Airport Security

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend raises another important point about the relationship with airlines. I assure him that we work very closely with all international partners and, where we can, we share important information with the airlines. They play an important role in areas such as advance passenger information, which in the UK is also shared with, for example, the Border Force.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does this scrutiny extend to private airports and heliports? I was looking at the Channel Islands, for example, as a place which, formally speaking, is within our borders. Some months ago I looked at the helicopters flown between Brecqhou and Monaco. I am not aware that the Guernsey police ever visit Brecqhou, for example, but when passengers arrive there—it may just be the Barclay brothers and nobody else—there are no border controls. Do we make sure that private flights are covered? A considerable number of these come in and out of the United Kingdom, both to the mainland and to the Crown dependencies.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important point about private flights. I assure him that security arrangements are in place at those airports. I will write to him on the specific airports that he mentioned.