B

Baroness Ludford (LD)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 4 November 2025

Debate

Huntingdon Train Attack

Contribution

My Lords, I agree with everything that has been said about the courage and skill of the staff and the efficiency of response in the emergency services and the police. I also take the point about the signallers. It would be fascinating and would make a good drama—sorry, it is in a tragic context, but the way in which the driver had to communicate with the signallers, and goodness knows who else, is above my pay grade and was all extremely impressive. I want to ask about the last point on CCTV and facial recognition. I absolutely hear what my noble friend Lady Pidgeon said about how we cannot jump to conclusions about what the police should have done, should be doing or whatever. I have been somewhat intrigued to see it reported that the British Transport Police had the CCTV of an incident on a DLR station and apparently identified the person involved on the police national computer, but that did not go anywhere before the Huntington train incident. I put down a marker that I would be interested to know about that in future as one of the lessons learned. I share all the reservations about privacy issues, CCTV and facial recognition, including the point made by the right reverend Prelate about the accuracy of facial recognition and the way it has been used. It would be interesting to know what lessons we can learn about identification and sharing that data across the country. I am not saying anything could have been prevented, but I would be interested to know what lessons can be learned about what happened between knowledge of the DLR incident and what happened in Huntington.

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