Immigration: Controls at Airports

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we are not using denial of visas to adjust these numbers, but obviously we want to deal with passport control as we can at the point of exit, where it is possible. That is one of the things that we do, and it is good to make things easier for visa control later on.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, the Minister referred in his Answer to people with skills and experience and referred in his subsequent answer to the right people in the right places. Will he explain to the House what skills and experience are required for somebody to become a member of the UK Border Agency, how they acquire those skills and where the UK Border Agency is recruiting from?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, at the Dispatch Box, in answer to a question, I am not going to go through in detail the recruiting processes of UKBA and the border force. Obviously, they have to make sure that they get the right people who get the right training, and that they deal with things in the proper ways. At the same time, we also want to make sure that we use technology as best we can, as in the past we did with IRIS and in the future we will do that with e-gates. As a result, we hope that we will be able to improve the service for all those people and improve the security that we can offer to the country in dealing with these matters.