Keep railway safety regulation independent

The regulation of railway safety should continue to be the responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and not be transferred to the Department for Transport or any other body, safety groups have told the government.

The Centre for Corporate Accountability and two groups for victims’ families, Disaster Action and Safety on Trains Action Group (STAG), made the submission to the Rail Review after reports that the government may remove safety regulation of the railways from the HSE.

The campaign groups all believe that the organisation enforcing safety in any industry should be entirely independent of the industry itself. Lack of such independence was found to have been a factor in the Zeebrugge ferry, King’s Cross, Piper Alpha, and Clapham disasters. They point out that Lord Cullen in his report into the Ladbroke Grove railway disaster came to precisely this conclusion.

STAG’s Maureen Kavanagh, whose son Peter died in the Southall rail crash, said: “It seems rather extraordinary, when public confidence in the safety of the railways is so low, for the Government to consider removing the independence of the safety regulator, lowering safety standards and enforcing them with a lighter touch.”