Tom Brake MP Backs Constituent's Considerate Commuters Campaign

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 4th Oct 2004

Tom Brake, MP for Carshalton and Wallington, will next week (Tuesday) table a parliamentary motion in support of Janice Norman's 'Considerate Commuters' campaign.

Just weeks after 34-year-old Carshalton resident Janice Norman was accidentally shoved in the stomach on a train last year she had to have an emergency Cesarean section. Her baby Eliza died on New Year's Day at just four days old. Tests showed it was due to a trauma injury to the placenta which occurred at the time of the train incident.

Ms Norman and Tom Brake are calling for an awareness campaign highlighting the needs of vulnerable commuters, especially the need for more reserved places on public transport and a need for commuters to be more considerate by giving up their seats.

Tom Brake said,

"Janice Norman's case highlights in a tragic way the need for a considerate commuters campaign. If people had given up their seats straight away this would never have happened."

In the past week, Mr Brake has written to Transport Secretary Alistair Darling, ATOC Director General George Muir and London Mayor Ken Livingstone on the issue. Mr Brake is also helping Janice Norman to secure a meeting with a Government Transport Minister to discuss the campaign. And Mr Brake is seeking to table an amendment to the Transport Bill if, as expected, a Transport Bill is announced in the Queen's Speech.

EDM on 'Considerate Commuters' campaign

That this House notes Janice Norman's 'Considerate Commuters' campaign; commends the Sutton Guardian for covering her story; calls on the Rt Hon. Alistair Darling MP, the Secretary of State for Transport, George Muir, the Director General of the Association of Train Operating Companies and Ken Livingstone, London's Mayor to respond positively to her campaign by highlighting the needs of vulnerable commuters and setting out their plans in support of her 'Considerate Commuters' campaign; furthermore calls on the Secretary of State for Transport, the Association of Train Operating Companies and London's Mayor to help establish the extent of the problems experienced by vulnerable people by confirming how many vulnerable people are injured on public transport as a result of a lack of reserved places for vulnerable people or the failure of other commuters to vacate their seats.