Up to 75,000 top Australian businesspeople who regularly travel to the UK are to be given new rights to be fast-tracked through British airports, under plans unveiled by David Cameron as he arrived in Australia for the G20 summit.
The scheme is likely to benefit Lynton Crosby, David Cameron’s top pollster and strategist, but Downing Street said the idea had been pressed on the UK government by Australian officials as a way of easing relations between the two countries.
Under the scheme, business figures, entrepreneurs and investors who have visited the UK four times within 12 months will be able to apply to use electronic passport-reading gates in future to speed their transit through Heathrow and Gatwick. The so called Lynton Lanes will also be open to Australians with extended leave to stay in the UK who regularly travel between the countries.
The queue-avoidance plan was unveiled as Cameron joined the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, to talk to members of the business community in Sydney about how to boost investment in infrastructure in the two countries.
Abbott is trying to make growth and infrastructure the key themes of the G20 summit, but he is facing growing pressure to weigh down the agenda with other items including Ebola, counter-terrorism and climate change.
Separately, the British PM has announced the rollout to seven new countries of a super-priority system allowing business leaders, investors and wealthy tourists to obtain visas within 24 hours, in the hope of attracting high-spending visitors to the UK.
Cameron is due to fly with Abbott from Sydney to Canberra before addressing the Australian parliament, and later he will hold talks separately with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Indian prime minister, Narenda Modi.
