May under pressure after new border claims

A report in today’s Sunday Telegraph says guards at Dover made no electronic passport checks, simply ensuring that a traveller’s face matched the image on his or her passport. As a result, there was no cross-checking to ascertain whether or not the passport holder was on a computer database of wanted terrorists or criminals.

An estimated 17 million coach passengers have passed through the port since 2007, when the practice came into force.

The policy, which was never disclosed to parliament, was discontinued 10 days ago. The arrangement was instituted under Labour in 2007 in response to French complaints about congestion at Calais.

Confusion over exactly when the policy was introduced means it is not clear whether John Reid or Jacqui Smith was home secretary at the time.

Questions are now being asked about whether a similar arrangement had been in place at other ports on the English south coast.

Border agency row

Last week Brodie Clark, head of UK border force, resigned after accusing Theresa May of making his position “untenable”. It was alleged immigration officials had been told to relax identity checks on non-EU nationals, in addition to checks on EU nationals.

It was also claimed guards were instructed not to bother checking fingerprints and other personal details against a Home Office database of terror suspects and illegal immigrants.

The home secretary confirmed that border checks abandoned by the UK border force without ministerial approval included checking adults against the warnings index at Calais. Biometric checks on adults, as well as warnings index checks on children from within the European economic area (EEA), were also abandoned on a regular basis.

Theresa May told the House of Commons: “I did not give my consent or authorisation for any of these decisions. Indeed, I told officials explicity that the pilot was to go no further than we had agreed.

“As a result of these unuathorised actions, we will never know how many people entered the country who should have been prevented from doing so after being flagged by the warnings index.”