As the UK prepares for another busy weekend of travel, Chancellor
of the Duchy of Lancaster today chaired a meeting of Ministers from
across Government to update on how they are supporting industry
and port and airport operators to ease potential disruption and
ensure families can get away on their holidays, from
working with the Port of Dover and French Government to
working with Highways England on managing traffic.
The meeting included Ministers from the Department for Transport,
Home Office, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and
Communities, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development
Office.
Ministers were also joined by senior officials from UK
Border Force, the National Police Coordination Centre and the
Kent Resilience Forum, which managed the local impact of the
weekend’s issues at Dover and Folkestone.
Ministers also discussed how recent measures, such as changing
regulations on airport slots rules to help airlines make
sensible decisions about schedules, avoid last-minute
cancellations and provide passengers with more certainty.
With Birmingham’s Commonwealth Games beginning on Thursday, and
RMT rail workers on strike on Wednesday, Ministers further
discussed preparations being put in place to provide alternative
transport and keep the country moving.
Measures include putting extra capacity on lines that are running
and laying on coaches for sports fans and spectators.
The Home Office also updated on recent improvements in passport
application processing ahead of the big summer
getaway. Minister Foster has been meeting with Passport
Office seniors on a fortnightly basis to drive forward work to
step up processing times. Hundreds of extra staff are being
brought in to help increase capacity, and the Passport Office are
now processing around a million applications each month, with
97.7% of these being processed within 10 weeks.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said:
We want to make sure families get away on their holidays
smoothly and hauliers aren’t delayed unnecessarily.
Ahead of another busy weekend of travel, today I chaired a GRIP
meeting with Ministers from across Government, joined by
senior officials from UK Border Force, the National Police
Coordination Centre and the Kent Resilience Forum.
This was to confirm that work is underway to prevent the
scenes of disruption that we saw last weekend, and that we are in
daily contact with the Port of Dover and French Government to
work together to remove any grit from the system.
I want to use these GRIP meetings - to coordinate and galvanise
Government Resilience, Implementation and Preparedness for
potential issues facing the country.
