Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 29 March (HL Deb, col 900) that “assessment is made of the throughput of traffic and gates are opened and closed accordingly”, why no biometric gates were open at the St Pancras Eurostar terminal on 30 March at a time of maximum traffic; and whether they intend to review their assessment procedure to avoid a recurrence of delays.

The biometric gates at St Pancras Eurostar terminal are owned by Eurostar and operated by French Police aux frontieres. They are part of the French border control process and they dictate the hours of operation.

The Eurostar Gare du Nord to St Pancras route has a juxtaposed control in place and the UK Border checks are carried out at Gare du Nord. I can confirm the UK biometric gates were open between 0500-1900 on the 30 March 2018.