Travellers waiting in queues to have passports stamped, being questioned on their capacity to fund their holiday or provide evidence of a return flight, and suffering hours of delays at Dover, have led to howls of outrage in some quarters of the press, believing these indignities have been deliberately imposed on British tourists as a punishment for leaving the EU or an example of French incompetence. There will be further howls of outrage as the UK and EU governments begin the introduction of further checks in 2024, including electronic travel authorisations.
The new plan for immigration and border control
Home Secretary Priti Patel set out her proposals for a ‘contactless digital border’ on 20 July. They form part of a wider ‘new plan for immigration and border control’ which also covers the role of Border Force and how borders will be managed. The electronic travel authorisations (ETAs) are at the centre of this development.
Patel first announced her plans over a year ago in her speech to Bright Blue. She said then that the intention of the scheme was to “count people in and count people out of the country”, with the expectation that immigrants who overstay or come in illegally can be followed up. The necessary legislation for the introduction of ETAs was achieved in the Nationality and Borders Act passed earlier this year. Anyone entering the UK or approaching the UK for the purpose of entry (refugees crossing the Channel), without an ETA can be charged with illegal immigration offences and immediately detained.
The ETA scheme
The scheme is intended for non-visa entry into the UK – people on short-stay leisure or business activities from ‘visa-free’ countries. The US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada already have a similar system and the EU has one in development, ETIAS. The UK has, as yet, published almost no details about how the scheme will work in practice but the EU has outlined its proposals in some detail. The UK scheme is likely to closely follow the EU scheme to facilitate reciprocity.
The EU anticipates the cost of its scheme will be €7 per person, though it will be free for anyone aged under 18 or over 70. The costs for travellers to the UK have yet to be announced but when the scheme was first mooted, costs of £7–9 per person were suggested and is unlikely to diverge too much from EU fees (although the current UK visa waver for Gulf states costs £30). It is likely that the authorisation will be for three years (as in the EU) or until passport expiry date.
Carriers can be fined for permitting the travel of those without an ETA and will still be expected to check passports and travel documents which are not rendered obsolete with this plan.
The ETA application
To obtain an ETA the traveller will be required to complete an online application and be granted prior approval before departure to the UK. The EU scheme promises a quick turnaround but there may be a wait of up to 30 days or more if non-automated manual checks are required.
The immigration plan states that “Customers applying for an ETA will provide their biographic, biometric [fingerprint and facial images] and contact details, and answer a short set of suitability questions. This information will be checked against our systems and assessed to determine whether the person has permission to travel to the UK.”
It is not yet clear what the suitability questions will cover but they are likely to include questions about criminal offences – and not necessarily only those solely related to terrorism or cross-border crime such as drug offences or people smuggling. They are also likely to include questions that, currently, may be asked by border officials; questions that require a visitor to evidence:
- You’ll leave the UK at the end of your visit
- You’re able to support yourself and your dependants during your trip (or have funding from someone else to support you)
- You’re able to pay for your return or onward journey (or have funding from someone else to pay for the journey)
- You’ll not live in the UK for extended periods through frequent or successive visits, or make the UK your main home.
These are the same questions the media have complained so vehemently about when asked of British citizens travelling to the EU.
The ETA will impact on UK citizens’ freedom of movement
The UK government, in speaking about the scheme, promotes its benefits in terms of national security and stopping freedom of movement – for people from other countries. Patel does not mention the principle of reciprocity inherent in our post-Brexit relations with Europe or the implications for British citizens as the EU ETIAS come into force for us. Whatever we imposed on people from other nations will be imposed on us.
People who have committed criminal offences, however long in the past, may be at risk of having their freedoms further restricted. Patel says she is keen to ensure criminals do not enter the UK and the EU will be equally keen to keep out British offenders. A third of British men have criminal convictions by age 53 and many may find they are barred from entering the EU for their holidays. EU citizens will still have 30 countries in which to holiday and, once again, it will be British citizens who will lose their freedoms.
