The Channel Tunnel (International Arrangements) (Amendment) Order 2000

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order amends the Channel Tunnel (International Arrangements) Order 1993 (S.I. 1993/1813). It modifies paragraph 27B of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 (as inserted by section 18 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999) so as to extend it to through trains and shuttle trains travelling through the Channel Tunnel. This modification will ensure that paragraph 27B applies to Channel Tunnel train operators or their agents in the same way as it applies to owners or agents of ships or aircraft.

Paragraph 27B allows immigration officers to require carriers to provide passenger information relating to passengers carried, or expected to be carried, by their ships or aircraft arriving in or departing from the United Kingdom.

This Order also modifies paragraph 27C of Schedule 2 to the 1971 Act (as inserted by section 19 of the 1999 Act) so as to extend it to through trains travelling through the Channel Tunnel. This modification will ensure that paragraph 27C applies to the operators of through trains and their agents in the same way as it applies to owners or agents of ships or aircraft travelling to the United Kingdom.

Paragraph 27C requires carriers to inform an immigration officer (upon receipt of written notice from an immigration officer) of the expected arrival in the United Kingdom of any of their ships or aircraft which they expect to carry a person who is not an EEA national.

Failure by a train operator or his agent to comply with the requirements of paragraph 27B or 27C as modified by this Order will constitute an offence under section 27 of the 1971 Act (as amended by paragraph 52 of Schedule 14 to the 1999 Act and as modified by paragraph 1(9) of Schedule 4 to the 1993 Order).