Retail Crime: Effects

Lord Tope Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I hope that does not come off my time. I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, for introducing this important and timely debate. I declare my interest as a member of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, who is very sorry that he cannot be here tonight. I am not in any way his substitute, as he will be pleased to know I have made clear.

Immediately after the general election, the committee conducted a short inquiry into what was initially termed “shoplifting”. In November, the committee wrote to the Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention with our conclusions and some recommendations. The Minister’s reply to the committee was received last week.

This debate is not specifically about the committee’s report and I do not speak on behalf of the committee in it. I shall leave the Minister to give the Government’s response as he sees fit when he responds to this debate. However, my comments today inevitably are based largely on what I learned during that inquiry, to which reference has so far been made by both previous speakers. I will try not to repeat too much of what they have already said.

The first point that particularly hit us in the inquiry was after our first evidence session, when it was the immediate and unanimous view of the committee that it must change the title to “shop theft”. We felt that was more important than might perhaps first be believed. The term “shoplifting” seemed to trivialise the crime and give the impression that it was relatively harmless and victimless. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, has rightly made very clear to us, it is anything but victimless. The victims are on the front lines in the shops. Whether it is fair or not, the widely held belief that the police do not take this issue too seriously simply enhances that impression.

The committee’s first recommendation, which I strongly endorse, is that “shop theft” should replace “shoplifting” wherever possible. Its regular use in everyday language by local and national government, the police and the media—and, not least, the retail trade itself—will go some way to reinforcing its serious nature. Over what I believe will be a surprisingly short time, everyday language will start to change, and with it will come the recognition that we are talking about something very serious indeed—not just kids nicking a few sweets from the local sweet shop. We can make a start on that in this debate. In her response to the committee, the Minister committed to using the expression “shop theft” when appropriate. When the Minister replies, can he give us an indication of what the Government consider “appropriate” and, rather more particularly, when its use would be inappropriate?

This morning, I spoke to one of our local Members of Parliament. He told me that, in his south London suburban constituency, shop theft is the issue most often raised with him, after housing. It is widely accepted that shop theft is greatly underreported, often because victims do not believe that the police will be able to do anything about it. My MP colleague told me that there are two large, well-known supermarkets next to each other on the main shopping street in his constituency. One reports all incidents of shop theft to the police, while the one next door reports such incidents only to its head office.

Reliably accurate figures are hard to agree, and I suspect that we will hear a number of different figures today. The figures reported to our committee are that, in the year to March 2024, 443,995 incidents of shop theft were recorded by the police, a 30% increase on the previous year. However, evidence to the committee suggested that that was a “drop in the ocean” compared to the likely real figures. We were told that the real figure was more in the region of 17 million incidents a year, with a cost to the retailer of around £2 billion—and rising fast. Can the Minister tell us what steps are being taken to achieve better and more accurate reporting and recording of shop theft incidents?

Clearly, we are not talking about petty pilfering—nicking from the local sweet shop, for instance; this is serious organised crime and needs to be dealt with as such. The committee learned about Pegasus, a new partnership between retailers and the police aimed at building up a better picture of the organised criminal networks involved in retail crime. I very much welcome this partnership working and would like to see it extended to include local authorities. But Pegasus is seriously inhibited by its definition of “organised crime” as that

“which operates across two or more police force areas”,

meaning that it excludes all activity and information at a more local level. As a former local authority council leader, I believe that it is at the local level where we begin to start tackling these issues. Perhaps the Minister can tell us who is responsible for that definition. I do not know whether it is the Government or the police, as I suspect it is. More particularly, who can get it changed?

Clearly, there must be a market to dispose of such a volume of stolen goods, and much of that is in online sales. The committee recommended that the Government introduce regulations to make it more difficult to sell goods anonymously in an online marketplace. Can the Minister tell us what steps the Government are taking to crack down on that? Shop theft is clearly now a very serious problem that is hugely damaging to retailers, shop workers, the general public and the economy. All the evidence shows that it is increasing rapidly. We all look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government are tackling it.

