Violence Against Women and Girls on Trains

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I assure the noble Lord that tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for the British Transport Police. At the meeting I previously referred to with the authority and the BTP, the chief constable was vigorous in making sure that everybody knew that a significant proportion of the total resources of the British Transport Police is devoted to tackling violence against women and girls. I should be only too happy to ask the chief constable to brief the noble Lord personally about how much effort is being put into this subject. I hope he will take me up on that offer.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, made a good point about alcohol control—as the Minister said, he introduced it on the Underground—but I do not think that it needs someone at every station to prevent people taking it on-board. There are staff on many trains who could stop people drinking alcohol, and there are other people who could intervene, so I think that a ban could be effective. Furthermore, we should keep an open mind about the possibility of this suggestion. Many of the people committing these offences are recidivists, but they seem to have an unrestricted right to book a ticket on a train. I wonder what restrictions might be placed on their access to a public transport system, to prevent victims suffering as they do quite regularly.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his observations about alcohol. Travel on the railway means many different things to different people; a 15 or 20-minute journey is certainly tolerable—and probably preferable—without alcohol, but a five-hour journey, from one end of the country to the other, is probably not. There are provisions to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol on trains going to and from football matches, for example, so it has been thought through. However, it is rather draconian to prevent people on long journeys relaxing. The behaviour to which the noble Lord refers and the sorts of people he is talking about are behaviours and people that should be closely monitored in our society. I am not sure that I can easily see how one could prevent such people buying tickets, but it might be that the advent of modern technology makes their presence easier to identify, and certainly easier to identify if they commit offences, including terrible offences against women and girls.