Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department plans to take with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce violence against women and girls on public transport.

This Government is committed to tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), and we have set out our unprecedented mission to halve it within a decade. Achieving this means concerted work on prevention and overhauling every aspect of society’s response to these devastating crimes.

The Department for Transport is working across government to address these issues. We are also piloting Transport Safety Officers in five areas in England, including officers specifically trained to respond to incidents of VAWG.

The Department also continues to work closely with transport partners, including the British Transport Police, on a range of initiatives to address the problems faced by all passengers, on the transport network. This includes the Railway Guardian app which provides safety advice, links to partner organisations and enables reporting of incidents to the force directly. BTP uses specialist teams of plain clothed and uniformed officers across the network to target and identify offenders. It also uses enhanced patrols, with a directed, intelligence-led focus around the nighttime economy, providing high visibility presence to reassure rail staff and the public.