Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
Mr Tom Dodd and Mr Tom Dowdall
17 OCTOBER 2007
Q160 Lord Marlesford: What I do not understand
is if these passports have been cancelled there is no way at the
present and apparently no plan to know if they have been used
to get out of the country because they are not been swiped and
will not be swiped; is that correct?
Mr Dowdall: The controls on leaving the country
at the moment for embarkation are targeted controls, so they are
not universal in the same way as those arriving in the UK; that
is correct.
Q161 Lord Marlesford: So they would not
be picked up if they were being used to leave the country?
Mr Dowdall: Not by an immigration officer unless
they came to a targeted immigration control.
Q162 Lord Marlesford: Do you see that as
a serious gap in your frontier control?
Mr Dowdall: The question really is in terms
of determining where we have to put our effort into dealing with
the greatest risks and the greatest risks that we have determined
are for those arriving into the UK.
Q163 Lord Marlesford: On what basis?
Mr Dowdall: On the basis of having to manage
an effective immigration control for those arriving into the UK.
Mr Dodd: I think it is worth saying that if
there was somebody of particular concern to UK authorities in
respect of leaving the country then we would put in place measures
to try and detect that person with the other border agencies.
So if somebody was trying to use a forged passport to do so we
would could look into that.
Q164 Lord Marlesford: I am not talking about
a forged passport but a passport that has been cancelled by you
but is somewhere around.
Mr Dodd: We would be looking for that individual
along with our other sister border agencies if that person were
of concern to the UK.
Chairman: Back to Frontex, please.
Q165 Lord Marlesford: How does this fit
in with Frontex? Frontex is meant to be some method of dealing
with irregular immigration, so how does your e-borders fit in
there?
Mr Dodd: I spoke earlier about our philosophy
of trying to export the border as much as possible. E-borders
is a key component of that; our work with Frontex is also a component
of that. In terms of information that intelligence discloses,
the exchanges my colleague talked about, those will be fed into
e-borders. At the heart of e-borders is, in a sense, an intelligence,
information and fusion cell where we are bringing information
together to assess and analyse passenger movements. So information
from Frontex about passengers, about illegal migration will be
fed into that process to improve our picture of immigration and
passenger flows to and from the UK.
Q166 Lord Marlesford: Did I hear you use
the phrase "export the border"?
Mr Dodd: Yes.
Q167 Lord Marlesford: Could you explain
that because I did not understand it?
Mr Dodd: If somebody who risks harm to the UK
actually enters the UK then that is something which we try and
prevent; we are trying to stop people who would cause harm or
could risk causing harm as far as possible, away from our shores,
from coming here.
Q168 Lord Marlesford: The principle that
you earlier enunciated is that the advantage of having our own
border control is one of the reasons, or perhaps the main reason
why we are not part of Schengen.
Mr Dodd: Yes.
Q169 Lord Marlesford: And that there are
problems, as we have discussed, in being part of Frontex because
they are not part of Schengen. If your borders are not properly
controlled, as you have made clear they are not—
Mr Dodd: No, I did not say that. I did not say
our borders are not properly controlled.
Q170 Lord Marlesford: I interpreted you
as having done that, but that of course is my opinion. What, then,
is the advantage of not being in Schengen if you are not introducing
or even planning to introduce full electronic border controls
for people leaving and entering the UK?
Mr Dodd: If I may say, that is precisely what
we are doing; we are planning to introduce a system which will
count individuals in and out of the country.
Q171 Lord Marlesford: I am not talking about
counting.
Mr Dodd: It will enumerate the name of the individual,
and the information on the travel document and other information
will be assessed and counted in and out of the country. So by
2014 we aim to have a full picture of all passenger movements
in and out of the UK.
Chairman: We must move on. Baroness Henig.
Q172 Baroness Henig: We have heard that
we operate on a case-by-case basis in participation with Frontex,
and you told us that there have been a number of Frontex operations,
including Operation Torino and Operation Agelaus at UK airports,
in which you have participated. I wondered whether these had been
devised and requested by the United Kingdom and really how such
requests operate within the terms of the arrangements for the
UK's participation in Frontex operations? So some idea of how
that has worked in the past and whether we plan to host other
operations in the future?
Mr Dowdall: I can answer that one. On the specific
operations that you have raised, Operation Torino was a Frontex
operation directly in response to the Winter Olympics in Torino,
in Italy in 2006. That related to conducting document checks and
also ensuring that we effectively hosted the Olympic family into
the Winter Olympics. That took place at a number of hub airports
around Europe. We hosted one Italian document adviser who, as
in all these operations, did not exercise executive controls but
effectively provided us with any useful advice on Italian documents,
Italian visas and also the specific visas in relation to the Olympics.
