E-borders scheme 'terminated' says Border Force chief
Sir Charles Montgomery tells MPs: "The permanent secretary is aware that the E-borders programme has been terminated"
The multi-million pound E-borders programme designed to count everyone in and out of the UK has been downgraded after years of problems.
It was designed to collect advance passenger information on all scheduled inbound and outbound journeys to and from the UK on one database.
The head of the UK Border Force, Sir Charles Montgomery, told MPs it had been "terminated" in its current form.
The Home Office said the programme's name had changed but nothing else.
It said the scheme had been "absorbed" into a new Border Systems Procurement exercise - which aims to improve the operation of the Home Office's Warnings Index check on dangerous individuals and other security programmes.
But Labour MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the influential Commons Home Affairs committee, said the government urgently needed to answer questions about the future of the E-borders scheme.
The scheme, first devised by the previous Labour government in 2003 and expected to cost £536m from 2007-15, has been dogged by problems over the past decade.
It was delayed for several years, its brief changed, and the government has become embroiled in a legal battle with a former contractor, US firm Raytheon, after it was fired in 2010 for what officials said was an "extremely disappointing" performance.
The database, which currently compiles information on flights from outside the European Union, is due to be further rolled out over the next few years.
E-borders was due to be extended to cover all flights from within the EU by 2015 but this depended on reaching voluntary agreements with other nations - and solving previous commercial problems.
'Secure'Last October, the chief inspector of borders said a major rethink was needed because airports were not meeting those with terrorist alerts against them on arrival, and "not one person" had been stopped boarding a plane to the UK.
Appearing before the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday, Sir Charles Montgomery was asked about airport security in light of recent revelations about the number of passengers travelling on stolen or fraudulent passports.
He said the UK had the most "secure" arrangements in Europe but admitted that about 20 million people - 10% of total numbers - either arrived or left the UK each year without their advance passenger information being checked.
'Debacle'While he was confident that a new system of "exit checks" on people leaving the UK would be in place by the time of the 2015 election - as sought by ministers - he said it would not be as comprehensive as originally envisaged.
"The permanent secretary (of the Home Office) is aware that the E-borders programme has been terminated," he said.
"We are now in the business of replacing Warnings Index and Semaphore. I am confident we will be well on track to deliver that but not the full E-borders capability - as it originally was - by the general election."
Mr Vaz, who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, suggested the comments conflicted with those of civil servants in the Home Office and urged ministers to clarify the future of the programme as soon as possible.
"The E-borders project has ended in a shambles," he told the BBC.
"This debacle has cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds, taken more than a decade and yet we still do not know if the original objectives will ever be achieved."
He added: "Promises have been made that exit checks will be in place by the general election, but given past failures the government need to urgently clarify the timetable for the completion of the rest of the programme, what components of the original e-borders programme have been dropped and when arbitration proceedings with Raytheon will finally conclude.
"We cannot allow this saga to continue and our borders to remain un-policed."
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