A month before Britain goes to poll, the Coalition government has re-introduced exit checks, commencing from Wednesday April 8th, to actually count people who enter and leave the country. This may lead to serious chaos and queueing in the airport, causing severe delays to passengers, some MPs have warned.
In 2010, the Coalition government had promised the exit check practice as part of its immigration rules, however it took them 4 years 11 months to finally execute it.
Earlier to prevent visitors from overstaying their visa, they had announced plans to roll out a £3,000 visitor bond. Under the proposal "high risk visitors" from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana was required to pay a £3,000 bond for a six month visitor visa to enter the UK. The fee would have been over and above all visa costs. The applicant would have to forfeit the amount unless they left when required. It dropped the plan after strong opposition.
The recent amendment to the Immigration Act 2014 will allow all ports and airports in the UK rights to carry out exit checks.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, after almost seven different immigration bills and six different home secretaries, the UK has made only 114 prosecutions for employing illegal immigrants in the course of a decade.
Clegg reportedly said, "Exit checks tell us whether the people who should have left actually have. Britain used to have them but they were dismantled by previous governments. The process began under the John Major government and was carried on by the Tony Blair administration and the Liberal Democrats have been campaigning to bring them back since 2004."
The Home office said, "Exit checks data will help us to target individuals who have overstayed their visas and are in the UK illegally. For example we can use new powers to remove driving licences and prevent individuals from opening bank accounts where we know they have not left the country."
"The checks will also improve national security by helping the police and security services track the movements of known or suspected criminals and terrorists," it added.
The UK Border Agency checks more than 100 million people arriving at its airports and consider around 3.5 million applications to visit, live, work or study in the UK every year.
But due to the lack of exit checks, UK has been missing people who aren't leaving once their visas expire.
