Lord Hendy (Lab)

My Lords, I am pleased to support Amendments 359 and 361 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston. On the basis of those amendments, I will not advance the amendment I proposed in Committee for a stand-alone offence for transport workers. My amendment sought to give transport workers equivalent protection to that to be extended to retail workers by the Government in Clauses 38 and 39, but the noble Baroness’s amendments cover transport workers, retail workers and, as she mentioned, many more categories of workers who face the public and are exposed to the risk of violent attack by individuals apparently aggrieved by a worker doing what he or she is paid to do. In proposing these more widely drafted amendments, there is no intention to diminish the coverage the Government are already offering retail workers. If there is some perceived shortfall in the scope of our amendments compared with that of Clauses 38 and 39 for retail workers, I for one would be very happy if the Government instructed parliamentary counsel to close that gap in drafting. I thank my noble friend the Minister for meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and me to discuss the amendments, notwithstanding that, as she says, he was not persuaded by us. With respect, I am likewise not persuaded by my noble friend’s justification for restricting the scope of the offence under discussion to retail workers only. The commitment given in the Labour manifesto would be equally fulfilled by adoption of our amendments in place of Clauses 38 and 39. Retail workers would have, and must still have, their manifesto protection. In any event, though it may result in duplication, our amendments do not involve a request to remove Clauses 38 and 39. That is not their purpose. As to the argument that the wider amendment is not necessary, I point out that even if that were legally correct, the adoption of Clauses 38 and 39 and the rejection of the wider amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, sends a particular message both to the workers in question and the public, as she pointed out. She mentioned violence against various categories of public-facing workers, and I gave figures for violence against transport workers at an earlier stage of the debate. I will not repeat those, but the House should know that the situation is getting worse. For example, British Transport Police figures for the period April to November 2025 showed a 21% increase in incidents involving violence against staff compared to the previous year, which itself showed a similar increase on the year before that. The stabbings at Huntingdon in November 2025 bring the point home.