Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to (1) the remarks by Lord Murray of Blidworth on 28 February (HL Deb col 125) that "the service standard of a wait of no longer than 25 minutes for Border Force officers has been maintained throughout that period", and (2) the statement made by the chief executive of Eurostar, Gwendoline Cazenave, on 24 January that Eurostar are running trains more than a third empty, what is the current service standard of UK Border Force for each of the hours of operation in (a) St Pancras, (b) Paris, (c) Brussels, and (d) Amsterdam; and whether the same service could be achieved if Eurostar were able to run the trains full.

Border Force operate the same service standards across all international airports, ports and rail termini. The Border Force operation across international rail operates within published service standard levels. Border Force are only one part of a port ecosystem and we are unable to speculate on Eurostar commercial operations or the wider operation and capacity of port infrastructure and processes outside of our control.

We have regular engagement with partner countries and continue to discuss with them, and Eurostar, future border arrangements and infrastructure availability’.