France and the UK have agreed to increase staffing at border controls in response to warnings of travel chaos caused by new fingerprinting and facial recognition checks.
Disruption at Channel crossings is expected to rise sharply next weekend at the start of the summer holiday season, with MPs saying there would be “utter chaos and miles of tailbacks” unless the EU’s entry-exit system (EES) is fixed or checks are suspended.
The EU has rejected calls to suspend the system, but French officials have reportedly assured the UK transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, that more staff will be deployed to ease queues.
On Sunday, Alexander announced £20m of UK government funding to help reduce delays. The Department for Transport said the money would increase capacity for processing vehicles, reduce wait times and ease congestion.
Alexander said her French counterpart, Philippe Tabarot, had agreed that high levels of resourcing at border points were essential to enable smoother journeys for passengers over the summer period.
French border police have offered to put more of its officers on UK soil to ensure passport booths are better staffed at Dover, Folkestone and London St Pancras station, from where the Eurostar departs, according to the Sunday Times. The exact level of any staffing commitment from France is unclear.
A spokesperson for the DfT said: “Heidi Alexander and her French counterpart agreed that high levels of resourcing at border points are essential to enable smoother journeys for passengers over the summer period.”
Alexander told Tabarot that biometric kiosks used to take fingerprints and facial scans were not working.
The DfT pointed out that checks could be carried out on coach passengers and lorries, by French border police on UK soil. But instead they are having to manually register car passengers without biometrics while the French authorities wait for new kiosks and tablets to be ready.
Alexander said: “As well as the over £20m we have given to increase booths for passport checks and minimise disruption, I have raised holidaymakers’ concerns directly with the EU commissioner for transport to make sure they are playing their part to reduce delays during the busiest travel period of the year.
“I will do everything in my power to help holidaymakers on their way.”
The port of Dover said EES checks at the start of the May half-term holiday led to four-and-a-half hours of delays. It expects almost 50% more vehicles to travel through Dover this summer. About 12,000 cars a day are expected at Dover next weekend – more than three times as many than usual.
After a visit to the port by home affairs select committee MPs, Karen Bradley, the committee chair, said last week: “We saw for ourselves that there is going to be utter chaos next week unless the French authorities step up.”
On Tuesday, the EU said there were 20 “difficult spots”, which are thought to include Dover, caused by the new checks. But it dismissed a request by airports and airlines to suspend the EES.
The new system is designed to address the weakness in border controls exposed by the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris in 2015 and 2016. It was delayed several times before it finally began being introduced in phases last October.
Since April, UK passengers entering and exiting Schengen countries, have to register at the border by scanning their passport, plus having their photo and fingerprints taken.