Abuse of Customer-facing Workers

Danny Beales Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans]

Absolutely. We need more funding and we need more police on the beat. It is vital that we treat these cases seriously. There is a serious underlying threat of violence if would-be shoplifters are approached. Shop and retail workers need the assurance that when they call the police, they will come out and take the incident—including any threat that came with it—seriously. I particularly understand that threat in rural areas. A shop owner might decide to close down, leading to the end of what might be the last shop for miles around. It is imperative that we do something about this, particularly in rural areas.

Will the Minister meet representatives of USDAW to discuss how the Government can empower workers to speak out and report incidents of abuse? I want the measures introduced by the Government to successfully tackle retail crime. They have the potential to transform the lives not only of shop workers, but of every person in a customer-facing role. I say that because, should the Government’s legislation be successful, it must be implemented across all sectors.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on customer service, I work closely with the Institute of Customer Service. The team there have campaigned tirelessly against the abuse of all frontline workers through their “Service with Respect” campaign.

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. He is touching on broader sectors, and he is exactly right that this is an epidemic across public-facing and customer-facing roles. I recently went to a GP surgery where receptionists told me they deal with sometimes weekly incidents of racial abuse. They showed me windows that had been smashed by patients who were unhappy about the service they were receiving. It feels as though there has been a cultural shift in what people deem to be acceptable behaviour towards, for example, ticket guards at stations and receptionists. Recently, a member of staff at our hospital was seriously attacked. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to send a clear message that these behaviours are not acceptable and properly resource the police to crack down on these incidents?

[Chris Evans]

I will develop that argument further, but there is nothing more depressing than seeing a sign saying, “Abuse of staff will not be tolerated,” and we seem to see them everywhere now. That was not a sign we saw before. I think things have changed since lockdown. People seem angrier and more aggressive, but by shouting at people in these types of roles, particularly at GP surgeries, they are just stopping vital medical care getting to people who are ill and may need to be transferred to hospital. It has to stop.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) on securing this debate and on the passionate way in which he laid out the case. The Crime and Policing Act was a key moment in our journey to a society in which the job that we do does not determine how we are treated at work, and retail workers across my constituency are now safer, thanks to the actions of this Government and the campaigning by the Co-operative party and USDAW in particular.

Before I was elected, I went to visit Central Co-op workers in my constituency in Stretton, Horninglow and Winshill, and I was shocked by what I heard. Pretty much every worker that I spoke to had faced verbal or physical abuse of some kind simply for doing their job. They were proud, hard-working people simply going out to do a job and provide for their family.

Sexism and racism makes women workers and workers of colour even more vulnerable. Probably the most horrific story I heard when I spoke to those workers was about a female colleague doused in liquid and threatened with a lighter. I cannot imagine what that would have been like for her in the moment and then reflecting on it afterwards. But in true brave spirit, she was back at work within days. Often, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly said, the trauma of that abuse goes home with people. It does not just affect them and their mood; their wider family are impacted, too. That abuse is an assault on their pride in who they are.

Often, retail workers, particularly those who work in shops, will live local to where they work. I heard one case of a female shop worker who was verbally assaulted and then saw the person who had committed that abuse as she was walking home in her uniform. Due to this Labour Government making assault against retail workers a specific offence, I can say to those people I met, “We have heard you. We have acted.”

It must be noted that the law change did not include verbal abuse or wider customer-facing roles, so that is why I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly on securing this debate and on the points that he has made. I cannot pretend that things will change just because the law has changed—sadly, they will not. The fact that we have to put up signs in shops and hospitals and on our buses asking people to be kind shows that, as a society, the basic respect that we had for each other has broken down. I hope that we can restore that.

The change in the law was, however, a clear statement that assault of retail workers will not be tolerated. We have repealed the appalling Tory law that meant that those stealing items under £200 were effectively decriminalised.

[Danny Beales]

A frustration I have heard about local enforcement is that even if the issues are reported—they are often not, unfortunately, because people give up—and the police come out, and an arrest is made for theft, abuse or the other things we are discussing today, the perpetrator can be back on the street that day, often committing the same sorts of offences, because they are not held in custody. They will wait a long time to go to court, and prisons are in a dire state after 14 years of Tory government left us with no places.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to think about alternative forms of punishment and deterrence? That could be banning orders from town centres, banning orders from the transport system of people who persistently dodge fares and assault and abuse staff, and other forms of deterrent to stop these behaviours blighting our town centres and public services.

[Jacob Collier]

My hon. Friend makes a great point. I have often heard about repeat offenders and the same sort of people coming into the shop. Workers often have to protect themselves from individuals who they know are going to commit a criminal act.

Unfortunately, abuse against customer-facing workers happens everywhere in society. I have heard that from workers across different sectors of our economy. I should probably declare my membership of Unison and the GMB union. I recently met GMB Swissport members at East Midlands airport about their “Airport Workers Against Abuse” campaign. I heard their shocking stories about the physical attacks and verbal abuse they suffer in terminals. There is a difference between how people can be policed landside versus airside. As there are fewer protections airside, workers are more vulnerable. Travelling abroad is often a very stressful time, but there is no excuse to take it out on the hard-working men and women who get us to where we want to be. The Government and the airports should listen to the GMB’s campaign and introduce stricter penalties to protect the dignity of our airport workers.

Those working in customer-facing roles in my constituency, whether in a pub or a nursery or driving a bus, deserve to have dignity at work and the right to do their job without facing abuse. It is on us to put in place the conditions to make sure that happens.