Border failures mustn't continue

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Britain, it seems, is now so broken, you can't even get back into the country without it turning into an ordeal. Passport e-gates failed just as the long weekend began, producing hours-long queues at some of our busiest airports as desk staff struggled to process returning passengers.

In an increasingly digital age, IT failures are fast becoming as much a frustrating staple of our bank holiday weekends as long traffic jams. Technical issues at British Airways on Friday added to the weekend's travel chaos. French passport control also had its own tech meltdown yesterday, producing tailbacks for passengers travelling by ferry from Dover.

Given how common IT problems have become, it is outrageous that we did not have better plans in place for a failure of Britain's e-Passport gate system. With an estimated 60-80 per cent of incoming passengers now using the e-gates, it was obvious that huge inconvenience would result without careful planning. While we don't know the details of what caused this sudden breakdown, it was common sense to prepare for the worst.

Yet evidence in a June 2021 report suggests Home Office officials were complacent about the risk. Asked to provide a contingency plan for catastrophic failure of e-Passport gates, they responded that such an outage was "highly unlikely".

Sadly, this naive assurance fits with the Home Office record. In 2021, it was berated by the Public Accounts Committee for spending staggering sums on digital programmes that failed to deliver for the taxpayer or border security. At the time, the Home Office promised the issues were "historical". That may have been premature. Ministers should demand answers.