Retail Crime Prevention

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Betts, for giving me the opportunity to speak. Like others, I praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) for once again bringing the House’s attention to this important issue. He rightly took time out to praise USDAW, the campaigning union. It is a particularly strong campaigning union on this issue, and I acknowledge the financial support it gives me. He also rightly praised the work of the Co-operative Group, which I know well as a member of the Co-operative party. The work of USDAW and the Co-op Group has, in very different ways, served to push the issue up the political agenda, and long may that continue, given what little action has been taken to date.

The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) rightly raised the impact of retail crime on small businesses in our communities. Looking at the small businesses, as well as the big retail concerns, in my constituency, we can see that Harrow is no longer a manufacturing town. The businesses based in Harrow are predominantly retail. Many of them work on very small margins, which he alluded to, and the significant increase in shoplifting has put some of those businesses at risk. I will come back to that in a moment.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn set out, the rise in violence has had a profound impact on many of those who work in our shops. They are public servants, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) rightly said, and they deserve the protection of all of us in this place. Retail crime impacts not only on the individual shop worker or business, but on our communities. There is a sense that the area is less safe to enjoy and that businesses might leave, and the strength of district shopping centres is deteriorating, which is what drew me to this debate. During a conversation with a manager, I was staggered to hear that, in the 18 months following the announcement that the major police station in my constituency would be closed, there was a 20% increase in shoplifting. According to UKCrimeStats, the number of shoplifting offences in my constituency since 2011-12 has trebled, which is a remarkable increase, by any stretch of the imagination.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn rightly raised the issue of violent crime. In my constituency, the number of violent incidents has almost doubled, which is hardly surprising given that considerable cuts to Metropolitan police funding have resulted in 30% of police officers disappearing from the streets of Harrow since 2010. We need stronger deterrents against attacks on retail workers. I join my right hon. Friend in urging the Government to update us on the scale of the responses to the call for evidence that closed in June. I remain strongly of the view that we need a clear deterrent against violence in shops. I do not understand why a specific offence cannot be created. It is staggering that the losses resulting from retail crime and the counter-crime prevention measures that businesses have to take amount to almost £2 billion. Mothercare is the latest example of a major chain potentially having to go into administration, and that brings home the scale of the impact not only on individual members of staff, but on our communities.

Finally, I have two specific points. An extra £1 million from the Metropolitan police budget for Harrow West would enable a return to the ward-based teams of a sergeant, two police constables and three police community support officers, who could gather intelligence about crime within our area, find out who is committing it, and react more quickly when retail crime takes place. Our courts need more resources to handle cases more quickly. Working with police and crime commissioners, they need to be able to direct efforts to tackle the root causes behind some of the retail crime, including the drug dependency and mental health issues that others have mentioned.