Chamber welcomes retention of Common Travel Area

15 July 2009

The Government’s acknowledgment last night that it would not win a vote in Parliament to abolish the Common Travel Area is welcome.  The Chamber is pleased that MPs and Lords failed to see the merits of the Government’s original plan – it would have meant hassle, queues and cost for passengers, all for no clear purpose.

When first unveiled last summer, the plan to impose passport controls on travel between the UK and Ireland met with broad opposition.  Nobody wanted to see the passport queues and delays that currently cause such grief at ports on south coast of England replicated at ports on the Irish Sea.  The Home Office came up with a new form of words, claiming that it would deploy “risk-based intelligence-led controls” rather than traditional fixed ones.  But it also said that everyone would be required to prove their identity and nationality with a passport or an ID card.  This was an obvious contradiction because, clearly, inspecting everyone’s passport cannot be a risk-based control.  And, in practical terms, it confirmed the likelihood of queues and delays for passengers.

Nor was the need for those controls ever explained.  The Home Office presented Irish Sea ports as an open “back door” to the UK.  This isn’t, and wasn’t, true.  There are no immigration checkpoints, but ports on the Irish Sea are more heavily policed than those elsewhere.

So the dropping of this clause from the Borders Bill is good news.  At the very least, it will mean that anyone planning a holiday to Ireland this summer can look forward to an enjoyable journey there and back, free from having to queue at a passport checkpoint at the port.

Mark Brownrigg, Director-General, Chamber of Shipping