Contribution
My Lords, I start with Amendments 207 and 210. I thank the noble Baronesses for their commitment and the work they have done continuously over a number of years on safety, particularly of women and girls. The Office of Rail and Road has led responsibility for independently reviewing, monitoring and enforcing railway safety across Great Britain. It is right that this role sits with an independent regulator rather than the Secretary of State, as the ORR has the right expertise to ensure high standards across the network, which will allow for a degree of consistency.
Understandably, passenger safety has been in the spotlight recently, following the devastating situation in Bedford and the subsequent derailments over the summer. A number of incidents have been mentioned this evening. However, I reassure the Committee that the ORR’s annual health and safety report, published on 14 July, found that passenger safety and the overall risk of harm remain at historically low levels on British railways. It found that Britain continues to have one of the safest railways in the world on which to travel as a passenger, as mentioned by colleagues this evening.
However, the report also identified areas where further improvements are needed and set out priorities for that, including tackling violence and harassment and strengthening the management of key safety risks. These improvements are of particular importance as the ORR’s data shows that, while the risk of harm remains at a historically low level, the number of passenger assaults on railways has increased over the past year. To be frank, one is one too many.
That is why the Government, industry, the ORR and the British Transport Police are already working together to act on those findings and drive further improvements in safety performance. For example, measures are being taken across the network to increase visible policing, strengthen intelligence sharing, expand the use of body-worn video and improve support for front-line railway staff. These are vital measures, with studies showing that body-worn video in particular reduces the risk of staff assaults by 47%. It is also important that railway staff feel safe so that they can interject and step in when they see things occurring.
Operators continue to invest in station and onboard CCTV, customer help points and visible staff presence across the network, as helping passengers to travel with greater confidence is a priority. The Department for Transport has been looking into the funding for the British Transport Police and announced that it will provide an additional £63 million. It has announced £17 million of funding to help connect existing station CCTV to policing and authorised rail staff, so that evidence can be accessed quickly and securely, helping to identify offenders. I confirm that the Levy case correspondence will be shared with noble Lords.
Further measures include the introduction in June 2026 of railway behaviour notices, which strengthen the railway’s ability to exclude repeat offenders from stations, and new intelligence systems with database integration to support industry-wide reporting. I think that answers some of the points raised regarding drugs, county lines and anti-social behaviour.
On the safety of disabled people, I assure the Committee that the Government are determined to leave accessibility in a much better place than they found it. Passenger Assist must get better. Any mistake is a mistake too many, and no one’s safety should ever be compromised by a failure of staffing or organisation. A new national training package is already being rolled out, with online learning modules for all staff, backed by regular refresher training, to ensure that Passenger Assist is delivered consistently, regardless of which train company a customer is travelling with. This will improve the quality and consistency of support for many passengers whose journeys involve more than one operator, and it will be delivered alongside the wider programme of improvements set out by the accessibility road map.
I want to touch on violence against women and girls on our trains. I know that my noble friend Lord Hendy was grateful to meet the noble Baronesses, Lady Morgan of Cotes and Lady Pidgeon, to discuss this recently; as I said earlier, they have been long-standing champions in this field. In May, we launched the Safer Railway Scheme, which requires rail operators to appoint a named senior executive who is responsible for security and safeguarding in their organisation. For the first time, the new scheme introduces mandatory commitments for rail operators to make their services safer for women and girls. As an operator, GBR will be expected to meet those same requirements, including having accessible, credible and formally agreed safeguarding and security strategies.
Additionally, the recently published rolling stock and infrastructure strategy makes it clear that the Government’s wider ambition to tackle violence against women and girls will be an important consideration in future train designs. As has been mentioned, there is great merit in building to design out crime and to make it safer. As I mentioned earlier, £17 million is going to the British Transport Police, enabling them to connect to CCTV, ensuring real-time access by different services, be they rail staff or police services, so they can respond quickly and have the evidence to secure prosecutions. That will definitely be beneficial when we are trying to tackle violence against women and girls.