Crime and Policing Bill

Jo White Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right that we need the police back on the streets. Let us be honest: everyone can see this in their community. People know. Conservative Members may think that everything was hunky-dory at the end of their 14 years in government, but communities across the country can see the reality. As part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee, we need to get more boots on the beat, and we need more town centre patrols by officers who know the community and are trusted by them to go after local perpetrators and prevent persistent crime. These are not outlandish demands—they are just the basics. We need a return to the Peel principles that lie at the heart of British policing, including the principle that the police are the public and the public are the police. We need trusted officers in the community, working to keep people safe.

The Bill gives neighbourhood police more powers to tackle the local crimes that undermine and damage communities: antisocial behaviour, street theft, shoplifting, harassment in our town centres. In too many areas, those powers were too often weakened. Travelling around the country, I and many others will have heard the same story too many times—shop owners who say that thieves have become increasingly brazen; crime driven by organised gangs; elderly shoppers who say that they do not go into town any more because they do not feel safe; people who have had their phones stolen in the street, with all the details of their life ripped away from them; and residents driven mad by the soaring number of roaring off-road bikes and scooters driven in an antisocial and intimidating way.

In the two years before the election, shop theft went up by more than 60%. Snatch theft, mainly the theft of mobile phones, went up by more than 50% in two years. Thousands of such crimes were reported every single day, yet the police have been left with too few powers to act. Too often, because of changes made by the Conservative Government 10 years ago, they have been left with weakened powers to tackle those antisocial behaviours and crimes.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I welcome the introduction of a new offence of assaulting a shop worker. I have been in shops in Worksop where I have seen shop workers who are absolutely fearful of what will happen next, and I have seen food stolen before my eyes. Does the Secretary of State agree that local shops must become no-go areas for lawbreakers?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. The Bill introduces stronger action on retail crime. I thank the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the Co-op, the British Retail Consortium, the Association of Convenience Stores and more for their determined campaigning over many years to protect shop workers. They are the staff who kept their shops open and kept our local communities going through the pandemic, but in recent years they have had to face a truly disgraceful escalation in threats, abuse and violence. Our party has campaigned on this measure for very many years. Through the Bill, we will introduce a specific offence of assaulting a retail worker, sending the message loud and clear that these disgraceful crimes must not be tolerated, because everyone has a right to feel safe at work.