Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government (1) how many suicides there have been on railways in each of the last 10 years; (2) what is their assessment of the effect of suicide prevention on these trends; and (3) what further steps they are taking to prevent suicides on railways.

The statistics on railway suicides in each of the last 10 years are:

A comprehensive national rail suicide prevention programme is in place which is managed by Network Rail on behalf of the industry and includes a contract with the Samaritans. The programme has been evaluated by RSSB (formerly the Rail Standards & Safety Board) and, whilst the number of suicides had increased in the past few years, this is in line with an increase at a national level. The evaluation has indicated that the programme has been particularly successful in bringing together a wide range of different organisations in planning, promoting and delivering complex activities at both national and local levels. The training of over 5,600 front line staff has also seen a significant increase in the number of interventions, for example, the British Transport Police recorded a total of 631 interventions that have been made in situations judged as having the potential to result in suicide during 2013/14.

The Department for Transport continues to support the programme and has provided funding to extend the Samaritans contract until 2019. Network Rail is expanding its work in this area and is currently exploring further innovations such as the use of blue lighting at stations following successful trials in Japan.