Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 21 March (HL6429), what is the percentage increase in the number of staff allocated to passport control at points of entry and exit from the UK since the start of this year; and what plans they have to increase the numbers of staff (1) employed, (2) trained, and (3) available, to undertake this work in the next six months.

Ports constantly review their resourcing levels and Border Force’s National Operations centre monitors passenger flow across the UK, deploying staff to respond to pressure points and deprioritising non-essential work. This includes identifying and acting appropriately to mitigate the impact of COVID on staffing levels and maximising resource at the front line.

Border Force has increased its workforce by 3% over 2020/2021 financial year to over 9,300 staff, with a large proportion of those staff trained and deployed to front line operations.

Border Force is sending extra officers to ports to help manage passenger flow, by redeploying existing staff, using temporary staff and contractors, moving trained staff out of back-office functions, and offering overtime to increase frontline resilience where we can.