UK GAR form discussion, and UK border police procedures

Concerning the UK primary legislation that, in effect, requires the filing of the GAR:

@dublinpilot has mentioned the ‘immigration’ legislation (in the Terrorism Act 2000).

For those interested (if anyone!) the primary Customs legislation appears in the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979. For aircraft (and ships) arriving in the UK, section 35 applies. For outbound craft the relevant section is section 64. Both of these permit HMRC (as the Commissioners of Customs and Excise has now been rebranded) to decide what should be included in any required report. The form they have decided on is what we know as the GAR.

For inbound (s.35): "35 Report inwards.

Report shall be made in such form and manner and containing such particulars as the Commissioners may direct of every ship and aircraft to which this section applies. . ..

(2)This section applies to every ship arriving at a port—

(a)from any place outside the United Kingdom; or

(b)carrying any goods brought in that ship from some place outside the United Kingdom and not yet cleared on importation.

This section applies to every aircraft arriving at any place in the United Kingdom—"

Great information. How about anyone that can find the grounds for the Dutch marechaussee (border force_) to demand the same kind of information? There are no borders within the Schengen area, so any national law that refers to borders or bordercontrol is about the extra-Schengen border now. Where the UK has a law that gives their border force the authority to ask for whatever they want, I can’t find anything like that for The Netherlands.

@TJ – from what you found, am I right that HMRC have delegated powers to decide on the format of the information, and they have produced the GAR form for that purpose, but anything else is just guidance material? Or do you think the use of MS Excel is law?

@alioth – I agree re PDFs, but I recall HMRC did produce a PDF version and ran that for quite some years. For example I have this one on my website, which under Properties (always a fun pastime to look in PDFs… exceeded only by EXIF headers in jpegs * ) shows

So unless PC Harvey is a fake, I’d say the govt doesn’t have a leg to stand on

I think the wider issue is that Schengen is dead for movement monitoring purposes, but due to the massive emotional/political attachment nobody will kill it formally, so they are going to do a Nelson Mandela on it (a drip feed, until things are sorted). So we will see more of this national stuff.

* I am not an anorak, honest…

JasonC wrote:

Well yes, but it isn’t £3 a time. Apparently jets require more expensive yet identical forms….

I use OnlineGAR but the pricing structure bears more resemblance to taxation…

Actually, it resembles typical commercial practise: you charge what the market can bear, and different parts of the market can bear different prices for the same product. For instance, take Oracle. You pay a different price depending on how fancy your server is, even though the software is absolutely identical. Or airlines – you may have paid a fifth of the price to the person sitting next to you, because you’re travelling for leisure and could book three weeks in advance, but your neighbour is a business traveller and could only book yesterday. The seat you’re in and the seat they are in are identical, though, with the same service. If OnlineGAR charged the same rate for everyone, they’d probably make less revenue. Unfortunately with the XML specification and API endpoints not being published, it’s very difficult to start up a competing operation.

Peter wrote:

@TJ – from what you found, am I right that HMRC have delegated powers to decide on the format of the information, and they have produced the GAR form for that purpose

Yes, they have produced the GAR form under the very wide powers given to them in the 1979 law.
Peter wrote:

but anything else is just guidance material?

At the moment, yes. But because the powers are so wide they can change the situation at a moment’s notice – just by issuing notice of the change
Peter wrote:

Or do you think the use of MS Excel is law?

No, the use of the MS Excel format isn’t law, at least for the user, because it can be submitted from a website or through other software, such as SkyDemon or Rocketroute. But HMRC could make it law at a penstroke if they chose to do so.

It’s always better to look at the primary legislation than the OWT one might get from private or official “guidance”.

In the case of HMRC (inbound flights from outside the Common Travel Area) Hector and his comrades have us over a barrel. They decree the “form and manner”, so if they say we have to deliver tablets of stone to Swansea, that’s it. They say sh1t, we have to jump on the shovel.

Before complaining too loudly, this is actually quite a concession compared with our EU comrades. Airmen from all sorts of odd foreign countries can fly straight into Glenswinton after submitting a form online. Then we just check them for weapons and if they’re not carrying we issue them with a scattergun and birdshot and escort them to their peg.

For intra CTA travel, the statutory obligation is in two stages. Firstly, wehave to notify a Constable not less than 12 hours prior. We can write “I’m hoping to fly to Tipperary next week in G-ABCD if my piles have stopped troubling me by then” on the side of a cow and walk it into the local nick. Then, if they want more info, the Old Bill can submit a request in writing only for such information as specified by the Secretary of State, to be provided as soon as practicable in accordance with Paragraph 17 of Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000. This is some, but not all, of the info on a typical GAR form and “as soon as practicable” may well be immediately before or after the flight.

Of course, if you’re a Yorkshireman, blessed by God with boundless generosity, modesty and willingness to cow tow to authority, you’ll probably just fire off a full GAR form 12 hours prior, and have done with it.

How many people file a GAR outbound?

How many people file a GAR outbound?

Passengers keeping track of their days in the UK to avoid further correspondence with HMRC