Straw moves on Calais security
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• Home Secretary Jack Straw is to press the French government to tighten up security at Calais for UK-bound trucks after meeting leaders of the Freight Transport Association.
FA director-general David Green and Gordon Linington, its head of international trade, say the hour-long discussion was the most positive they have had with any Home Office minister since the crisis blew up three years ago.
Green says: "The Home Secretary clearly recognised and endorsed the view we were expressing that we need to have full and comprehensive checks on vehicles going through Calais. He also recognised that he needed to play an important role in making that happen."
Green adds that measures introduced by Calais port officials last month (CM 20-26 July) are important, but the free stowaway detection service needs to cover all vehicles and any risk of stowaway access to vehicles needs to be removed once inspections are completed.
The ETA says that although hundreds of unauthorised people have been removed from the port of Calais since July, the number of stowaways found on trucks arriving at Dover has not changed.
The PTA had wanted the meeting with Straw since his visit to Dover last April. Despite Straw's conciliatory stance, there seems little chance that he will budge on the £2,000 penalty for each stowaway Immigration officials are due to visit Calais this week to discuss how to make the port detection service more effective.
Road Haulage Association chief executive Roger King says: 'I warmly applaud Jack Straw's hint last week that he wants to work with us. It shows a change of attitude from 'it's your problem' to recognition that it is beyond our capabilities to police this."