There will be a review of rail security in the UK following a mass stabbing on a train, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has said.

A man has been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder after the knife attack on a Doncaster to London service on Saturday night.

Alexander told the BBC the government would “review security arrangements” and respond “swiftly and in a proportionate way”.

But she did not think airport scanning technology “is the right solution for stations in the UK”.

Questions about passenger safety on the UK’s rail network have been raised after a a black British national, who boarded a train at Peterborough station, attacked passengers with a knife.

Eleven people were treated in hospital including a member of train staff who is said to be in a “critical but stable condition”.

Anthony Williams, 32, from Peterborough has been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder, one count of actual bodily harm and one count of possession of a bladed article, British Transport Police (BTP) said on Monday morning.

Alexander told BBC Breakfast that BTP officers would increase visible patrols at mainline stations over the coming days “because I do understand that people will want to feel reassured following what happened”.

“Thankfully incidents like this on the public transport network are very, very rare,” she added.

She said the rail network in the UK was a “low crime environment” and for every one million passenger journeys only 27 crimes were committed.

Asked what steps the government would take to improve security on trains, she said: “We are investing in improved CCTV in stations and the Home Office will soon be launching a consultation on more facial recognition technology which could be deployed in stations as well.”

Asked about luggage scanners similar to those used in some major train stations abroad she said: “At the moment that type of airport scanning technology I don’t think is the right solution for stations in the UK.”

Andy Trotter, former British Transport Police Chief Constable told BBC Breakfast Saturday’s attack illustrates “people’s real concerns about being trapped with an offender or with someone causing disorder”.

“I hope this results in a broader review of security, the need for more British Transport Police, the need for more security from the rail companies themselves.”

Senior Reform UK politician Zia Yusuf on Sunday said he would not like to see increased security at train stations.

He told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme it would impose “enormous friction” on the lives of law-abiding people “as a result of the actions of a tiny minority”.

He argued for a significant increase in the use of stop-and-search powers “to saturation”, saying this would remove deadly weapons from circulation.

Official figures released last month show knife crime has fallen in the past year, while NHS admissions for assaults with a sharp object are down 10% compared with 2024.

Overall violent crime showed “no statistically significant change” from 2024, but remains a third lower than it was a decade ago and 75% down on its peak in 1995, while homicides have reached their lowest point since at least 2003.

The boss of one of the UK’s biggest cinema chains says he does not see streaming services and home entertainment as competition.

Tim Richards, the founder and chief executive of Vue International, says film studios tried to “circumvent” cinemas during the pandemic but lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” as a result.

“I think the studios certainly learned that we are in one small ecosystem, we all need each other,” he told the BBC’s Big Boss Interview podcast.

Rival cinema chains have a constructive relationship too, he says: “We are fairly open in terms of trading best practices. We want to have a message that cinemas are a great place to have a good time.”

Richards spoke of the turbulence of the last five years for the film industry.

Vue went from having its best year ever in 2019, to being “effectively closed for almost two years” during the Covid-19 pandemic, to grappling with actors’ and writers’ strikes which shut down production for nearly another year.

Vue made a pre-tax loss of £91.8m in the 12 months to 30 November 2024 compared with the year prior, and said that a decrease in revenue was “principally driven by lower admissions”.

Globally, the cinema industry has been seeing change, with big names such as Cineworld suffering. It filed for bankruptcy in the US in 2022, and in 2024, went in to administration in the UK. Since then, it has implemented restructuring of its debt, and closing some of its branches, to help it along.

While Richards was trying to figure out how to prevent Vue from going under, or from having to lay off any of its staff, streaming services like Netflix saw their subscriber numbers explode.

“I had a singular focus: save the company and save all of our 10,000 employees,” he says.

“When you have a mission like that, failure is not really an option, because the consequences are too high.”

Even as cinemas began to reopen, industry figures questioned whether the model of film release had changed for good. Films like Marvel’s Black Widow saw minimal theatrical runs as streaming platforms tried to push their original productions.

More recently, titles like K-Pop Demon Hunters and The Thursday Murder Club are playing for just a few weeks in cinemas, despite proving to be hugely popular.

But Richards is unfazed. Vue returned to pre-pandemic trading levels this year and is expecting next summer to be the company’s biggest ever.

He is emphatic that there will always be an appetite for the big screen: “During the pandemic, there was an increase with subscription services because people had no choice. But that has not continued.

“I have never looked at what happens in the home as being competition. Our biggest, most frequent customers are Netflix subscribers or Disney Plus subscribers. People who love movies love movies in all formats.”

The Hollywood strikes, too, he says, were a supply issue, not a demand one. “We’ve never had a demand issue.”

Richards clearly knows the ecosystem of films inside out. Before founding Vue (then Spean Bridge Cinemas) in 1999, he was a senior executive at Warner Brothers, operating the studio’s own cinema chain, Warner Village. Spean Bridge bought Warner Village’s 36 cinemas in 2003, and the Vue brand was born.

“The headline in the business section of the Times was: ‘Unknown Bit Player Buys Warner Brothers,'” he recalls with a laugh.

Due to cost-of-living pressures persisting, many parts of the entertainment industry are seeing revenue slow down as people cut back on discretionary spending.

Added to this are rising operational costs: an increase in the minimum wage and higher employer National Insurance contributions.

“We have done our very, very best to not pass on those costs to our customers,” Richards said. “And we haven’t. And we’ve taken a small hit as a consequence, but we’re hoping that the volume which we’ve seen as a consequence will follow it.”

Still, he says, the entertainment industry has been “squeezed… and kind of attacked in some instances”.

Government decisions have “hurt the people they’re trying to help”, in his view.

What’s the industry’s message ahead of the upcoming Budget? “Please don’t touch [us] again.”

And while Richards doesn’t believe that streamers are poaching his customers, he says he does worry about “somebody turning right and going to a theme park or a football game or something else”.

But it’s not a case of teenagers and young adults sitting at home instead of going out. “They’re a lot more social than previous generations, and that has shown in our attendance with a lot of our movies,” he says.

And what is his own favourite movie?

He responds diplomatically. “I see a lot – a lot – of movies every week.

“But I look at a movie like One Battle After Another. And when I see a movie like that, I have hope for the future because it’s such an incredible movie. Original IP, original story, incredibly well done.”