Transport for London

Lord Tope Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I think that all noble Lords would acknowledge the benefits of cycling across London. I stress that the Mayor of London has primary responsibility for planning in London, along with the air quality strategy. The introduction of cycle lanes is partly to encourage more sustainable forms of travel across the capital.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, when the Minister raises the subject of smelly food at his next meeting with TfL, what will his answer be when TfL says to him that cutting the government revenue grant to TfL from £639 million this year to nothing at all in a little over two years’ time leaves it with no choice but to let more of its premises and underground stations? This will inevitably lead to the letting of more, not fewer, fast food outlets in underground stations and consequently more smelly food on tube trains, not less.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

What is smelly food to some may not be smelly to others, but let us not go into that particular issue. The important thing to remember is that there has been a tough spending round, but in our discussions London government has a substantial settlement for the next spending review period of £11 billion. We are working together to improve London’s quality of transport across the board.

Shared Spaces

Lord Tope Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, join all others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on securing this debate. I particularly want to pay tribute to him for his persistence in raising and highlighting this issue, and to that of the noble Lord, Lord Low, in previous years. I do not actually believe, speaking as a former councillor for 40 years, that most local authorities deliberately set out to make life difficult for people. It might often feel like that, but I do not think that that is actually the reality. The service that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has given to us has been to highlight the important issues that local authorities simply have not thought about as much as they should have—in particular, the attention that should be given to the public sector equality duty when considering traffic schemes. We do so in so many other ways, but so often, in my experience anyway, when looking at a traffic scheme it is not properly considered, or if it is, it is only in relation to those with mobility difficulties as distinct from sensory ones.

I wanted to contribute today with some local experience. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, in introducing the debate, made a passing reference to Hackbridge. Hackbridge is in the London Borough of Sutton, where I was a councillor for 40 years until last year. It is very close to the London Borough of Merton, where the Minister was a councillor for a rather lesser period, but it may well be that he knows personally the area to which I am going to refer. My attention was first drawn to this debate by my former colleagues in Sutton; they had been informed about it at a very early stage by Sutton Vision, and in particular by its vice-chair, Michael Parsons, and by Tracey Collins, who also lives in Hackbridge, from whom my colleagues had received huge help in the area of Hackbridge.

The ambition is to make Hackbridge a sustainable suburb, probably the first in the UK, by the year 2020. Much work is being done with the local community towards this aim. As part of this, last year a scheme was completed, investing £1.4 million in the area to make it more accessible and more attractive. This scheme included the new road layout and the provision of a number of what are called “informal crossings”, particularly around a busy road junction and by a local primary school.

A subsequent independent user survey found that 83% of those surveyed believed that the scheme had improved their perception of the area; 80% said that it had made the area more attractive and appealing; and 68% said that it had enhanced their satisfaction with the local shopping area. Even the local shopkeepers were happy. There is no doubt that the area is now more visually attractive, but—and it is an important “but”—that is of no benefit to those who cannot see it. The provision of so many informal crossings, but no controlled crossings, on busy roads means that the visually impaired no longer feel safe crossing those roads.

Michael Parsons, to whom I referred earlier, who lives in the area and uses a guide dog, no longer feels able to use his local shopping centre, which he has used for many years, because he cannot cross the busy road. He and others like him cannot know whether all the vehicles coming from either direction have seen him and have stopped. He does not know for sure where the pavement ends and the highway begins, because there is no kerb. We have produced a visually attractive scheme which has had the effect of excluding a significant minority of the local community. This sums up the issues that we are debating today.

Needless to say, important lessons have been learned. Next month, Sutton Council will begin a wide public consultation on four options for tackling these issues. All the options have passed an independent safety audit, and all include a zebra crossing—in other words, a controlled crossing to replace the current informal crossing nearest the school—and provide other controlled crossings. The debate is primarily about where to locate such crossings. When this is all done and the work is carried out, I hope that Michael Parsons and others in his position will again feel safe crossing the road to use their local shopping centre.

I had not intended my contribution to be a debate about Hackbridge—I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, even for mentioning it—but I see it as a real example of the issues that we are debating today. Hackbridge had a scheme designed by experienced traffic engineers from the Greater London Authority and Sutton Council with a huge amount of local community involvement, all with the best of intentions, and it produced a high level of local satisfaction. But within a year, it has had to be redesigned simply because it did not pay enough attention to the needs of the visually impaired.

