Speeches by Mahmood.

“I thank the hon. Member for both his question and for his own work over the weekend. He was very quick to arrive at the scene. I thought that he handled himself with great honour and that he responded in a measured way to such a horrifying incident in his constituency. The way he has handled himself is a credit to him …”

“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend. He made contact with me and my officials very quickly after the attack came to light, and, like other Members, he is an assiduous constituency Member of Parliament. I am sure that he will do everything he can to stand up for the people he represents and ensure that the wider area is not…”

“I thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for those points. I look forward to working closely with her as we learn more lessons, once all the facts of the case are known. She is right that, more broadly, we are seeing many new forms of radicalisation in this country and across Europe and North America. It is impo…”

“Thankfully, incidents like the one on Saturday are very rare, and our train system is generally very safe—millions of people use it every day without incident—so we have a strong base to build on. Of course, given what has happened—the horrifying nature of the attack, and the indiscriminate way in which victims were st…”

“As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the average sentence for threatening with a knife is more than a year—it is around 15 months—and it would not be caught by the presumption in the Sentencing Bill. Also, the Bill creates a presumption against, not a blanket ban on, sentences of under 12 months; there is still discr…”

“As my hon. Friend will know, I am limited in what I can say, given that this is a live police investigation. The police have obviously confirmed some of the facts, but their investigation must be allowed to continue without further speculation. He makes a good point, and I well understand why people in his constituency…”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. My experience over the weekend regarding the different police forces and emergency services who responded to this attack is that they work together very well, and I was pleased to see that level of co-ordination, especially when different forces are responsible for diff…”

“We should all take confidence from the speed of the emergency services’ response to the attack, which has drawn justified wide praise from across the House. The speed of the response meant that the attack was brought to an end as quickly as possible, and many lives, I believe, were saved as a result of that response. W…”

“I know from my conversations with the Transport Secretary over the weekend that these issues are very much on her mind. There is crossover with those of us in the Home Office, but the responsibility sits primarily with the Transport Secretary. I will ensure that my hon. Friend gets a fuller response to her question, bu…”

“The consultation I referred to in my earlier remarks around the legal framework for much wider use of live facial recognition will be in the next few weeks—it is all but upon us. I referred to the funding for 10 new mobile units that has been made available. The British Transport police is preparing a pilot of live fac…”

“I will happily discuss with my hon. Friend the content of her earlier amendment. Even if it is not acceptable for that Bill, I will ensure that the policy question she raises is picked up by our colleagues in the Department for Transport.”

“The most important thing is that official sources of information are able to be transparent as quickly as possible so that the vast majority of this country that does not just get its news from social media knows what is happening. There will be a role for the Online Safety Act 2023 in the future as well.”

“We will publish a knife crime strategy very soon. I understand the reason why some people think that round-tip knives are part of the solution, and I will consider all the evidence, but in the end millions of normal kitchen knives are available. We have to do a much better job on all the other areas, such as prevention…”

“The right hon. Gentleman will know that tasers were deployed on Saturday to bring this incident to a close. However, I can assure him that even if that is not part of the wider lessons learned from this case once all the facts are known, I will take his points into consideration.”

“I agree with my hon. Friend about the BTP’s hugely important role. Its funding for this year is actually 6% higher than previously, and I am sure the Transport Secretary will do everything she can on the funding front.”

“I repeat that the BTP has been awarded £415 million for the year 2025-26, which is an increase of almost 6% on the previous year. I am sure that the Transport Secretary is considering the wider funding issues.”

“The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the issue of the wider forms of radicalisation that we are now starting to see in this country. She should rest assured that even if they are not relevant to the specific lessons that are drawn from this case, they are very much on the minds of all of us in the Government as w…”

“I repeat the earlier answers I have given in relation to funding. My hon. Friend should rest assured that we are discussing these matters with the Department for Transport.”

“We will be led by the operational assessment made by the British Transport police as to what is required. The right hon. Gentleman should rest assured that where the Government have a role to play in keeping people safe on the transport network, we will do so.”

“I can assure my hon. Friend that the Transport Secretary and I will be discussing all and any lessons to be drawn from this incident, and there will be a cross-Government response that meets the scale of the challenge that we face.”