Customs checks aimed at thwarting drugs and arms smugglers have
been downgraded in order to deal with the growing queues at Britain's
major airports, according to frontline officials.
Senior
immigration officers and border force unions say staff shortages and
growing political pressure to reduce queueing times mean that operations
to combat the influx of drugs, guns and other contraband into the UK
have, in effect, been placed on hold.
One senior official at Heathrow told the Observer the situation was so serious that Britain's busiest airport could be
described as having "no border controls" when it came to smuggling. The
officer, who wished to remain anonymous, added that passengers
identified as suspicious, including those accredited to work on Olympic
sites, were being waved through without extra security checks because
they there were not enough staff to tackle queues.
Last week it
emerged that the UK Border Force was failing to meet its Heathrow
passport control targets on an almost daily basis. Unions confirmed the
"effective abandonment" of customs operations at airports because staff
shortages meant all available personnel were being pulled on to
passport control. Paul O'Connor, Home Office national manager for the
Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents 6,000
border staff, claimed that customs officers believed the huge cutback in
operations was already leading to an increase in small-scale
drug-smuggling into the UK.
The senior official at Heathrow, who
has almost 10 years' experience, said: "We have actually ceased doing
[anti-smuggling operations] at the moment, even though they won't say
they have. Word has already got around to criminal enterprises."
Chris
Hobbs, a former Metropolitan police officer who worked with border
control at Heathrow and Gatwick before retiring last summer, said:
"Organised crime networks will only be too well aware of this and, if
they can recruit couriers, will be having a field day."
A Home
Office spokesman said: "We are committed to maintaining border security.
By deploying our staff flexibly we are continuing to target drugs and
illegal weapons while carrying out our immigration work as rigorously
and efficiently as possible."
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, urged Theresa May,
the home secretary, to "stop hiding" and investigate the escalating
airport security "shambles". Cooper said: "She needs to make sure that
appropriate customs checks are still taking place and that panic action
to staff the passport desks is not leaving customs completely empty."
The
PCS also warned that extra baggage checks and detailed questioning of
suspect passengers were not being carried out because staff had been
moved to passport control. Security concerns among border staff,
O'Connor said, had been raised repeatedly with line managers and with
May, ahead of the Olympics, but to no avail.
The frontline
Heathrow border official described an incident last week involving two
students from Pakistan, both with Olympic accreditation. He felt they
posed a potential security risk, yet they were allowed to enter the UK
without being challenged or having their bags searched.
He said:
"One was already green accredited which means he was going to be working
on the Olympic site somewhere. I don't know what venue, I just know
he's been passed as secure. It's shocking, they're landed and there is
nothing I can do. It's an accident waiting to happen."
The
pressure to cut queuing times was so acute that he had stopped "running
cases" – questioning suspect passengers on their travel history, their
intentions in the UK and examining their baggage – because passport
control was too short-staffed.
Last year, he said, his team was
running up to 50 cases a day. "And that was very light compared to a few
years ago. I would normally have done three cases a day myself on a
shift. I can't even do one at the moment if I want to because I don't
have the time."
Hobbs, author of the novel Olympic Flames 2012, in which a riot takes place at the London Games, said the situation raised questions over the vetting process for the Games and the broader approach to border security.
"Border
officers are encountering foreign visa-holding students re-entering the
UK whom they are less than happy with. On checking UKBA databases, they
are finding these students have been given accreditation to work at
Olympic venues, including the Olympic Park.
"Requests to carry out
further inquiries in respect of these passengers are normally refused
by chief immigration officers due to the fact there are huge queues and
insufficient staff."
Cooper said that May needed to explain to parliament why such a security risk had been allowed.
"The home secretary was warned about the risk of cutting so many border staff, particularly in Olympic year," she added.
Figures
detailing airport queuing times – on Saturday, delays at Stansted
passport control were branded "unacceptable" – have intensified the
pressure on May, with the prime minister already asking her to explain
the problem. The situation is likely to be compounded by a threatened
one-day strike by border staff. the home secretary's insistence on full
passport checks is fundamental to the fiasco.
The former head of
the UK border force, Brodie Clark, lost his job last November after
relaxing certain passenger checks to cope with queues while preserving
security checks on suspect travellers.
1 Comments in Response to Border checks on drugs and guns 'dropped' at Heathrow
Nice job Chip! The police state shutting down due to lack of money...a dream for some...a nightmare for others.