Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannett of Everton (Lab)]

We can have a conversation about that at some stage. I thank the noble Lord.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, if I may, I will come back to the topic of this group. I too have an amendment in this group, Amendment 351. I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, and indeed my noble friends. I endorse a lot of what they have said and argued.

As I said at Second Reading, I have huge sympathy for those in public-facing jobs who have been subject to abuse and violent threats at work. Aside from such threats being unacceptable, I, like the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, understand the fear that they generate. Anyone at work on the receiving end of such a threat should at least be confident that the police will respond swiftly when they are in danger, or when an actual crime starts to be committed.

My instincts have always been to support Clauses 37 and 38, as I said at Second Reading. However, I find myself somewhat conflicted. Several noble Lords argued at Second Reading that existing provisions on assault are an adequate protection in law and that a special law for assault against retail workers was not needed. I thought these arguments were somewhat convincing. Having said that, to be absolutely clear, I have no desire to remove Clauses 37 or 38 from the Bill. I will continue before everybody thinks that I am going to do something radical, which will cause all sorts of upset.

The amendments tabled by my noble friends Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lord Blencathra to extend the protection to delivery drivers and some hospitality workers in some establishments highlight that, having started down the path of singling out just the retail sector, it is difficult to draw a clear boundary line. The noble Lord, Lord Hannett, has already said that he now wants to push it yet further.

As we know, the aggravated crime of assault against public-facing workers, which we added to the crime and courts Bill, included all industries and sectors. That was not focused only on the retail industry. I worry that the aggravated offence of assault, which covers everybody in public-facing work, together with this new offence of assault on retail workers, will create a somewhat confusing picture for people who are employed in public-facing roles but are not in the retail sector. I think here of people working in public transport, or in banks or post offices; there are all sorts of different categories.

This potentially confusing picture brings me back to my underlying concerns. First, we cannot afford to lose good people who are doing a good job, whether that is in shops, on public transport, or in banks or post offices, as I said. We think of the recent horrific incident on LNER the other Saturday and the railway worker who was heroic in intervening. We are very conscious now that a lot of people are in places of work where they are subject to real threats and abuse.

So I ask the Minister: what work have he and the department done to satisfy himself that any perception of two-tier protection for people in different public-facing roles will not have a detrimental effect on employees who may fear they are no longer as covered as some other people in other public-facing roles? If there has been any work on that, that would be helpful to know and understand.

Secondly, and in my view just as importantly, if not more so, noble Lords who were in the Chamber at Second Reading may have heard me argue then that one of the things that I feel are needed is for workers who are in charge of public spaces or places, whether they be commercial or public sector spaces, to be encouraged to be more active in upholding common standards of conduct that we should all have a right to expect of each other in public, the breakdown of which is adding to people’s despair. The sorts of things I am talking about here are litter dropping, feet on seats, watching videos or listening to music on phones without headphones, and queue jumping. That is the kind of activity that comes before we get to actual offences that sometimes are happening now, such as fare dodging, smoking or drinking alcohol on public transport where they are not meant to be, or even defecating in public. We need workers to have delegated authority, from their employer or their union, and from all of us in leadership positions, and have confidence that, along with them, we will do the same in upholding these important standards in public places. We need a collective effort to tackle what I see as a broken windows type of activity. If we keep allowing this kind of activity to be ignored, we are allowing the risk of escalated bad behaviour to continue, which could then lead to actual serious crimes.

While the various trade bodies are coming at this from their perspectives with a desire to protect their staff, and rightly so, we need to look at this through a much wider lens and see the bigger picture. As a consequence of that, it might be that the price we need to pay is expanding what some believe is an unnecessary new crime in the Bill, to include other workers and to match the terms of the aggravated offence in the Crime and Courts Bill.

