Luciana Berger
Main Page: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)Department Debates - View all Luciana Berger's debates with the Home Office
Immigration Queues (UK Airports)
Luciana Berger Excerpts(12 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Damian Green
Criminal records checks depend on the quality of information we get from the sending country, and that will differ between different European countries. I am conscious of my hon. Friend’s attitude to the EU, but as we are talking about the immigration laws under the current laws of this country, I think we have said enough on that particular topic for this afternoon.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
The queues at Heathrow are unacceptable, but there are also reports of long queues at Gatwick and the channel tunnel. Three weeks ago, I came into Gatwick at about half-past midnight and had to wait for more than half an hour to enter the country. I witnessed families with young children who were struggling badly with the delay. What inquiries has the Minister made into queues faced by travellers outside the capital?
Damian Green
As I have already explained, the service level agreement is that 95% of UK and EU passengers should be processed within 25 minutes and non-EU passengers should be processed within 45 minutes. Those are the targets Border Force has been set. Without knowing the details of the individuals to whom the hon. Lady refers, I cannot say whether or not they were processed in accordance with service standards. The point she makes about Calais and Coquelles is particularly ill-advised in that we have been told that, along with Easter, the February half-term is one of the busiest weeks at Calais and Coquelles because of schools coming back from half-term trips, and we prepared and planned, and there were no problems over that busy weekend.