Travel Disruption at UK Airports and Ferry Ports

Lord Bishop of Chichester Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chichester]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for initiating this important debate. I speak from the experience of working to support the chaplaincy of Gatwick Airport—I was glad to hear the Minister speak so positively of her experience of coming through it recently. However, like so many other parts of the aviation industry, the airport was dealt a harsh blow by the Covid pandemic. Many staff who were foreign nationals, though receiving furlough payments, went back to their home countries and have not returned to work in the UK. This affected the security department, hospitality industry and the hotels especially, and it has had a devastating effect on the economic life of the town of Crawley, which was already in receipt of investment from the towns fund as part of the Government’s levelling-up programme.

It has been hard to replace this pool of experienced workers, nor has it been easy to recruit new staff locally, especially for specialist jobs that require a significant period of training to meet a necessarily high standard of security. The Government have provided some assistance by amending airport security regulations, but there is a plea from Gatwick that Ministers do more to ensure that there is sufficient resource to process security and ID checks as well as manage the border and process passport applications.

I understand from my colleagues at Gatwick Airport that the salaries it offers in recruiting new staff are comparable to those in other airports and in other sectors, comparing well with salaries for posts of similar responsibility in the NHS, education and the service sector. We found that the package at Gatwick is sufficiently attractive to draw new staff from the police force and from British rail management, so also depleting staffing in those important services.

New staff, especially younger recruits, are experiencing verbally threatening behaviour in their working lives which they have not experienced before and find very disturbing. This rarely seems to be addressed in their training, with the result that many people just do not turn up for their shifts or have even resigned, thus creating more staff shortages at short notice on terminal concourses.

This is an indication of a serious shortage of able people from whom to recruit in order to sustain a service industry that cannot offer working from home, which has become the norm since the pandemic. Those working in the transport and hospitality aspects of tourism continue to look to government for investment in recruitment, training, maintenance of quality and delivery of service.

In this context, I urge serious consideration for the role of chaplaincy in an airport, which is comparable with a hospital, prison or school, where those served are not simply the users but the staff, who face significant challenges. Airport chaplains minister to distressed travellers as much as they contribute to sustaining the morale, professional aspirations and quality of life of staff in such places, in order to deliver the best possible service. Salaries for chaplains represent good value for money and should be required for best practice on the part of any company running one of our airports.

The successful presentation of the UK to foreign travellers is formed by first impressions. Emerging from a well-run airport at Gatwick, they will find that Network Rail has done good work on improvements to Gatwick rail station, but the quality of trains on offer is then poor. Apart from two Gatwick Express services an hour, the other trains have no provision for luggage and are often already crowded and very uncomfortable. The mix of suburban and international travellers is not a good start to a happy visit.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords—