Members of the armed services could be called to work on the front line at ports and airports by the end of this month, Whitehall sources said. Defense sources said they had received a request for help from the Home Office, which was being assessed. It follows a vote on Thursday in favor of industrial action by the PCS union, which represents thousands of Border Force guards across the UK. Under Home Office plans, staff will receive less than a week of training so they can cover jobs at ports such as Dover and airports including Heathrow. The usual minimum training would be three weeks for a Border Force guard. They could also be expected to process people crossing the Channel in small boats, amid an expected increase in the coming weeks. The plan has angered Border Force guards, who say members of the force will have insufficient training. It could also involve military top brass who have in the past questioned the use of the army and navy to fill civil servants. John Spellar, former defense minister and deputy chairman of the Commons defense committee, said the government was treating the armed forces as a temporary service. “The government used to use them as the fourth emergency service and now they use the army as a temporary employment service. These are not jobs for which their skills are suited, particularly in a time of international security emergency. “Once again our overstretched armed forces are being called upon to cover gross incompetence by Whitehall and government ministers,” he said. Training will begin within weeks, Whitehall sources confirmed, and will last less than a week. Other training plans for Border Force officers will be suspended while military personnel will be trained instead. Border force guards usually receive at least three weeks of training before interacting with the public. After the three weeks, they are given a mentor to work with them for up to a month to ensure they can work alone in a passport office. During the training, they learn how to process and interview passengers, identify victims of modern slavery, detect forged documents, identify suspected child traffickers and learn how to interrogate passengers. Thousands of PCS members at the Home Office, including Border Force officers, voted to intervene after proposals on pay, jobs, redundancy conditions and pensions were rejected. The union said if “substantial proposals” were not received from the government by next Friday, it would agree a “programme of continued industrial action”. The plan to train military personnel has sparked outrage among union officials who say it is “irresponsible” to cut training time. A union official said: “This is a strike-breaking move by a government that is supposed to present a new offer. It’s frankly pathetic. It also means people will be trained for a few days and then expected to have direct contact with asylum seekers and members of the public. It’s not fair to the military to rush them into training and it’s not fair to the public who expect better.” Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Reports claim that Royal Navy officers have expressed concern over the way resources have been diverted to deal with small boat arrivals in the Channel. Ministers fear up to 10,000 more asylum seekers could arrive in the UK by the end of the year. November has become the peak month due to migrant farm workers moving north to the French beaches after the autumn harvest. The increase will put the asylum processing center at Manston in Kent under fresh pressure after the Home Office moved more than 2,800 people to hotels and other accommodation from the “catastrophically overcrowded” site to reduce numbers to 1,147. The Public and Commercial Service union polled more than 150,000 government employees in 214 departments across the country on whether to strike. Announcing the results of the vote, the PCS union said 126 departments had passed the threshold for strikes, including the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions. The strike will reach “every corner of public life”, the union said, with a huge impact on jobcentres, passport offices and the Border Force. A Home Office spokesman said: “We are disappointed that the union has voted in favor of industrial action. Our priority will always be to keep our citizens safe and our borders secure, and we will not compromise on that. As the public would expect, we have plans in place to minimize potential disruption during a potential strike while we continue to carry out substantive checks.” A Ministry of Defense spokesman said: “We have received a request from the Home Office and are reviewing it in accordance with the principles of military assistance to civilian authorities (Maca). No decisions have been made yet.”
