Huntingdon Train Attack

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend. He made contact with me and my officials very quickly after the attack came to light, and, like other Members, he is an assiduous constituency Member of Parliament. I am sure that he will do everything he can to stand up for the people he represents and ensure that the wider area is not tainted by the actions of the attacker. He is absolutely right to remind the House that we should remember the acts not of the attacker, but of those who responded; they put themselves in harm’s way to protect people they had never met before, and they are the very best of us. I pay tribute to all the staff on the train, because they were faced with something utterly horrifying, reacted with immense bravery, and undoubtedly saved countless lives.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and associate myself with the tributes to the emergency services and the train crew. Our thoughts are with the victims.

When we have more information, I am sure that my Home Affairs Committee will want to consider what happened and learn lessons from it. I draw the Home Secretary’s attention to our inquiry on new forms of radicalisation. If things come out of the investigation that are relevant to my Committee’s inquiry, I ask that we ensure that we learn from them, and ensure that they are included in the inquiry as soon as possible.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for those points. I look forward to working closely with her as we learn more lessons, once all the facts of the case are known. She is right that, more broadly, we are seeing many new forms of radicalisation in this country and across Europe and North America. It is important that we always stress-test and challenge the Government response to those new forms of radicalisation. Longer term, we will need a change in our understanding of what motivates serious violent behaviour. I am sure that she and her Committee will continue their work, and I pledge to work with them as we try to tease out more answers to these problems.