Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that suspected terrorists do not enter the UK using counterfeit passports.

All Border Force officers at passport control are trained in forgery detection. When a Border Force officer is not convinced that a document is genuine and in the possession of the rightful holder they will take the appropriate action. Between 2010 and September 2016 more than 116,000 people were refused entry to the UK, including those refused for travelling on invalid documentation.

Border Force is committed to a programme of continuous improvement and is constantly reviewing the training, techniques and technology available to front line staff to ensure that officers have the skills and equipment to detect counterfeit documents.