I have asked my Sutton colleagues what I should ask for in this debate. All of them, councillors and officers alike, said that the present guidance is woefully inadequate and sometimes contradictory, particularly in respect of the needs of visually impaired people. All of them said that there is an urgent need for the guidance to be reviewed and for new guidance to be produced. As is often the case, views differ on whether such guidance should be statutory—I would be interested in the Minister’s view on that—but in support of the need for it to be statutory I will repeat a comment made to me that, like economists, no two traffic engineers ever agree with each other. In my view, there is an added problem in that, unlike economists, every one of us, and certainly every driver, believes that we are an expert traffic engineer.

I learned from the excellent briefing from Guide Dogs that the previous Government committed to review and update their guidance by the end of 2012. That has still not happened. Are the present Government still committed to this review and, if so, by when? Or perhaps I could ask—a little cheekily—whether it was a commitment forced by the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition Government which has now been dropped by the new Conservative Government. I hope that that alone might prompt an answer from the Minister.

As has been said, the enthusiasm for shared space originates from the Netherlands, where it is quite widespread. I am not competent to talk about the success or otherwise of schemes there, but I again have some personal experience by association. My son lived and worked in Amsterdam for seven years where, as for so many others, a bicycle was his main mode of local transport—unlike the many years he spent living in the London Borough of Sutton. When he came back to the UK, he moved to Oxford, where he still lives. Oxford must be one of the British cities most used to cyclists, yet my son was astonished by the contrast between the attitudes of road users in Amsterdam and those in Oxford.

This is not a debate about cycling, but this contrast does illustrate why shared space may well work in the Netherlands, if it does, but not in the UK. It is not just about good design; it is just as much about road user culture and attitude. In the Netherlands, there is a much greater tolerance between different types of road user and a much better understanding and acceptance of their different needs and difficulties. Perhaps the Minister can say something about what the Government are doing to change attitudes and increase tolerance and understanding among British road users with regard to shared space, but until that is achieved, shared space will not work naturally, however attractive it may look to those who can see it. Regulation and good design, drawn from practical experience, will still be required. I very much endorse the call made by my noble friend Lady Kramer for a proper summit involving all interested parties before a consultation and before the revised guidance is produced.

Reference has also been made to the problem of silent vehicles. All of us will have experienced the problem of silent cyclists who regard the pavement or footpath as a shared space, often because they do not feel safe on the highway. That problem is now growing with the increase in the number of electric and hybrid vehicles that move silently up behind us all, so I hope that the Minister can also say whether the Government accept that as an issue that must be addressed in respect of shared space or more widely.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for giving us this most interesting and important debate. We look forward to the Minister’s reply. I am quite sure that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, will continue to persist as vigorously as he has done up to now.

Railways: Theft

Lord Tope Excerpts

Monday 3rd October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I completely refute the idea that there is a lack of urgency. Only the day before my noble friend left the job that I am now in, she hosted a meeting of Ministers from a whole range of departments to look at the problems facing us and what we ought to do. However, I am grateful to the noble Lord for pointing out that an awful lot of this metal is not going to scrap metal dealers but going straight into containers and being exported. I have mentioned the role that the Environment Agency has to play in that, which we will look at.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, I encourage the Minister in his urgency in dealing with this problem by letting him know that only last week in my borough 14 brass memorial plaques were stolen from Carshalton war memorial and a local church discovered that its bell had been stolen. This almost everyday occurrence is being experienced all over the country. In addition to the methods suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, will the Minister also look at making it a legal requirement for scrap metal dealers to register and to check the details of all those selling scrap metal to them?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to draw attention to the fact that not just the more valuable metals like copper and lead are affected but a whole range of others. He mentioned that brass plaques have been stolen; I assure him that there have even been cases of things such as cast-iron manhole covers being stolen, which have relatively little value but can cause major problems if they are stolen. That is why, as I have tried to make clear, we treat this problem urgently and wish to address it as soon as possible.