Offensive Weapons Bill (Fourth sitting)

James Morris Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Scully]

Q So you envisage different sentencing.

Doug Russell: Yes.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Q A quick question: notwithstanding your argument in favour of some of the proposals, I was wondering whether training for shop workers and shop staff in dealing with the process of getting the appropriate information out of an individual and dealing with situations that might be confrontational would help in achieving your objective.

Tony Dale: Most of the members we represent work for large retailers, so the training does take place. One of the big problems that we have is that it is an extremely difficult bit of legislation to police. Guessing the age of many young people, and where they stand in the spectrum from 16 to 30 or whatever, can often be extremely difficult. Sometimes just being good at your job or attempting to do your job thoroughly can lead to a reaction from customers. I have been behind people in a queue who have been asked for ID for buying alcohol, and the person reacted quite strongly, saying it was ridiculous, that they were 28, and who on earth would challenge them? That person was just doing their job.

Quite often, those situations are quite difficult to train for. The task facing shop workers is very difficult, because it is not just the task of stopping the sale to people under 18. It is also the more difficult one of identifying who is under 18. I think training has taken place to the extent that it can, but you are talking about quite difficult levels of managing conflict. I think even the best-trained police negotiator would have difficulty sometimes in dealing with those situations.

Doug Russell: One of the findings from the research that we commissioned with the National Federation of Retail Newsagents was that when shop workers were asked what the main reason was that they would be reluctant to ask somebody to provide proof of age when they thought they should be doing so was the fear of violence. They feared that they would get abused or threatened, or even worse, if they challenged somebody. Ironically, that has actually been made more difficult by the training, because the training that is widely implemented now is the Think 25 policy. If you think somebody looks like they might be under 25, you should be asking them for proof of age, because that gives the seller a bit of a buffer to protect them against unintentionally selling to somebody who is under 18. Of course, that means lots of people who you are challenging for ID are going to be old enough to legally buy the product and if they happen not to have ID on them at the time, that is the kind of situation that Tony was describing where they can kick off. Legislation to back up the fact that you have got to do that, and that if it does go wrong, society will look after you, is quite an important message to send to shop workers.

Tony Dale: One other point is that in that sort of conflict situation, we are expecting shop workers to police the situation. They are in a position of authority, and if they sell the product to somebody under 18, they will be committing an offence. We need to do more as a society to say that those shop workers are in a position of authority. Creating a specific offence of attempting to assault a shop worker who is trying to carry out that check would be entirely legitimate.

[James Morris]

Q A quick factual, and slightly tangential question: has there been a rise in violent assaults against shopkeepers with weapons—guns or knives—in recent years?

Doug Russell: Yes is the answer to that, but it is very difficult to prove. In our surveys, we do not specifically ask about weapons; we just ask about physical attacks, because we have pretty short contact time with the people we are talking to. We have seen physical attacks double over the last year, from 4% to 8%. The British Retail Consortium does an annual retail crime survey and it has also seen a rise in serious assaults, and I think the rise in the use of weapons is reflected in the findings of its survey.

There is also a business victimisation survey done by the Home Office and it has come up with some amazing figures for the increasing use of weapons in attacks. Unfortunately, because the survey is done by statisticians, they keep pointing out the fact that these changes are not statistically significant. I think there has been more than a trebling of incidents, but for whatever reason the Home Office’s statisticians still say it is not statistically significant, which I cannot quite understand, although I am not a statistician. But everybody who collects this evidence has been reporting an increase in the use of weapons in these circumstances.

Tony Dale: When we come to do the written submission, we can definitely look into that and see what information we could find out about it for you.

[James Morris]

That would be very helpful. Thank you.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Q Just following on from the subject of physical attacks with weapons in stores, do you think it would be helpful if we legislated for all knives and sharp instruments to be locked away behind counters, rather than just having the voluntary agreements?

Doug Russell: It would be. Obviously, now big retailers are increasingly going down the route of making it more difficult for customers to get their hand on the product until they have been age-checked and it is a safe transaction. The problem with it, of course, is that all sorts of bladed things are being sold and it is about where you draw the line. Kitchen knives are quite clear, you wouldn’t want somebody to pick a nine-inch blade off the shelf, unpack it from its packaging and then use it as a weapon, which has happened in some of the stores where our members work. However, when it gets down to safety knives, razors and things like that, it does get a bit more complicated. But, yes, we would be in favour of that, certainly.

Tony Dale: That is something the retailers are going towards more often, in the sense of having a range of knives that are behind a counter. Obviously, with the corrosive material there will be a question about other materials, such as bleaches and so on, and we may well need to look at how access to that material is restricted.

However, there is also the issue of the people who are working behind the counters at the cigarette stalls, which would be the age-restricted stalls. That is where an awful lot of abuse takes place. When people are turned away, that is a possible area of conflict as well, and abuse is increasing. Quite often, behind those counters you only have one or two people on their own, isolated from the rest of the store, so that has its own problems as well.