Nigel Mills
Main Page: Nigel Mills (Conservative - Amber Valley)Department Debates - View all Nigel Mills's debates with the Home Office
Immigration Queues (UK Airports)
Nigel Mills Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Damian Green
The hon. Gentleman can be assured that I visit Heathrow regularly. I am happy to join him in paying tribute not just to the hard work of those who work as immigration officers and customs officers at our borders, but to the dedication they bring to the job. They are very serious about keeping the wrong people and the wrong things out of our country. As I say, I visit Heathrow extremely regularly and will be glad to go there in the coming weeks to see the new control room and the more flexible rostering that we are setting up and to see the better use we intend to make of those dedicated staff.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that airports themselves as well as Border Force can do more to improve this process and make sure that the right number of staff are available at the right times to deal with the expected flight volume?
Damian Green
I do. There are two significant areas where work could be done by our partners at airports. One is in the provision of information so that Border Force can respond as quickly as possible to any delays caused by wind or that sort of thing that makes planes occasionally bunch in their arrivals. The other is the physical layout of the airports, which is a role for airport operators. For example, people need to have clear lines of sight so that they can see the gates for as long as possible, and as much emphasis as possible should be given to reassuring passengers that they are going through a process smoothly, as often happens on the retailing side of airports.