Operation Agelaus was actually promoted by one of our officers
who is based full-time in Frontex. That involved the collection
of information across a number of airports within Europe and dealt
with the arrival of unaccompanied children into Europe. We collected
intelligence from three UK airports but that did not involve hosting
any officers at all, and was indeed the same at other hub airports
within Europe. We get involved in a number of operations, as we
have said. First of all, we consider requests that will come to
the UK, as indeed those requests come to other Member States as
well, and we make a determination on whether we should get involved
in those operations based on the risks that it is seeking to address,
based upon the skills that our own people have and therefore the
benefits that we can bring to an operation. But also, because
often the requests that come through are not necessarily to deal
just with people but also to deal with the provision of the equipment,
we will provide some equipment to support those operations. We
have certainly identified particular risk areas that we would
like Frontex to give consideration to, and that includes operations
that are particularly focused upon illegal Chinese migration by
air into Europe and there was an operation that took place earlier
in 2007 and we continue to make the case for further operations
next year also.
Q173 Chairman: Can I just interrupt? You
referred to our associate membership of Frontex.
Mr Dowdall: Yes.
Q174 Chairman: Does the fact that we are
not full members of Frontex become an issue when we are talking
about hosting Frontex operations in this country?
Mr Dowdall: In terms of hosting operations,
principally the operations are in relation to the external Schengen
border, so it would be unlikely for us to host an operation. Torino
was a very specific issue and certainly we would consider any
requests on a case-by-case basis to allow officers to operate
within the UK. It is unlikely.
Q175 Baroness Henig: Presumably now the
2012 Olympics is going to come on to the radar and that is going
to be a major operation not just for the UK but presumably for
Frontex as well and I wondered what the planning was in connection
to that?
Mr Dowdall: I think you will find in most recent
history that there have been good levels of cooperation not only
for the Winter Olympics but also the World Cup in Germany in 2006
where host countries work together particularly effectively. We
want to take that forward and certainly be able to translate them
into 2012, so that not only are all the controls that we need
to have in place in the UK but also the controls that we will
be discussing with Frontex, how we can be supported in dealing
with the 2012 Olympics, and that cooperation is not just simply
around what happens within Europe but also in terms of our relations
outside of Europe and obviously from where athletes, participants
and others originate, who will naturally be travelling to the
UK.
Q176 Lord Jopling: Going into the future
to 2012, the Olympics, which concerns me enormously. As an aside
I previously said that if this circus has to come here then we
should realise that it is a recipe for bombs, bullets, bloodshed,
blackmail, boycott and bogus budgets, and bogus budgets is already
well proved. What are you doing specifically already to arrange
for a Frontex participation in all of this for 2012? At the Athens
Olympics NATO were fairly heavily involved with AWACs and various
other things, but when I was last at NATO not terribly long ago
I was told that no discussions have taken place at all. What discussions
have you had with Frontex about this and have you now had discussions
with NATO over this and what in fact positively have you been
doing to prepare proper security for the 2012 Olympics?
Mr Dodd: Clearly we do intend to discuss with
Frontex the assistance that Frontex and through Frontex we are
able to gain with border security around the Olympics, and it
is our intention to do so. Dare I say it, the Olympics are in
2012 and it is 2007 so, without being complacent, there are a
few years to get these operations going. In terms of the Olympics
security more generally, there is a considerable effort going
into Olympics security planning across government. Within the
BIA itself we recently set up an Olympics group headed by a the
Senior Regional Director for the southeast, who is going to take
forward the work internally to ensure that we are in a position
to both facilitate legitimate visitors and athletes and also prevent
people who would cause harm from exploiting the Games.
Q177 Chairman: Is this a subject for the
O'Donnell Review?
Mr Dodd: Olympics security?
Q178 Chairman: Yes.
Mr Dodd: I think the O'Donnell Review is not
focused on Olympics security; it is focused more on generally
enhancing border security, which thereby will improve Olympics
security.
Baroness Henig: It is a good job that the budget
is increasing because I would have thought that planning for the
Olympics is going to be a major operation for the whole network.
Q179 Lord Jopling: The answer, as I get
from what you have said, that really nothing much, apart from
one or two thoughts for the future, has been done so far about
the 2012 Olympics.
Mr Dodd: I am sorry; I did not actually say
that, if I may say. We are doing some Olympics planning, we have
set up a proper coordination group and we are taking steps to
get ready for the Olympics; we are taking it seriously. It is
five years from now and we feel that by starting now we will be
in a position to be prepared for those Games.
Chairman: Baroness Tonge.
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