Passengers ‘waved through’ passport control to ‘avoid queues’ as border staff strike
Passengers who might otherwise be stopped at Border Control at airports are being “waved through” by military personnel standing in for striking workers, Sky News has been told.
Two Border Force staff members told Sky News that passengers were being waved through to avoid queues during strikes and that military personnel do not have the power to stop or detain people.
Members of the Armed Forces are providing cover for public services during strikes over winter.
One Border Force officer at Manchester Airport said several members of staff told them that arriving passengers who would normally be questioned are being “waved through in order to avoid queues building up amid strikes”.
They added: “This order is said to have come from management at Manchester Airport. This would mean that people who are potentially unlawfully entering the UK/wanted by the authorities or police/on a watch list/previously refused entry are entering the UK unchecked.”
Around 1,000 Border Force staff in the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union are striking over pay and conditions from 23 December to Boxing Day.
A Border Force staff member at Heathrow Airport told Sky News that the army on immigration control “can’t stop or detain people” as they cannot issue a form known as an IS81.
The form gives immigration officers the authority to detain people for further questioning.
The Home Office denied any arrivals were not being properly checked and said that Border Force staff who were not striking were on hand at passport control and could issue the form if required.
A spokesman said: “Border Force has developed robust contingency plans which prioritise keeping our citizens safe and our borders secure.”
He added: “Non-striking Border Force staff, with the full range of appropriate powers, are continuing to complete their vital roles and we have spread our resources flexibly to ensure there is sufficient cover to fulfil our key priorities.
“Military personnel, civil servants and volunteers are supporting a range of services and all deployed contingency are sufficiently trained for the activities they are required to undertake.”
The staff member at Heathrow said: “Our job is to protect the population and the British public, to protect jobs, people from harm.
“Basically the vast majority of the job can’t be done. I have the information from multiple people. If you cannot issue an IS81, you cannot stop someone. All you can do is let them through.
“Managers left managing the control is that unless there is direct evidence of criminality, they are not to stop them. People who are coming in to work illegally, live illegally, study illegally – and that’s not criminal, it’s an immigration issue. Unless you’re aware that this person is a hit on the computer system, wanted by the police, you can’t hold anybody up.”
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “No one’s being stopped because the government has adopted a sticking plaster approach to this problem.
“We warned before the strikes started that military personnel with five days’ training wouldn’t be able to do the jobs of experienced, professional Border Force officers.”
A Manchester Airport spokesperson said: “To be absolutely clear, we as the airport operator are not involved in the immigration process… to our knowledge, the immigration process is operating as normal.”
A nine-year-old girl found dead in Weston-super-Mare has been named on the day police revealed a teenager had been charged with her murder.
Emergency services were called to Lime Close in the Somerset town at 6.09pm on Monday but Aria Thorpe was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said a 15-year-old boy had been charged with her murder and that a preliminary post-mortem found she died from a single stab wound.
The teenage boy – who can’t be named due to his age – will appear at Bristol Magistrates’ Court later today.
A police cordon remains in place as forensics officers continue their work.
Flowers and tributes have been left at the scene. Pic: PA
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Superintendent Jen Appleford, from Avon and Somerset Police, said the community was in shock and Aria’s family were being supported by police.
“It is impossible to adequately describe how traumatic the past 36 hours have been for them and we’d like to reiterate in the strongest possible terms their request for privacy,” she said.
Supt Appleford said police were working with local schools and other agencies to make sure support is available.
Britain loves chocolate.
We’re estimated to consume 8.2kg each every year, a good chunk of it at Christmas, but the cost of that everyday luxury habit has been rising fast.
Whitakers have been making chocolate in Skipton in North Yorkshire for 135 years, but they have never experienced price pressures as extreme as those in the last five.
“We buy liquid chocolate and since 2023, the price of our chocolate has doubled,” explains William Whitaker, the real-life Willy Wonka and the fourth generation of the family to run the business.
William Whitaker, managing director of the company
“It could have been worse. If we hadn’t been contracted [with a supplier], it would have trebled.
“That represents a £5,000 per-tonne increase, and we use a thousand tonnes a year. And we only sell £12-£13m of product, so it’s a massive effect.”
Whitakers makes 10 million pieces of chocolate a week in a factory on the much-expanded site of the original bakery where the business began.
Automated production lines snake through the site moulding, cutting, cooling, coating and wrapping a relentless procession of fondants, cremes, crisps and pure chocolate products for customers, including own-brand retail, supermarkets, and the catering trade.
Steepest inflation in the business
All of them have faced price increases as Whitakers has grappled with some of the steepest inflation in the food business.
Cocoa prices have soared in the last two years, largely because of a succession of poor cocoa harvests in West Africa, where Ghana and the Ivory Coast produce around two-thirds of global supply.
A combination of drought and crop disease cut global output by around 14% last year, pushing consumer prices in the other direction, with chocolate inflation passing 17% in the UK in October.
Skimpflation and shrinkflation
Some major brands have responded by cutting the chocolate content of products – “skimpflation” – or charging more for less – “shrinkflation”.
Household-name brands including Penguin and Club have cut the cocoa and milk solid content so far they can no longer be classified as chocolate, and are marketed instead as “chocolate-flavour”.
Whitakers have stuck to their recipes and product sizes, choosing to pass price increases on to customers while adapting products to the new market conditions.
“Not only are major brands putting up prices over 20%, sometimes 40%, they’ve also reduced the size of their pieces and sometimes the ingredients,” says William Whitaker.
“We haven’t done any of that. We knew that long-term, the market will fall again, and that happier days will return.
“We’ve introduced new products where we’ve used chocolate as a coating rather than a solid chocolate because the centre, which is sugar-based, is cheaper than the chocolate.
“We’ve got a big product range of fondant creams, and others like gingers and Brazil nuts, where we’re using that chocolate as a coating.”
The costs are adding up
A deluge of price rises
Brazil nuts have enjoyed their own spike in price, more than doubling to £15,000 a tonne at one stage.
On top of commodity prices determined by markets beyond their control, Whitakers face the same inflationary pressures as other UK businesses.
“We’ve had the minimum wage increasing every year, we had the national insurance rise last year, and sort of hidden a little bit in this budget is a business rate increase.
“This is a small business, we turn over £12m, but our rates will go up nearly £100,000 next year before any other costs.
“If you add up all the cocoa and all the other cost increases in 2024 and 2025, it’s nearly £3m of cost increases we’ve had to bear. Some of that is returning to a little normality. It does test the relevance of what you do.”
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