Hundreds of soldiers and sailors are to be trained from Monday to cover striking Border Force guards, as ministers prepare for a potential summer of chaos at ports and airports, the Guardian can reveal.
In a move that unions say will diminish security at points of entry to the UK, members of the armed forces will be given five days’ training before checking passports at Heathrow, Gatwick and Dover.
Once deployed, the temporary staff in uniform will not have the powers to detain suspected drug dealers, terrorists or victims of trafficking, and will instead have to ask a fully trained Border Force staff member to do that.
The training, truncated to five days from three weeks given to Border Force guards, will begin as two unions consider strike action over pay and conditions.
The training follows the deployment of more than 600 soldiers, RAF staff and Royal Navy staff during strikes over the Christmas period.
Soldiers in uniform worked at Gatwick, Heathrow, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester and Glasgow airports during the Christmas strikes.
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) and Immigration Service Union (ISU), which both represent Border Force guards, are considering strike action over the summer months.
Union leaders have condemned the retraining of the armed forces as a risk to security.
Lucy Moreton, the professional officer at the ISU, said: “The government is wasting yet more public money training military staff who cannot – through no fault of their own – provide even a fraction of the national security cover a border officer can. This to cover strikes which recent experience shows have very limited impact. This is not ‘taking back control of our borders’.”
The PCS general secretary, Mark Serwotka, said: “Time and again, the military has been clear it has its own job to do and doesn’t want to spend time covering for the government’s failures.
“It’s a colossal waste of the military’s time and of public finances to pay soldiers to do the jobs of civil servants. The country would be better served by a government that paid civil servants a decent wage to be civil servants, instead of treating them worse than any other public servant.”
The ISU ran a ballot for industrial action up to 16 May, the results of which have not yet been disclosed.
The PCS union is considering further industrial action after calling for a pay rise, better pensions and no cuts to redundancy terms.
Labour, which has joined senior army officers in criticising the Sunak government for failing to reverse defence cuts, has demanded that ministers spell out how the army will cope with non-military demands whilst being ready to cope with increasing threats.
The shadow armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, said: “Our armed forces’ role is to defend the nation, not bail out Conservative ministers. The government must explain how our forces will handle these increasing domestic demands at a time when ministers are continuing to cut the size of the army and threats to the UK are increasing.”
The army will be deployed under the “military aid to the civil authorities” (Maca) policy.
There was chaos at Dover over Easter that led to delays of up to 20 hours for passengers.
Security guards at Heathrow airport have been striking throughout May in a dispute over pay.
About 1,400 staff represented by Unite based at Terminal 5 and in campus security have already staged five days of strikes this month, and will also strike from Thursday 25 May though to Saturday 27 May.
British Airways, the only airline that operates from Terminal 5, cancelled more than 300 flights in response to strikes over Easter.
Documents leaked to the Guardian in December showed that people suspected of crimes such as carrying a false passport, drug smuggling, people-trafficking and victims of modern slavery cannot be stopped by members of the armed forces if they hold valid travel documents.
Instead, a separate intervention has to be sought for suspected serious criminals or their victims from a fully trained Border Force officer.
In December, just nine people were stopped at passport control and held at Heathrow over three strike days from 23 to 25 December, compared with 189 people over the same three days in 2021, a 95% drop.
During the winter strikes by Border Force officers, there were few delays for passengers as hundreds of military personnel and civil servants were brought in to cover striking workers. Many passengers cleared passport control in less than five minutes.
A Home Office spokesperson has said: “Our priority is to keep our citizens safe and our borders secure.
“We are working closely with all UK ports and airports to ensure we have robust plans in place to minimise any delays if strike action goes ahead. We will deploy suitable resource to meet critical demand and support the flow of passengers and goods through our border.
“We always recommend that passengers check the latest advice from their operators before travelling.”
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We have received a military aid to the civil authorities request, which is currently under consideration. We will respond in due course.”
