Train strikes – live: Christmas Eve travel disruption as drivers told ‘avoid roads until 7pm’

The RAC has said that drivers can expect congestion clockwise between junction seven for the M23 and junction 16 for the M40.

Traffic there is expected to peak at 12.30pm, when delays of around 50 minutes are likely.

Other roads where long queues are expected on Friday include the M60 near Manchester, the M6 in north-west England and the M40 in Oxfordshire.

Junction four of the M20 westbound in Kent remains closed on Friday morning after a serious crash on Thursday.

National Highways said vehicles are being diverted on to exit and entry slip roads, causing three miles of congestion and delays of at least 45 minutes.

Drivers in Wales and southern England are also battling with heavy rain, which the Met Office said will spread northwards to reach southern Scotland and Northern Ireland during Friday afternoon.

Pressure on the roads ahead of Christmas Day is being exacerbated by industrial action.

Simon Calder, The Independent’s travel correspondent, has been at Gatwick airport since 5.30am, meeting passengers at International Arrivals at the North Terminal.

“It’s much more ‘Love Actually’ than it is ‘The nightmare before Christmas’,” he reports.

“Passengers who are coming through are reporting to me that either they used the eGates, which was absolutely fine, or – if they were travelling with a family – found the transactions at the border very smooth.

“The Navy and Air Force have supplied personnel – no one will tell me how many – and so far there are no reports of long waits.

“If we are going to see really significant issues it’s going to be around the M25 at Heathrow rather than here at Gatwick – or indeed at Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff or Glasgow

“The Home Office, the airports and the airlines have modelled the likely flows of passengers according to scheduled arrivals.

“Where flight disruption is taking place – such as arrivals from the deep-frozen Midwest in the US – that could precipitate problems.”

Government ministers have abdicated their responsibility to sort out strikes by blocking rail employers from making a deal with RMT, the union has claimed.

The RMT said in a statement: “Since meeting the minister last week there have been no further scheduled negotiations to try to prevent upcoming strikes on Network Rail.

“The union has done deals in every part of the railway network where the Department for Transport is not involved.

“The RMT said both pay offers from Network Rail and the train operating companies are well below what has been agreed in Scotland, Wales and where metro mayors have control of the rail franchise.

“The rejected offer on Network Rail was also conditional on ripping up working conditions for railway workers, including unsafe practices for the travelling public such as a 50% cut in scheduled maintenance tasks and an unacceptable hike in unsocial hours.

“On the train operators, RMT members would have been forced to accept a paltry pay sum, Driver Only Operations (DOO) across the whole network, and the closure of all ticket offices creating an inaccessible and less safe railway.”

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: "The union remains available for talks to resolve this dispute.

"But until the government gives the rail industry a mandate to come to a negotiated settlement on job security, pay and conditions of work, our industrial campaign will continue into the new year, if necessary."

The government denies it is blocking a deal.

More than 400 passengers and crew who were expecting to be lining up for passport control at Heathrow airport are instead on the shore of the Caspian Sea – with little clarity about when they might complete their journey from Australia to the UK, Simon Calder, our travel correspondent, writes.

Their plane was diverted to Baku in Azerbaijan, reported due to a warning of a fire in a cargo hold. Qantas flight QF1 from Sydney via Singapore to London was making good progress for an early morning arrival at Heathrow.

Data on Flightradar24 shows the Airbus A380, registered VH-OQH, was flying west normally at 36,000 feet over central Georgia at 2.15am GMT. But then it turned around and flew east for 400 miles, landing safely.

The double-deck jet landed at Baku airport – the closest in the region with the facilities to handle the world’s biggest passenger plane.

A Qantas spokesperson told The Independent: “The aircraft intermittently alerted the pilots to the potential of smoke in the cargo hold.

“Although it was considered likely to be a sensor fault, the aircraft diverted to Baku as a safety precaution.

“Initial investigations have found no evidence of smoke in the cargo hold.We thank customers for their patience and we are working to get them on their way as quickly as possible.”

