Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting)

David Taylor Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Harriet Cross]

All or any of you.

Graham Wynn: The other thing about the Scottish Act that is different is that abuse is covered. It is not clear whether that has actively been used—I believe it has a bit. Our concern is to focus on delivery drivers, because abuse is difficult to prove and to get the level right, other than with protected characteristics—there are special laws on that, as we all know.

Christopher Morris: One more thing: in the Scottish Act, there is an aggravating factor. When an incident happens as a result of a retail worker enforcing the law, that would be treated as an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing, which gives retail workers additional protections for enforcing law, which is important. In the abuse area, if you look at the figures—I cannot find them on my piece of paper just now—there is significant evidence that abuse and threats incidents have been recorded and reported under the Scottish Act as well, so it would be good to get those covered at the same time.

[David Taylor (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab)]

Q I will direct my question to Paul—thanks for coming in. I want to pick up on what Christopher said about the impact that shoplifting has had and why removing this £200 is so important. To put it into context, I am grateful for the visit that the Co-operative enabled for me in my constituency. I was able to go to see a Co-op store. I was taken to a room at the back where I was shown CD after CD of footage of regular shoplifting by the same offenders, and yet very little had been done about it. What impact has that had on your profits over the years, and also on your staff’s morale?

Paul Gerrard: I will do the second bit first, because I think it is the most important. Not long ago, the Retail Trust published some data that said that 37% of people in retail are looking to leave retail because of violence and threats of abuse, and 49% are scared going to work. According to USDAW’s figures, and those of the Association of Convenience Stores and the Retail Trust, 90% have been abused.

The impact on colleagues is enormous. If they are not being attacked themselves, they see their colleagues attacked. They see what happens and they have seen a lack of a police response. Also—I will just say this—a colleague of mine who was barged out of the way last weekend by a shoplifter has broken her femur. Her husband had to come and collect her. He did not wish her off to work that morning thinking he was going to have to collect her and take her to hospital to have an operation on a broken femur. The impact on colleagues is huge, and I do not think we should underestimate that.

Financially, for the Co-op last year, it was about £75 million in cost, in terms of product. For about the past six years, we have also spent £40 million—we spend three times the sector average—on preventive measures, guarding and IT. Financially, it is a significant hit—absolutely as Chris said. We have not done it yet, but I know some retailers have, and some stores are right on the edge of being viable. There is a huge impact on us, and on our colleagues. Our colleagues go to work to serve the communities that they very often live in; they do not go to work to get abuse, threats and violence. [Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Sorry about the lighting—we are just trying to see if we can find a shilling for the meter.

Graham Wynn: I do not have much to add. Paul said all that needs saying. Not only shop workers see the violence, but the customers—they are affected also. They do not expect to see violence and abuse in their store. Paul has described it very well.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Burton-Sampson]

Q My questions have been answered, but I will ask another while I have the floor. The Bill provides the ability to extend community safety accreditation schemes, basically allowing councils to take on more powers that would normally be available only to the police. Do you think that is a good thing for your local authorities?

Councillor Conway: The general point about all that is that additional funding is needed to increase community safety partnerships’ capacity to deliver things on the ground. Reforming the duty and partnership landscape to ensure that the partnerships are equipped with the powers and partners to deliver would be very important.

Councillor Garratt: On the ground, in practical terms, dealing with crime and connected behaviour very often does involve partnership between the local council and the police—and other bodies, such as the Probation Service and so on. It is therefore quite normal—in fact, it is good practice—for there to be collaborative working. If you have a process of collaborative working that is working well, as I think we have in Croydon and in Sutton, it seems to make little sense not to be able to extend it.

Councillor Conway: It is important to focus on the preventive aspect as well. Just before this meeting, I was in a meeting of London’s violence reduction unit with the safer partnership chairs, and I am aware that the Government’s new provision around preventive partnerships is evolving. I think that runs alongside this and is an important step forward.

[David Taylor]

Q Councillor Conway, my ears pricked up when you talked about Clear, Hold, Build and the successes that you had had. That is a project that the police in my area, Hemel Hempstead, have been implementing in a particular neighbourhood called Grovehill. We are currently in the clear and hold phase. Given that you are ahead of us, I wonder whether you can share with the Committee some reflections on the build phase and some of the successes that you have had. Will you also reflect on how the Bill will help with the neighbourhood policing that is so central to these projects?

Councillor Conway: The success of Clear, Hold, Build in our area is thanks to everybody. That is really important: it is everyone together—the residents, who need to be part of it too; the community organisations; the police; the council. It very much is everybody. There is also ongoing clearing; Clear, Hold, Build is not a linear process, and we have certainly learned that.

As I have touched on, some of the provisions in the Bill would have been very welcome. We have not talked about the new provision on the exploitation of young people either, but there is that, the cuckooing measures, some of the respect order stuff, the CPNs and the public spaces protection orders. We have been able to use bits of those things locally, but the Bill provides a framework that I think will enable councils to deliver more, as long as there is the funding to do some of it.

Also, the collaborative approach needs to be across councils and across areas. We all learn from each other. That is a major strength of the LGA, and one that we are very happy to share with the Government. As you know yourselves, that learning across, with the need to support each other and to really deliver for all our residents, is vital.

[Mr Barros-Curtis]

Returning briefly to mandatory reporting, as I understand it, the reference in clause 45(2) to

“a relevant police force or a relevant local authority”

is directly from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse set of investigations. I believe that that is because of the typical provision of children’s social services in practice in England and Wales. It can be either/or, but obviously we need to ensure that there is a linkage between the two and that there is cross-reporting. I just want to check that that is not out of the norm—that, if a referral or reference was made at the moment, it would come into the local authority—and so, from your respective positions, putting this into law does not add an excessive burden on local authorities.

Councillor Garratt: When I expressed my concern earlier, it was not so much about a burden on the local authority as about wanting to expedite the process that, ultimately, that disclosure is setting in motion. If the way to get there faster is by going directly to the police, that would seem to make sense, but I would not argue to remove the ability to report to the council. If someone does that, you would imagine that the council would be able to pass it on to the police.

Councillor Conway: Again, we can send more detail on this and look into it to see how councils do it. The way it is structured in my area is that we have a community safety team and a family services team, a relationship with the police, and so on, so we are structured in a way that means that we have very natural conversations and share trust. Again, I note that a collaborative, proactive approach on the ground is vital to enabling that.