To: Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP – Secretary of State for the Home Department Rt Hon Heidi Alexander MP – Secretary of State for Transport The Rt Hon David Lammy MP – Secretary of State for Justice Strengthening legal protections for public transport workers who are assaulted at work We are writing to you to share our concerns about the increasing prevalence and severity of violent and abusive behaviour perpetrated against public transport workers and to urge the Government to legislate to strengthen legal protections through the creation of a specific offence of assaulting a public transport worker. There is widespread industry support for legislative reform to this effect including from the British Transport Police (BTP), Rail Delivery Group, Network Rail and bus operators including Stagecoach. Furthermore, the professional membership body, the Institute for Customer Service is also campaigning for a standalone offence covering public-facing workers including public transport workers and have published an open letter in support of this signed by over 100 employers. In the case of public transport workers, in its evidence1 to the Crime and Policing Bill Committee the BTP made an important point about the disparity that will exist if the Government legislates to create a standalone offence protecting retail workers but fails to extend these provisions to public transport workers: “This Bill seeks to introduce a new specific offence of assault of retail worker. It should be noted that if these provisions become law, this will create significant inequality in the legal response on BTP jurisdiction. At a station, the two types of workers could be working in close proximity to each other, however if both are assaulted, the law will offer a greater level of protection to the retail worker than to the transport worker. This disparity is wrong.” British Transport Police data2 shows between 2021 and 2024 there was a year-onyear increase of both violent and serious public order offences against rail staff. In 2024, there were 7027 offences against staff recorded in these categories, an increase of 2257 (47%) from 2021. A recent survey by the RMT Union of over 6000 public transport workers found that nearly two-thirds had experienced workplace violence in the past year, and 70% thought that violence on public transport had increased in the past year. We believe that the creation of a specific offence is necessary for a number of reasons, including that it will act as a greater deterrent for perpetrators, may make it
1 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmpublic/CrimePolicing/memo/CPB65.htm 2 https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/60726/documents/6491