Australia travellers to access e-passport gates at Heathrow
Goodbye long queues after that 23-hour flight. Australians will be able to access e-passport gates at all UK airports.
Australians will be able to avoid long queues at Heathrow Airport with electronic passport gates to be opened up to people outside of the European Union.
In a special measure announced in the UK budget overnight, chancellor Philip Hammond says the e-passport gates at all UK airports will be available to people coming to the UK from Australia as well as the United States, Canada and Japan.
The news will be welcomed by the hundreds of thousands of Australian visitors who often face delays of around two hours in the “alien’’ queue at immigration after enduring long haul flights of more than 23 hours.
Australian High Commissioner to the UK, George Brandis, who had worked behind the scenes to have a seamless system introduced, said “this is a great outcome for Australia’’.
The new rules extends on the recent development where frequent travellers from Australia have been able to pre-apply for a registered traveller status, £50 ($90) a year, in order to use the e-passport gates.
Crucially, the move is a small step towards renewed relationships with countries outside of the EU in a post-Brexit world.
More than one million Australians visited the UK in 2017.
In delivering his budget speech Mr Hammond declared that austerity was coming to an end in the UK, but said discipline would still be required.
In a big spending budget, he announced a new digital services tax on internet giants earning more than £500m pounds in revenue a year, tipped to raise around £400m.
The big winner was the National Health Service which will receive a £20bn boost and individual taxpayers who will see income tax cuts brought forward by 12 months.
He has set aside an extra £500m for Brexit and foreshadowed an emergency budget around April next year if there is a no-deal Brexit.
In addition there will be a new tax on plastic packaging which contains less than 30 per cent recycled content.
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