Borders 'obsession' fuelling UK 'boom for private firms'

Security industry worth billions and growing, say academics

- HOLLY BANCROFT SOCIAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT

Private companies are benefiting from a multibillion-pound industry created by government ministers" "obsession with tough borders", The Independent can reveal - as charities, academics and campaigners urge ministers to "turn off this tap of taxpayer cash".

Data collected by academics at the Universities of Sheffield, Liverpool, York and Nottingham on 200 contracts for border management shows around £2bn worth of deals have been issued by governments since 2017.

They include contracts for escorting migrants to detention centres, refurbishment of deportation sites, the costs of removing small boats once they get to Dover, and costs for bussing Border Force staff to and from France.

While government contracts show the estimated value of the work, they do not show the amount of money the company actually receives, making revenue from border security harder to map.

Researchers predict that the UK industry will expand, with an additional £1bn in open tenders as of December 2024. Globally, the border security market is projected to grow from $377bn (£280bn) in 2023 to $679bn by 2032.

The academics have slammed the lack of public accountability over the amounts spent on Channel security. They used a combination of the government’s contract finder service, ContractFinderPro, the EU tendering portal, and data from think tank Tussell to identify relevant contracts. They included contracts that are solely for the management of the Channel, contracts that relate to the processing of asylum seekers who arrive by small boats, and contracts for Border Force surveillance more generally.

Small boat crossings in the Channel started to emerge as a means of reaching the UK around 2018, when 299 people made the journey, according to data from the Migration Observatory.