DELIVERING SAFER RAIL STATIONS

Early day motion 1680, tabled 16 February 2006 by Kelvin Hopkins (Labour). Signed by 55 members.

That this House notes the Public Accounts Committee Report `Maintaining and Improving Britain's Railway Stations'; welcomes the Committee's findings that passengers would like stations to be safe and secure with staff and good quality information available; further notes that research for the Department for Transport found that improvements in station safety would increase rail use by up to 11 per cent.; further notes the need for safer stations has been demonstrated by the British Transport Police report that violent crime on trains has risen by 43 per cent. in the last five years; therefore welcomes the RMT study which concluded that the £200 million saved by bringing train operating companies back into public ownership would pay for more than 1,600 extra station staff and double the stations' improvements budget; and therefore calls on the Government to return the train operating companies to public ownership to help finance properly staffed, safer stations.

Signatures by party: Labour 41, Liberal Democrat 8, DUP 4, Respect 1, Social Democratic and Labour Party 1.