Committee Chair responds to BTP comments about railway security report
5 September 2014
Louise Ellman MP responds to BTP comments about the Transport Committee’s report on Security on the Railway
- Report: Security on the Railway
- Report: Security on the Railway (PDF 1.83MB)
- Inquiry: Security on the Railway
- Transport Committee
Responding to comments from the British Transport Police about a Transport Committee report published today, Louise Ellman chair of the committee said:
"BTP has welcomed our Report but calls into question a figure for vulnerable children given in the evidence to the Committee. This is unfortunate as it distracts attention from a serious issue: the protection of vulnerable children and young people.
The critical issue is that there are no reliable figures for the number of vulnerable children at London stations, and no figures at all outside London. Data about vulnerable children on the rail network is just not routinely collected; Millie Banerjee, Chair of the British Transport Police Authority, acknowledged this in her oral evidence to the Committee.*
We may be missing a key opportunity to intervene and protect vulnerable children on the railway, and not just those who are classified as missing but all of those young people who might come into contact with transport authorities for whatever reason. Without accurate data we cannot be confident that, as a society, we are doing all we can to protect vulnerable children and young people."