Transport: Women’s Safety

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are currently taking to improve women’s safety on transport.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)]

My Lords, we work on a number of fronts to improve safety and security for all passengers and staff. In particular, the Government are supporting a British Transport Police-led academic literature and tactical review on reducing sexual offending and improving perceptions of safety on transport. This research will be delivered for February 2015 and will support an international expert session to debate the findings.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Is she aware of a study recently done in the UK and Canada that found that,

“women passengers generally prefer staffing to technological solutions and are very skeptical of the tendency of”—

transport operators—

“to replace staff from trains or buses with automated machines”.

Will she encourage operators to have more staff and fewer machines and CCTV and to recruit more women to the front line, which women also prefer in many instances?

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, I completely agree with recruiting women to the front line. It is also important to have a staff presence where that is feasible. I am very encouraged, for example, by Transport for London’s commitment to take staff out of the ticket offices and put them out on the platforms and places where the passengers are. However, if we were to man every station at all hours at all times, we would unfortunately have to close stations because of the inherent cost.