Protection of Retail Workers

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Member in charge of the debate to propose the motion, I point out to Members both physically here in Westminster Hall and virtually that we have a total of 15 Back-Bencher speakers. Allowing 43 minutes for those speeches, that gives us less than three minutes per head for Back Benchers. I do not intend to impose a formal time limit, because I think that substitutes quality for quantity, but we should all limit ourselves to a maximum of two—perhaps three—minutes for Back-Bench speeches.

[Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con) [V]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 328621, relating to the protection of retail workers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

I thank the petition creator and all those who signed it, giving us the opportunity to debate this hugely important issue. As of last Friday, 104,354 signatures were on the petition, so I think it is fair to say that this something that a lot of people up and down the country care greatly about. Having worked in retail, it is one that I, too, care deeply about. Over the past year, while most of us have retreated to the safety and comfort of our own homes, many of our retail workers rolled up their sleeves and got on with it, making sure that our shops remained stocked so that we could all access the essentials we needed as we bunkered down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

We have asked a lot of our retail workers over the past year: not only have we asked them to brave the pandemic, potentially putting themselves at risk from the virus, but we have asked them to implement the measures that were designed to keep us all safe, such as mask wearing and social distancing. As a result, violence and abuse directed towards retail workers has gone through the roof.

Recently, I met some amazing, passionate ladies who work in retail: Jo who works for the Co-op in Northumberland, Kate who works for Primark in Worcester and Jane who works at Tesco in north Wales. Each told me that since the pandemic began, the number of incidents of abuse had increased noticeably. They told me about the fear and the risks faced by ordinary men and women who go to work in shops in all our communities across the country, echoing the issues I have heard from my own constituents.

I heard from responsible retail businesses as well, such as Morrisons, the Co-op, Asda, Sainsbury’s and many others. They are investing millions of pounds trying to protect their staff and are desperate for more to be done. A recent survey by the British Retail Consortium has shown that a staggering 455 incidents of abuse and violence are now directed towards retail workers, not each month or each week, but every day—yes, 455 incidents every day. Men and women go to work—some of them young people or even students in their first job, some of them mothers, trying to manage a job around family life, some of them semi-retired, in the later years of their life, but all trying to earn a living—and are subjected to disgusting abuse as a result.

Another survey, by USDAW, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, found that the top triggers for abusive incidents were enforcing social distancing at 24%, queuing to get into stores at 17%, and wearing face masks at 15%. Nobody likes having to queue to get into a shop or to wear masks, but that is absolutely no reason to be abusive, threatening or violent to someone who is just doing their job. There is never a reason to do any of those things to someone who is trying to earn a living. When I was talking to USDAW members, they told me shocking stories about how people have weaponised covid during the pandemic, spitting at them and threatening to infect them with the virus.

The issue, however, was not created by the pandemic; it pre-dates it. I have heard the terrible stories of people being on the receiving end of vile abuse for having the temerity to do their duty of checking ID when selling drinks, or being assaulted when they step up and try to stop a shoplifter. The problem is rife. In the words of one retail worker—an ordinary person working in an ordinary store on the streets of a constituency like mine or yours:

“I have been dragged out of the store and battered by a group of five men, punched and kicked by a gang of teenagers, followed home after late night shifts, had a knife pulled on me three times, had to wrestle needles out of drug addicts’ hands to prevent harm to colleagues, and that doesn’t include the verbal abuse I receive on a daily basis.”

We need to send a clear message to the people that this is unacceptable. Retail staff must be able to do their jobs without the fear that they will be on the receiving end of abuse or worse at any time throughout their shift. That is why I wholeheartedly support the demands in the petition. We need a punishment for these crimes that shows that we stand by our retail staff and that acts as a proper deterrent. Often, instances are sparked by retail staff doing the duties that we in Parliament have asked them to do. If we are going to put the burden of statutory responsibilities on them, we need to give them statutory protections too.

As well as protecting retail workers, we need to ensure our shops are safe for everyone. They are the hearts of our communities. Not everybody has friends and family they can talk to nearby. They might not go to the pub, but they will go to shops, and sometimes the interaction with the person at the checkout is the chat they need to prevent isolation. We cannot have our shops—the hearts of our communities—turning into something like the wild west where anything goes. We need to make them safe for everyone.

I know that putting in greater protections for retail workers does not require a feat of legislative gymnastics. Looking just north of the border, the Scottish Parliament recently passed a Bill, now an Act, put forward by Daniel Johnson MSP. It is decisive and sends a clear message that these actions will not be tolerated, but it now means that retail staff are better protected in Dumfries than they are 30 miles south in Carlisle. I would like to see similar action taken in England so that retail workers in my patch are just as safe doing their jobs as their counterparts in Edinburgh or Glasgow.

When I read the Government’s response to the petition, I was glad to see that they said:

“Everyone should feel safe at work”.

