British troops ‘to be trained to check passports’ to avoid summer strike chaos

Hundreds of soldiers and sailors are being drafted in to plug the gaps of striking Border Force staff, reports suggest amid fears of a second summer marred in travel chaos.

Training will begin on Monday, giving members of the armed forces less than a week to get up to speed before checking passports at Heathrow, Gatwick and Dover, according to The Guardian.

The newspaper also reports that members of the armed forces stationed at passport booths will not have the training required to detain people suspected of crimes such as carrying a false passport, drug smuggling or people trafficking, so long as they hold valid travel documents.

More than 600 military personnel were deployed to Gatwick, Heathrow, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, and Glasgow airports during strikes over the Christmas period.

The five-day training schedule, reduced from the three weeks normally afforded to Border Force workers, comes as two unions contemplate industrial action over pay and conditions.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) and Immigration Service Union (ISU), both representatives of Border Force guards, are considering taking strike action over the summer.

The ISU ran a ballot for industrial action up to 16 May, the results of which are yet to be published. The PSC union is also weighing up further strikes after calling for a pay rise, better pensions and no cuts to redundancy terms.

Some 1,400 staff represented by Unite working at Heathrow Terminal 5 and in campus security have already staged five days of strikes this month. They will also strike between Thursday 25 May and Saturday 27 May.

Unions have expressed opposition to the drafting of the military, suggesting their truncated training poses a risk to security.

The PCS general secretary, Mark Serwotka, said: “Time and again, the military has been clear it has its own job to do and doesn’t want to spend time covering for the government’s failures.

“It’s a colossal waste of the military’s time and of public finances to pay soldiers to do the jobs of civil servants. The country would be better served by a government that paid civil servants a decent wage to be civil servants, instead of treating them worse than any other public servant.”

Lucy Moreton, the professional officer at the ISU, told the newspaper: “The government is wasting yet more public money training military staff who cannot – through no fault of their own – provide even a fraction of the national security cover a border officer can. This to cover strikes which recent experience shows have very limited impact. This is not ‘taking back control of our borders’.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “As the public would expect, our priority is to keep our citizens safe and our borders secure.

“We are working closely with all UK ports and airports to ensure we have robust plans in place to minimise any delays if strike action goes ahead. We will deploy suitable resource to meet critical demand and support the flow of passengers and goods through our border.

“We always recommend that passengers check the latest advice from their operators before travelling.”