Retail Workers: Protection

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), who is a great champion of working people, the safety of working people and the right of working people to go to work without fearing violence.

Five years ago, I stood on a platform at the USDAW conference with a convenience store manager who told this story. One night, a group of under-age young men arrived and tried to buy drink, and they were told to leave the store. A security guard was abused. The manager went to help the security guard, and the young men left. The following night, they came back again. This time, there was a black security guard, and, shamefully, they racially abused him. The manager intervened in support of the security guard, and he was then so violently assaulted that he died three times. He was eventually saved by the ambulance crew. He, a fine man in his forties, told his story in the most heartbreaking way. He spoke of how he used to love to go mountain biking, and to play football with his son on a Saturday. He said, “Never again will I be able to do that.” It is utterly shameful that shop workers should, in the most extreme cases, be treated to that kind of assault, changing their lives forever.

It is right that today’s debate has been initiated, not least because although Government have made some progress, they need to go much further, to be perfectly frank, to protect shop workers from that kind of assault. We have all seen it, including in our own constituencies. I have seen the problems at Tesco at Six Ways at one end of the high street and the Co-operative store at the other end. They all tell stories of staff members who, in one way or another, have suffered abuse.

We are seeing a rising tide of violence against shop workers. Recently in my area, in a Co-operative store survey, one manager said:

“I’ve been punched in the face, threatened with a dirty needle and spat at more times than I can remember.”

Another said:

“They held me hostage. The safe was open, but they wanted more. They broke my nose and eye socket. I have nightmares to this day.”

A third said:

“I’ve witnessed many horrific incidents. The worst was when a masked criminal fired a sawn-off shotgun…on another occasion a colleague was struck with a medieval mace, and she lost her sight in one eye”.

Utterly shameful. USDAW has been outstanding in the leadership it has given to the campaign for the safety of shop workers. I also pay tribute to the work of both the British Retail Consortium and the Association of Convenience Stores, who have taken this issue seriously.

Having said that, crucially, what action is demanded in the next stages? Of course, it starts with the retailers, because they do not always get it right—that is for certain—on issues ranging from the problems associated with lone working to basic safety measures such as CCTV. Action is also demanded of the police and Government. There is no doubt that the police must give greater priority to retail crime—in fairness to the police, they have lost 20,000 officers, so the problems are immense and growing—including response times. Time and again, the story is told that the police were called and they took too long to get there. I stress again that having lost 20,000 police officers, by definition they have a problem, but retail crime needs to go up the police service’s list of priorities. That means featuring in police and crime commissioner crime plans and, crucially, being part of the strategic policing requirement.

Finally, I turn to sentencing. Building on the progress that has been made, and as powerfully argued by my hon. Friend, we absolutely must have tougher, simpler sentences that send the unmistakable message: “If you assault a good man or a good woman for no other reason than that they are serving behind a counter in a store and you want to buy drink—it does not matter what the reason is—there are never circumstances in which that is justified.” An unmistakable message needs to be sent: “Behave that way in future and you will pay a price with your liberty.”