The planned 10 November introduction of the EU’s now-postponed entry-exit system “would have been complete and utter carnage” according to the leader of Dover District Council.
Kevin Mills, a councillor, was speaking at a special session of the House of Lords justice and home affairs committee, following last week’s postponement of the entry-exit system (EES).
With a month to go, interior ministers decided to postpone the introduction of the EES indefinitely and apply a staged approach.
Mr Mills said: “None of the infrastructure is ready. None of the IT is ready. It would have been complete and utter carnage. We are more than happy there has been a delay.
“Without EES we still see the town coming to a gridlock several times a year. You add this on to it, it’s a gridlock on steroids – and that’s what concerns us.
“If the Department for Transport are still saying they expect up to 14-hour delays, there’s a problem somewhere that needs to be addressed.
“In Dover, it’s not just the A20 – the whole town stops. Nothing moves. You see ambulances stuck in queues. Everywhere suffers, and if we don’t get this right it will backlog. And then it backs up into the rest of Kent.
“I can’t over-exaggerate the damage it does business-wise, to the community, to individuals, to the security of the country because staff can’t even get into work to secure the borders. That’s our problem.”
At the same session, a senior Eurotunnel official said the company was ready and the decision to postpone would cost it money after installing equipment at its Folkestone terminal.
John Keefe, chief corporate and public affairs officer for Eurotunnel’s parent, Getlink Group, told the committee: “We’re disappointed it’s been delayed. We were ready. We had all of our technology in place, our infrastructure in place. We’d recruited most of the staff.”
The staff will not be laid off, but will be kept on in a range of roles. The investment so far totals £70m. “We were looking forward to starting to recover that cost,” Mr Keefe said.
“All of that will have to be put into hibernation. A cost like this inevitably is passed on to the consumer.”
He hinted that Eurotunnel may seek compensation from the EU: “We are considering cost recovery. We have followed the project to the letter.
“To see that cost just sitting there is not an acceptable solution for a publicly quoted company. Had we known there would be a delay, we could at least have reprogrammed our recruitment. We could have mitigated part of the cost.”
Eurostar, which also has “juxtaposed” border controls at London St Pancras International, said it was ready for the 10 November start too.
Gareth Williams, Eurostar’s general secretary, said: “We sit there with a high investment in infrastructure that is idle.
“What lies behind the latest delay is the weakness of the test environment that did not give the member states the kind of confidence that we all know is necessary – that the systems will communicate properly, and will be robust and reliable.”
Mr Keefe speculated that the extra time could be used to devise a system more suited to passengers in cars. He said: “EES is designed for an airport environment where people are in an indoor, well-lit, weather-protected, comfortable, spacious environment with plenty of time.
“Our model is a very high-density vehicle-based system. So people are sitting in metal boxes, and we have to get the same level of biometric data from them, sitting in a car, as you can with an individual passenger, on foot, in an airport.
“There’s a lot of work going on, on the improvement of the capture and sophistication of facial biometric. We believe there is a way of capturing fingerprint biometrics at distance.
“We hope we can engage with the EU to bring these things forward, to make the most of the delay, and bring an even better system into place.
“We know that in other countries it is possible to capture your facial biometric, in your car, on your way to the border.”
Mr Keefe later said it would be “most unwelcome” if the UK’s ETA, due to go live for all European visitors in April, coincided with the commencement of the entry-exit system by the EU.
London Southend airport spread further confusion by claiming online that passengers heading for Europe in the summer of 2025 would need an “Etias” permit.
The airport is telling passengers online: “Etias (European Travel Information and Authorisation System) is a visa-waiver system that will apply to UK citizens from mid-2025.”
But the postponement of the entry-exit system means it is now certain that British travellers to Europe will not need an Etias. It will start a minimum of six months after the EES is working well, and initially there will be a six-month grace period in which it will be optional.
The very earliest Etias could be mandatory is summer 2026, though the start date is likely to be later. The Independent has asked Southend airport to remove the incorrect information.