Legal Protections for Rail Workers

At meeting four, the Group heard a firsthand account from an ASLEF member about his, and his colleagues’ experiences of antisocial behaviour, and the impact it can have on rail staff. It was noted that it often begins with low-level antisocial behaviour, such as smoking on trains, drunkenness, verbal abuse directed to staff and vandalism. Low-level antisocial behaviour, if left unaddressed, has the potential to escalate into serious and violent incidents.

A number of concerning incidents have been reported by individual rail staff, including being threatened with knives, and a fatal stabbing at a station in Glasgow. Throughout the series of meetings, BTP have, however, emphasised that rail travel remains safe, with around 15 crimes recorded per million passenger journeys on the Scottish rail network—many of which do not fall within the higher‑harm categories.

However, the Group recognised that this provided a snapshot of the realities that many rail workers face and that this can have a detrimental impact on their own mental health and wellbeing. As result of this, the rail trade unions want to explore and pursue primary legislation that would create a statutory offence for assaulting, threatening, or abusing a rail worker.

While rail workers are protected under general legislation which makes it a statutory offence to behave in a threatening or abusive manner, it was noted that there is no legislation that specifically protects transport workers.

 Three pieces of legislation create a statutory offence relating to specific types of workers:

1. Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021

The Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 aims to enhance the legal protection of retail workers (which may cover some transport workers). At the meeting, it was suggested that widening this legislation to include all transport workers could offer an efficient solution, rather than pursuing new primary legislation.

2. Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 (England & Wales only)

This act was enacted to provide greater protection for emergency workers, including police officers, paramedics, and fire fighters from assaults while they are performing their duties.

3. Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (England & Wales only)

Section 156 of the 2022 Act makes it an offence to assault those who are providing a public service.

The Group wanted to explore whether legislation could be brought forward in Scotland that would create a statutory offence with regards to assaulting, threatening, and abusing transport workers specifically.

Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) had previously conducted research on this matter and were invited to present to their findings to the Group. Their research noted that there had been previous attempts at bringing forward legislation that would create greater statutory protections for transport workers, however, these all failed during the Parliamentary process. SPT noted that if new legislation were to be brought forward, it would most likely have to be through an MSP’s Members Bill, particularly if they were passionate about this topic and would lobby for it, as was done with the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021.