A severe traffic warning has been issued as millions of drivers embark on Christmas getaway journeys.

The RAC, which expects 7.9 million leisure journeys to be made across the UK on Friday and Christmas Eve combined, published the alert for a stretch of the M25.

RAC spokesman Rod Dennis said: “We’re expecting to see lengthy delays on parts of the M25 today as Christmas getaway and end-of-the-week commuter traffic combine.

“We advise drivers, if possible, to avoid these roads around this time or delay their trips until after 7pm this evening when traffic is predicted to be lighter.”

Up to 100,000 civil servants could strike after Christmas and it will be "inevitable" that previously unaffected areas such as the Port of Dover will be hit by industrial action if the Government refuses to talk, Mark Serwotka said on Friday.

Speaking to Times Radio, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union’s general secretary said the affected public should direct their anger at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

He said: "Surely everyone can see that everyone can’t be wrong - nurses, paramedics, Border Force staff. It’s the Government who are wrong to think that they can force people to have historic cuts in their living standards when they could do something about it.

"Colleagues in Jobcentres, also PCS members, are on strike today in Liverpool and Doncaster all over Christmas because they face redundancy - compulsory redundancy - even though we need more staff in Jobcentres to deliver the cost-of-living crisis help people need.

"We know they are so short-staffed in the Home Office that we have hundreds of thousands of claims that are backing up. In the Manston immigration centre, they had four times more people in it, in some cases living for weeks with disease rife, because there wasn’t enough staff.

"It’s a civil service problem, lack of staffing, threats to people’s jobs and the lowest pay offer anywhere in the economy."

A few more pictures from Gatwick this morning from our travel correspondent Simon Calder.

He will be bringing you all the latest on the disruption throughout the day.

Simon Calder, travel correspondent for The Independent, has been sharing his view of travellers’ prospects as the day develops in his weekly Travel Newsletter.

He writes from Gatwick: “Every journey involves emotion. This Christmas, the passion for travel is stronger than ever. For many, it is the first December since 2019 when they are free to spend time with those they love, or make a midwinter escape to a beach, mountain or city.

“High emotional investment makes the extreme stress of the travel industry this Yuletide all the more unfortunate. On the railways, today represents the last-chance saloon for many people with long journeys to make. Passengers are being warned to avoid attempting to travel tomorrow ahead of the next national rail strike. RMT members working for Network Rail will walk out at 6pm on Christmas Eve until 6am on 27 December.

“By lunchtime today we should know the true effect of the strike by members of the PCS union working for UK Border Force at the nation’s three busiest airports – Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester – plus Birmingham, Glasgow and Cardiff. Airline passengers arriving today could find their passport is checked by a soldier, or perhaps a high-ranking civil servant brought in to try to limit the damage caused by the walk-out.”

“The worst-case scenario: overcrowding in arrivals halls triggers an order to pilots to keep passengers on board, delaying turnarounds and disrupting departures.”

Arriving passengers were being processed “as normal” at Gatwick Airport despite the Border Force strike, an airport spokesman said.

He said: “Everything is going OK at the moment. There’s plenty of staff. The e-gates are all operating. It’s going well.

“There’s no delays as far as we’re aware, and no queues at the moment.

“I’m standing in arrivals and passengers are flowing through as normal.”

Travellers could face months of disruption unless the government comes forward with an improved pay offer, the leader of striking Border Force staff has warned.

PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka predicted a “huge escalation” in industrial action in January across the Civil Service unless ministers enter into negotiations.

“We think that the action at the borders is going to be very effective. We hope that the Government will therefore do the right thing and get around the negotiating table and put some money upfront,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“If not, we are raising money, we have a strike fund that means we can sustain this action. Our strike mandate lasts right up until May. We will be supporting this action up to May and we would re-ballot again if we have to.

“It think in January what you will see is a huge escalation of this action in the Civil Service and across the rest of our economy unless the government get around the negotiating table.”