Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which nationalities were able to use e-passport gates in (a) 2016, (b) 2017, (c) 2018 and (d) to date in 2019; and which nationalities are planned to be able to access e-passport gates in 2020.

Eligibility to use ePassport gates is currently limited to UK/EU/EEA and Swiss nationals aged 12 and over using an ePassport, and adult members of the Registered Traveller Service (RTS). From this summer, nationals from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States of America will also be routinely eligible to use the ePassport gates.

In respect of RTS, in January 2016, it was open to eligible nationals of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, United States of America, Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region only), Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

In November 2016, RTS was expanded to include eligible nationals from Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Brunei, Costa Rica, Chile, El Salvador, Guatema-la, Honduras, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay.

A further expansion of RTS took place in October 2017 to include eligible nationals from Andorra, Bahamas, Botswana, Holy See (Vatican City), Ma-cao (Special Administrative Region of China), Maldives, Monaco, Namibia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Seychelles, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Tonga and Trinidad and Tobago.

We keep the border under regular review and will monitor the impact of the recently announced expansion of eligibility before considering any further expansion to additional nationalities.