Violence Against Women and Girls on Trains

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The British Transport Police covers the whole country, so its liaison is necessarily diverse across all the Home Office police forces and those in Scotland and Wales. It does a good job. A previous Question this afternoon referred to county lines drug trafficking. In recognition of the national function of the British Transport Police, it has been given £4.3 million for the next financial year by the Home Office to fund its county lines task force, which works with the Home Office police forces in the seamless identification of people travelling across what would otherwise be police boundaries, and in catching and convicting criminals for county lines and other offences.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I am old enough to remember a phenomenon called the “ladies only compartment”—and I am not alone in that, I gather. I was required to travel in that compartment as a schoolgirl. Is the creation of a safety zone for women and girls on our trains something that perhaps might be considered under the “design out” approach to which the Minister referred earlier?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

With modern railway rolling stock, it is far more difficult to partition off relatively small spaces. I too am old enough to remember women-only compartments, but compartment trains were undesirable in a whole pile of ways, including due to the relative isolation of people in different compartments. These days, while open carriages might not always be welcome if you are reading a good novel, they at least allow people to be in relatively open circumstances—and, hence, you would like to think that they would discourage people. The noble Baroness’s suggestion is a difficult one, given the configuration of modern railway rolling stock. To go back to the original point of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, to design out those nooks and crannies in railway compartments and those dimly lit places on railway stations is where we ought to go to reduce the opportunities for terrible violence against women and girls.

Battery and Hydrogen-powered Aircraft

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

A very popular suggestion from the noble Lord, and his point is made.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, to help the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, in the attainment of his admirable objectives, can my noble friend the Minister confirm to what extent his department is liaising with the Ministry of Defence, which, through the RAF and Project Monet, is making excellent progress in the pursuit of sustainable fuels?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Civil aviation and the Royal Air Force are making combined efforts to reduce emissions with technology.