That is a sentiment that we can all agree on, but I was disheartened to see that they were not persuaded that a specific measure is needed to protect the retail workforce, particularly when prosecutions are so low and the role played by retail workers in upholding the law and their statutory duties was considered an aggravating factor in only three in 100 cases.

The Government are correct that there is a wide range of offences to hold offenders to account, but if those offences were a sufficient deterrent, incidents would not continue to rise. We need to look again and do something stronger. However, we still have the chance to make things better. I hope the Government will work with me and Members from all corners of this House to support the provisions in this petition and look again. Let us send a message that this Government have retail workers’ backs.

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[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Mr Gray, as ever, it is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair. I shall do my best to follow your instruction, although I cannot guarantee any greater degree of quality if I get rid of quantity. Following the recollection by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) of the sermon he heard at the weekend, I agree wholeheartedly that we should all be nice to one another, but I also hope that men and women alike will go and spend what they can at our shops as we emerge from the covid pandemic. The Co-op being a theme of today’s debate, there are two pioneers here today—if I can use that phrase, borrowed from the Rochdale pioneers of the co-operative movement. Those are my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), who gave a fine exposition of the issues in his opening speech, and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who is further down the call list and has done a great deal of work in this area.

If I have any time left after those opening remarks, I will be very brief. Last Wednesday, I was fortunate to visit the newly opened Co-op store in my constituency, on Church Lane in Marple. They are doing a great job there, regenerating that part of the town and improving that end of Market street. I was able to hear at first hand from Nick, Julie and Melissa about their experiences, particularly during the pandemic—which have been ably explained by others—but also more generally. As an example, workers at the Sainsbury’s in my constituency now wear a body cam as they limit the queues going in. What a sign of the times! Many of us have been able to exist in a degree of comfort and convenience during the pandemic, but those on the frontline—on the shop floor—have had to bear witness and have been assaulted in all manner of ways. It is simply intolerable.

I am not one to recommend a change in the law lightly. The first step, as has been shown by some police and crime commissioners, is to enforce the existing law properly, particularly against prolific offenders. I think that an example in Sussex showed recently that a targeted approach, whereby the police are able to take this matter as seriously as they should, yielded strong results and gave shop workers the confidence that their daily experience is being taken seriously. However, if that is not enough, then a change in the law is necessary and I would support assaults on retail workers becoming an aggravated offence.

However, as I have said, and as I am sure the Minister will ably seek to reassure us in his summing-up at the end of this debate, the existing law must be enforced. Mr Gray, doing my best to follow your instruction, I hope that if the existing law cannot be enforced, the law can be changed and we must give all retail workers the absolute assurance that we take their difficulties seriously, and will make that change if necessary.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

An admirable three minutes—very good.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

I thank the Member in charge, the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), for agreeing to lead the debate for the Petitions Committee. In doing so, I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who has worked on this issue since he joined the House in 2017. I was proud to support his ten-minute rule Bill—I think that was well over a year ago—highlighting the realities of working in the retail sector and the abuses that too many people who work in the sector face.

I will place something on the record as a former worker in the retail sector. For those who do not know, I was a trainee butcher in Tesco; you would not believe the number of times I have said that, Mr Gray. That was my first proper job and I received abuse from members of the public; it was nothing unusual to have meat quite literally thrown at us in shops. It was really very common for customers to think it perfectly normal to shout at staff on a regular basis and to think nothing of making threats of physical and verbal abuse.

I also stand here proudly as an USDAW-supported Member of Parliament; I have been for many years and it is in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. USDAW does Freedom From Fear work every year. Its last survey was in 2020. Of the respondents, nine in 10 shop workers confirmed that they had been verbally abused; 60% said that they had reported threats of abuse; and 9% had been physically assaulted. Those figures are stark and deeply concerning, showing that when someone goes to work they live with the fear of either being threatened or actually physically assaulted.

I pay tribute to USDAW for the work that it has done over decades to try and improve this situation. When I was working in retail some 20 years ago, this work was going on then. Actually, it has gone on too long—this abuse is simply unacceptable. I agree, as I do occasionally, with the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), that if the law cannot be enforced, I hope that the Minister will tell us today that there can be a meaningful change in the law to protect retail workers, in the same way that we protect other frontline workers in the NHS, the police, the ambulance service and the fire service. Retail workers really are frontline workers who deserve our support.

In closing, I will briefly pay tribute to another organisation. There has been much talk of the Co-op in everyone’s speeches so far; I think that is a theme that shows the positive work that the Co-op does to engage with Members of Parliament. I have many Co-ops across my constituency; I think I have met staff from all of them. The truly concerning thing is that they all say the same thing: abuse is commonplace; it is something that they have come to accept; and it is something which they almost tolerate as part of the job. Covid has only increased that abuse, because a lot of people see shop workers as fair game. I hope that the Minister, in his closing remarks, will set out how the Ministry of Justice will deal with this abuse, because it has to stop. Enough really is enough.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

The next speaker represents a town where my grandfather was a butcher for 60 years.

[Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and I hope that connection with Coatbridge will buy me an extra 30 seconds in this debate.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Not a chance.

[Steven Bonnar]

I commend the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for leading this debate today.

Throughout the coronavirus crisis, key workers across the retail sector have played an invaluable role in our communities, ensuring that we can maintain our basic right to access food. Without their incredible contribution, it is undoubtedly clear that we would have failed to get through this unprecedented global crisis in the manner we have. However, despite their heroic efforts, it is incredibly disappointing that the coronavirus crisis has resulted in a significant increase in abuse, threats and violence towards our retail workers. It is high time that we tackled such abuse and provided retail workers with the proper protections and respect that they deserve, especially given the current climate.

Weekly data released by the representative body of the UK’s retail sector, USDAW, show that abusive incidents towards shop workers have doubled since the outbreak of covid-19. Respondents to its survey reported being spat at, coughed at and sneezed at when asking customers to practise social distancing—I am sure every Member will agree that that really is abhorrent. When averaged across all 3 million workers across the retail sector, it amounts to a staggering 3,500 assaults every single day. Although not all shop workers suffer to this extent, some experience much worse, with one in six reporting being abused on every single shift. These are not mere statistics; this issue affects our parents, our partners, our brothers and sisters, and our children, who are needlessly suffering just for carrying out their job.

Many incidents arise as staff carry out their legal duties, including age verification and, more recently, the implementation of covid safety measures. We must all recognise that outwith our NHS, the biggest body of work throughout this pandemic has been undertaken by these undervalued and underpaid workers, who have been tasked with implementing, and ultimately enforcing, many of the guidelines that affect our daily lives. Despite retailers and businesses spending enormous sums on crime prevention, the situation is getting worse. Retail workers are employed in one of the sectors most vulnerable to violence, yet they are still being neglected and ignored. Of course, we are seeking to put that right.

In Scotland, we have said that enough is enough. As ever, we are leading the way in the protection of shop workers by passing the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021. Scotland has sent a clear message that the rise in violence and abuse towards workers in the sector must end, and the rest of the UK must now follow suit. Despite clear evidence showing the escalation of violence and abuse against retail workers, time and again the Government have chosen not to act. This place must now stop dragging its feet and take the necessary action to protect retail colleagues from harm, and I urge the UK Government to follow the lead of the Scottish Government and enact legislation to protect our retail workers, who have been at the very heart of fighting for us all throughout the whole of this pandemic.

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[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I, too, declare an interest, as a proud member of both USDAW and the Co-op party.

I am an ardent support of USDAW’s Freedom From Fear campaign, as 2020 was a year like no other. As the pandemic took hold, we realised what services and occupations we relied on most. Our shop workers were and still are vital frontline key workers. For too long, they have been undervalued. The pandemic exacerbated that. We have to acknowledge the contribution that those workers make, and ensuring their safety and protecting them from violence and abuse is a good place to start.

Nothing would please me more than to be able to share with hon. Members a decline in the incidence of abuse but, unfortunately, I cannot. Our shop workers put themselves at risk of covid so that we can have our essential supplies, but abuse of staff have worsened. Each year, USDAW conducts a survey of the violence and abuse experienced by members and those working on the frontline of the retail sector. The 2020 survey found that 88% experienced verbal abuse, 61% were threatened by a customer and 9% were assaulted, and that abuse, threats and violence doubled in the first few months of the pandemic.

I will share some of the shocking first-hand experiences of shop workers:

“I’ve had customers say they’ve got covid-19 and then cough in my face because they were asked to stand behind a marked line”;

“Customers grabbing my arm to verbally abuse me”;

“Pushed, shoved, coughed at and not given any social distancing”;

and

“I was filmed in work and threatened to be posted all over Facebook. Sworn at for refusing a return with no proof of purchase.”

I am sure we can all agree that such accounts are beyond appalling and that nobody should be exposed to that level of abuse. We would not tolerate that abuse of any other frontline occupation. It is time that shop workers were afforded the same consideration as other professions.

The abuse and violence stands at an unacceptably high level. It is essential that we take action to reduce incidence of abuse. Like others, I will continue to support USDAW’s Freedom From Fear campaign and the calls for legislation to help shopworkers against these acts of abuse, threatening and assault. I urge the Minister to listen the many contributions of hon. Members, to the 104,000 people who signed the petition and to the shopworkers who were subject to this vile treatment. Our shopworkers’ safety is paramount. We do not need empty words; we need change and we need it now.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

We come now to Mike Amesbury, but he has not been here for the debate, so theoretically we should not call him. On this occasion, as we have some time in hand and he probably has perfectly good reasons for not being here, we will call him towards the end of the debate. That brings us to Liz Twist.