As I say, this was a probing amendment—this is not me trying to introduce a new law—but I would like it if the Minister agreed to meet me, perhaps with my noble friend Lord Davies, to talk about this some more. I genuinely think there are potential unintended consequences to this that we need at least to be alive to. We should consider what more is needed to ensure that everyone who is in a public-facing role feels sufficiently protected, but also, if we are to tackle the behaviour that is leading some to feel that they can do things with impunity, and that then gives them the courage and confidence to go on to commit more serious offences, we need to be thinking about this in a very different and more innovative way.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy with many of the points made. First, we welcome the new protections introduced by Clauses 37 and 38. As legislators, we cannot stand by while so many people turn up to work every day expecting to face potentially terrifying abuse, threats and physical violence. This was brought home to me recently when a friend of mine went into our local Boots the chemist earlier this week in order to buy some headache tablets, only to find that practically every shelf in the shop was completely empty. When she spoke to the staff, they said, “Oh, it happens on a daily basis”, and they are so terrified that they just stand by and do nothing, because they are petrified that if they do anything or say anything they could be knifed. That is not in an area that is known for, to use the noble Baroness’s expression, “baddies”. It is in an area of London that is very safe. So that is really worrying.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Stowell, and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for their amendments. I should note—if not declare an interest—that I have been a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers for 46 years now. That is a long time. I think it is worth noting that I have an interest in this matter. Indeed, I spent many years trying to raise this very issue when a Member of Parliament and outside Parliament before coming to this House.

I should also say at the outset that I am meeting the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, to discuss this matter, and am very happy to meet the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, as well. I had a request from my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton to meet him and the USDAW general secretary, Joanne Thomas. I am also happy to do that between now and Report; it may not be immediately.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I would be very happy to join a group meeting rather than the Minister having to have several meetings with each of us. If there were to be third parties involved in a meeting, such as USDAW, I wonder whether he would also consider including the Institute of Customer Service. It is in a unique position—and I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Customer Service—as it looks at this across the board, and the letter it organised included signatories from a range of different industries.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We will reflect on that. It is a helpful suggestion, if colleagues are happy to have a joint meeting. I would also like to involve the Policing Minister, who has an interest in this matter as a whole.

I want to place on record my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton. They have campaigned very strongly as representatives of the supermarkets, in this case Tesco, and the workforce. My noble friend has campaigned for many years on this issue. Freedom from Fear is a campaign that Paddy Lillis, the previous general secretary, Joanne Thomas, the current general secretary, and my noble friend Lord Hannett of Everton, the general secretary before Paddy Lillis, worked on for a long time. It has been brought to them by members of the union as an important issue. It is worth putting that on record, and we can examine how we organise the discussion and consultation in due course.

Assault on anyone, including delivery drivers and transport staff, is wholly unacceptable. Everyone should be protected from assault. Under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, common assault has a maximum sentence of six months in prison and the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 covers serious violence, grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm.

I come back to the reason why I have campaigned on this issue for many years. Retail workers have been at the forefront of upholding much of the legislation. They uphold legislation on solvent abuse sales, tobacco sales, knife sales, drink sales and a range of other issues. They are also very much the first port of call on shop theft and the issues that the noble Baroness mentioned. USDAW figures show that 10% of staff have reported a physical attack on them in the last year alone; that seems to me to be a very strong reason why the Government have brought forward this amendment. There is a wealth of evidence to back the position that there is a significant problem specific to retail workers because of the nature of that work.

Clauses 37 and 38 provide for the bespoke offence of assaulting a retail worker. They also place a duty on the courts when sentencing an offender to make a criminal behaviour order; shop theft may often be linked to drug and alcohol abuse issues as a whole. Our definition of a retail worker is intentionally narrow, given the vital need to provide legal clarity and ensure there is no ambiguity for courts in identifying whether an individual is a retail worker when impacted by their job.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, mentioned the hospitality sector. This sector is specifically excluded, but if he looks at the definition of retail premises in Clause 37(3), he can see that it would be open to a judge to determine what might be included. For example, cafes might have stalls inside the shop, so that could be potentially defined as a retail premise as well. There is no specific offence, and I would not wish to extend it to the hospitality sector, but a judge could potentially interpret some aspects of hospitality being within the retail sector under Clause 37(3).