The ETA will increase Brexit travel costs
The scheme will apply to all those entering the UK without a visa, and to most UK citizens who travel abroad once the European ETIAS system has been introduced. Even if the cost is modest, a family of four going on holiday could pay an additional £30 or more which may be a deterrent to travel. It would also add considerably to the cost and administration of group travel, such as for schools.
Long haul travel to the UK is likely to be affected. Travellers to the UK from countries such as China, Japan and Australia rarely come solely to the UK but are on a ‘European’ trip. While they can cover all Schengen countries (which now are 29 European countries that have removed their internal borders to allow for free and unrestricted movement of people, according to SchengenVisaInfo.com) with one ETIAS, they will need an additional permit if they wish to come to the UK which will add considerably to the administrative burden, even if the costs are not prohibitive. Large tour companies may simply drop the UK from a Europe itinerary and it is likely to decimate the tourist industry in Northern Ireland where most visitors come into the province via Dublin and would require two passes, unless separate arrangements are agreed.
The ETA will increase Brexit delays
The government has promoted the scheme arguing it will better secure the UK’s borders and is part of ‘taking back control’. ETAs and visas will be totally electronic; enabling, we’re told, people to pass through e-gates and make progress through terminals more quickly. Yet, there are no plans to dispense with passport examinations (although the stamping of them for UK citizens exiting Schengen may be eliminated) or other travel documents such as tickets or boarding cards. Nor will they totally eradicate questions at the border or travellers being stopped for additional checks or sampling checks.
Last week, as the UK experienced the very first post-Brexit holiday wave of travellers leaving the country, it became very evident how woefully ill-prepared the UK was. The additional 30 second process to check and stamp passports for hundreds of thousands of travellers led to gridlock for hours. David Hammond, in the Guardian estimated that the 10,000 travellers passing through Dover on Saturday resulted in an extra 166 working hours (22 full time staff) of delay.
An ETA or ETIAS will be an additional burden at the ports. If the ETA requires each traveller to walk through an e-gate to have their biometric data and authorisation checked this will add considerable time to processing travellers. It would require them to leave their cars at a checkpoint and bring progress to a standstill for several minutes. We learned last weekend that the UK government rejected proposals for a £30mn pound extension of passport booths at Dover which would have averted the difficulties, and in the immigration plan there are no plans to fund the extra burden this will place on the ports or to expand their capacity.
There were 6.2 million visits to the UK in 2021 (44% down on pre-covid levels) all of whom will have to be checked and issued with permission to travel. Over three million passengers passed through the Port of Dover in 2021 (again the figures were substantially down on pre- Covid years). Each of those passengers will be subject to an ETA or ETIAS and some will be subject to both. Assuming each visitor will add one minute to processing time on arrival in the UK or Calais, this would be 50,000 (2,083 days) hours of additional work and delay, per annum, on top of the current pressures
Government poor record of administrative change
The government has a very poor record of ensuring electronic and administrative systems work. Even three years on, proving settled status is a major concern for EU citizens. The current average adult first passport waiting time is 51 days and visit visas (short stays, not to live in the UK) are now taking six weeks. There are also delays in the issuing of residence visas, asylum decisions and even drivers’ licences – routine bureaucratic tasks that the government is unable to complete promptly.
The National Audit Office found the government was ill-prepared for the Brexit transition in terms of border technologies and arrangements, and has been highly critical of its poor management of the introduction and upgrading of e-gates at airports. E-gates work well when they work but frequently do not and when they fail the chaos is not dissimilar to that experienced at Dover last weekend.
The ETA has been promoted as a means of increasing UK border protections while streamlining that process. Its introduction, and that of the ETIAS in the EU, will impact significantly on border checks and costs. EU citizens will not need an ETIAS; UK citizens will. This requirement is a direct result of our leaving the EU and no amount of French blaming will alter that. Just as ending freedom of movement has impacted severely on British citizens but made little difference to those living in the EU, so too will the ETA. It will discourage people from coming to the UK and make it much more difficult for UK to citizens to holiday in or travel to the EU.
