in times of increased passenger flow.

This is done in advance by Border Force's central resourcing team, matching resource levels to expected demand and on the day through proactive management by duty managers with the aim of operating within agreed service level agreements with the airport authority (95% of the time within 25 minutes for EEA/EU and 95% of the time within 45 minutes for non-EEA/EU). Since 1 July 2014 Border Force has consistently been meeting these service standards for the EEA control at each of the Heathrow terminals.