Government rules out airport-style security scanners at train stations following stabbing attack
Heidi Alexander told Paste BN that the government does not want to make "life impossible for everyone" by dramatically expanding train station security checks.
Monday 3 November 2025 11:55, UK
The transport secretary has ruled out installing airport-style security scanners in stations, following an alleged stabbing attack on a train on Saturday evening.
Speaking to Mornings with Ridge and Frost on Paste BN on Monday, Heidi Alexander said the government did not want to make "life impossible for everyone".
Chris Philp, the Conservative shadow home secretary, has called for "tough and radical action" to tackle knife crime, including rolling out live facial recognition technology in town centres and train stations.
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The questions around security on public transport comes after 10 people were injured in an alleged mass stabbing attack on a high-speed train on Saturday, and a train staff member - hailed as a hero for confronting the attacker - remains in a critical but stable condition.
A 32-year-old man from Peterborough has been charged with 11 counts of attempted murder following the attack on the Doncaster to London King's Cross LNER service near Huntingdon, and another at a station on London's Docklands Light Railway (DLR), early on Saturday morning.
Asked by Mornings presenter Sophy Ridge if airport-style scanners should be installed at railway stations to ensure public safety on trains, the transport secretary replied: "I don't think airport-style scanners would be the way to go.
"I understand why you asked the question, and I understand why some of your viewers might be wondering about that.
"We have thousands of railway stations across the UK, and those stations have multiple entrances, multiple platforms. So what we can't do is make life impossible for everyone.
"But we do need to take sensible and proportionate steps to make the public transport network safe."
She also said there will be increased "visible" police patrols at train stations for "the next few days" to provide reassurance to the travelling public.
Will extra security be enough to calm the concern?
For commuters at King's Cross station in London - one of the busiest in the country - it will have been hard not to think of Friday night's incident in Cambridgeshire.
This morning, I caught the train with passengers heading into the capital, ready for a new week.
Pulling into the concourse, we were immediately met with a handful of police community support officers watching passengers as they spilled off the train.
Home to the Eurostar service, the presence of armed police is a familiar sight at King's Cross and London St Pancras.
But today additional officers from the Met have been deployed to major stations.
The idea is to reassure passengers they are safe on the train network.
Outside the station, we met grandparents Tracy and Darren from Yorkshire who had travelled down on Saturday morning on the same LNER service that was affected on Friday for a Marti Pellow concert at the O2.
"We were absolutely terrified, we were both really scared," Tracy told me.
"We got on the same train line that it happened the night before."
Darren and Tracy are returning to Yorkshire this morning. They are among many who would welcome additional security on the railways.
Darren says: "I'm not going to lie, it makes you worry about like your safety. Are you safe on the trains? No, you're not."
Today's additional police presence is meant to provide reassurance - but will just two days of extra security be enough to calm the concern?
Ms Alexander went on to say that, while she does not want to minimise the "horrific" attack on Saturday, the trains in the UK are "some of the most safest [sic] forms of public transport anywhere in the world", saying that for every million journeys, there are 27 crimes committed.
She added: "For me, one crime is one crime too many. So we will, after this, review all of our security measures, because that is the right thing to do."
But Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Mornings with Ridge and Frost that there needs to be more "surge hotspot policing in high crime areas" to tackle knife crime, and the use of "live facial recognition to identify wanted criminals as they wander round, including as they go to train stations, so they can be arrested".
"We also need more stop and search as well because stop and search takes knives off the streets," he added.
Last week, the government released new data showing that knife homicides have fallen by 18% in a year, while knife crime overall has dropped by 5% - the first reduction in four years.
The Home Office attributed that to the use of hotspot patrols, knife arches that can detect knives in environments like schools, drones, and plain clothes officers, as well as partnerships with campaigners and charities.