Asked by Lord Wallace of Saltaire To ask Her
Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of
additional public employees needed to meet the requirements of
Brexit, in particular in customs and border control. The Minister
of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford)
(Con) ...Request free trial
Asked by
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have
made of the number of additional public employees needed to
meet the requirements of Brexit, in particular in customs
and border control.
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of
Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the White Paper published last week set out the
Government’s priorities and the broad strategy for exiting
the EU. There is a number of options as to how EU migration
and customs checks might work once we have exited the EU.
We are considering these options, so it would be wrong to
set out a further position at this stage.
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(LD)
My Lords, half of Britain’s trade is currently within the
single market, so presumably customs checks and the space
needed for them will have to be considerably expanded.
Two-thirds of visitors come from the EU and the EEA, so I
assume that the long queues that we already have at the
external border for people going through hard border
controls will be immensely lengthened and that we will need
to treble the number of border staff. Are the Government
already beginning to plan for the extra space and staff
they need? If they cannot recruit enough, perhaps we will
need to recruit border agency people from eastern Europe.
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My Lords, the Government will certainly be prepared, if
need be, in the way that the noble Lord said. However, the
advent of e-passport gates at airports has made it quicker
to get through the border, and of course the facial
recognition checks at those gates have proved to be very
efficient.
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(Lab)
My Lords, if there is a range of options, there must surely
be a range of costs—guestimates—available to the
Government. What are they? Perhaps the Minister can help me
but I cannot recall the costs used by the Brexiteers during
the referendum campaign. Perhaps she can refresh my memory.
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My Lords, of course there will be a range of options, none
of which am I in a position to cost or comment on today,
but they will become clearer. I am sure that the noble Lord
has read the White Paper on the broad principles as we go
forward.
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(CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that removing exit checks
from our borders in 1998 was a huge mistake? Does she also
agree that, Brexit or no Brexit, we now need to bring back
immediately exit checks to our borders so that we are on
top of things from a security point of view and from the
point of view of being in control of immigration, with EU
and non-EU citizens being scanned in and scanned out? In
fact, I could recommend a whole list of Indian IT companies
that could do the job.
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I thank the noble Lord. He is right about exit checks. They
were reintroduced last year and will provide some very
useful information, not least on immigration.
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(Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend tell me how many additional
public employees are employed by the Government to answer
questions from people who do not accept the result of the
referendum?
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The figures differ at various times. I can say to my noble
friend—and I am sure he will agree with me—that we will be
well equipped to deal with our borders when the time comes.
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(Lab)
My Lords, what exactly do the Government mean when they say
that under Brexit we will have control of our borders? Does
it mean that people who should not do so will not enter
this country? If so, how will the Government achieve that,
bearing in mind that we are not in a position to stop
illegal immigration at present—as the road haulage industry
makes clear—despite the present level of co-operation with
the French authorities?
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My Lords, there is more than just the French authorities to
consider, although we have worked very hard and in good
co-operation with the French. Control of our borders means
just that—control of who comes in and who goes out.
However, I accept that no system is perfect.
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(Lab)
My Lords, would not the introduction of ID cards be the
cheapest way to try to deal with this problem? Would not
the Government’s time be better spent looking at the
proposals and seeing how effective they would be in
introducing controls on our borders?
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In short, no. We have moved beyond the ID card in terms of
the amount of information we have on passenger movement.
Technology now has almost negated the need for what the
noble Lord talks about, which was quite some time ago.
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(LD)
My Lords, there has been a 25% reduction in funding per
passenger for the UK Border Force since 2011. The Minister
mentioned that e-gates—automatic gates—at airports for EEA
nationals mean that the reduction in funding has not resulted
in a lessening of security. Can she say what will happen when
we leave the European Union and EEA nationals will no longer
be subject to this, rather worryingly termed, soft border
regime?
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My Lords, the number of full-time Border Force employees has
ranged from approximately 7,600 to 8,100 in the past few
years. As I said earlier, there may have been a reduction
perhaps last year in workforce because it is within that
range but e-gates and other infrastructure improvements have
improved the system. In 2016-17 we invested £68 million in
capital for infrastructure improvements.
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(UKIP)
My Lords, have the Government worked out how much we will be
saving by not having to send an endless stream of Ministers
and their civil servants over to Brussels to nod through its
useless and damaging legislation and by not having to enact
it thereafter? Did not the British people vote specifically
for more border control, which therefore becomes something of
a priority, does it not?
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The British public certainly did vote for more border control
and this Government are very clear that we need to balance
immigration with the skills that we need to provide services
in this country. In terms of the savings, experts have given
all sorts of figures and I will not at this point try to
guess.
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(Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that asking rational and
legitimate questions about process is not the same as not
accepting the result of the referendum?
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Asking rational questions is perfectly legitimate; noble
Lords tend to ask rational questions, and that is totally
legitimate. There is a wide range of views in both your
Lordships’ House and the other place but I think we all
accept the outcome of the referendum.
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(CB)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that a UK border official at
Charles de Gaulle airport once told me that when a passport
on occasion appears in front of them that is illegal, they
give it back to the French authorities and that passport
often reappears, carried by somebody else, in order to try to
get access to the UK?
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The noble Viscount tells me something that I did not know,
but the e-gates are actually very accurate at marrying up the
person with the identity in the passport.
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