Heathrow queues too long

Passengers at Heathrow Airport are being made to wait for too long to get into the UK and the Border Force needs to change the way it operates, the Immigration Minister has said. As the row grew over the impact on the UK's reputation and ability to deal with the 2012 Olympics, Damian Green said 80 extra staff would start work this month to help ease the lengthy queues. Mr Green insisted it was not just about staff numbers, but about how and when they were deployed, saying the Border Force needed to be more flexible. Mr Green said: "The problem is that people, at certain times, on certain days, have to wait too long. We're addressing that problem. "Border Force need to change the way they operate, we need to work better with the operator BAA and with the airlines, and, as of today, we are instituting some changes as the summer starts." David Cameron's official spokesman said the Prime Minister saw Theresa May on Tuesday morning for an update on the situation at Heathrow, but the issue was not discussed at the regular weekly meeting of Cabinet at 10 Downing Street. He said: "The Home Office have made clear that they think there is a problem here, that waiting for longer than 90 minutes at passport control is too long and they are deploying resources to deal with that." Earlier, Mr Green accepted that some passengers had been forced to stand in line for up to 90 minutes in breach of Border Force targets and pledged action to tackle the problem. But he came under fire from Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways' parent company IAG, over claims that passengers were "confused" about how long they had waited for immigration as opposed to luggage and other delays. "There is no confusion about the length of queues," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. "The Government is supposed to be both the regulator and the service provider and is doing an inadequate job in both."

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