Anti-social Behaviour and Shoplifting

Baroness Hazarika Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hazarika]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to tackle anti-social behaviour and shoplifting.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

This Government will tackle anti-social behaviour by rebuilding visible neighbourhood policing, with 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers and PCSOs, and will bring in new respect orders to enable police to ban persistent anti-social offenders from our town centres. We will also introduce a new offence of assaulting a retail worker and end the effective immunity for shop theft of goods under £200.

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer. I was pleased to see that safer streets are a priority for this Government. Will the Minister agree that anti-social behaviour and crimes such as shoplifting, aggressive begging and phone theft are anything but low-level and can blight the lives of local residents and businesses? Many people who work in shops feel like they are living in a war zone. Will he agree that anti-social behaviour can so often be the canary down the coal mine and tell a wider story about what kind of society we are living in? Finally, will there be a focus on targeting often a small number of hardened criminals who are responsible for terrorising local residents and shops? Will the police and courts take this more seriously and consider the use of technology such as facial recognition?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am pleased to say to my noble friend that it is a “yes” to every point she has raised. Anti-social behaviour and shop theft are not minor crimes. They cause disruption in our communities. Shop theft in particular costs retailers across the nation millions of pounds, which is passed on to us as customers, and it is not acceptable. That is why, on shop theft, we are going to end the £200 effective immunity. For shop workers, we will protect them by introducing a new offence, because they are very often upholding the law in their shops on alcohol, tobacco and other sales, for us in this House.