Violence and Abuse towards the Retail Workforce

Liz Twist Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of violence and abuse towards the retail workforce.

It is a pleasure to present this debate and to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I applied for the debate following a visit to a Tesco supermarket in Rowlands Gill in my constituency of Blaydon—other brands are available, of course. I also visited my local Co-op more recently to talk to the staff there. That visit took place to mark Respect for Shopworkers Week, the yearly campaign led by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers in the run-up to the busy Christmas shopping period.

The campaign has several aims. First and foremost, it is about making it clear that the abuse of shop workers is not a part of their job and is not acceptable. It is about ensuring that employers, police and politicians are aware of the scale of the problem of violence and abuse against our retail workforce and do something about it. From an MP’s perspective, it is about listening to shop workers, recognising their concerns and looking at what we can do to support them.

From my visit, it was obvious to me that we are simply not doing enough. The shop workers I spoke to told me about the growing frequency of theft, which is an issue right across the country; figures from the British Retail Consortium show that there was a 26% rise in incidents last year. But the shop workers also wanted to emphasise that the kind of incidents has changed—not only are there more incidents of theft, but they are increasingly violent in nature. Shop workers are feeling intimidated and threatened. They fear going into the workplace, particularly when returning to work after experiencing or witnessing violent behaviour towards them or their colleagues.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I went with USDAW to see shop workers in my constituency of Putney. At the Co-op, I was also surprised to hear of so many incidents of violent attacks and the intimidation that so many people face just going to work. Does she agree that it is particularly disheartening that the Government continue to resist Labour’s plans to make violence against shop workers a specific criminal offence? That would make things much safer for shop workers across all our constituencies.

[Liz Twist]

I most certainly do agree. My hon. Friend’s experience of visiting shop workers has clearly been the same as mine. She has heard the same stories, so we must do something to make such violence a specific offence.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. This is a massive issue in my constituency. My eldest son used to manage a local shop in the high street of the main town where I reside. He has made me aware of a few occasions when young people have gone in at night to steal items from the store and created a severe sense of fright and fear among the staff. A young girl who worked in the shop, a 19-year-old, was scared stiff—I use those words on purpose.

Does the hon. Lady agree that retail staff often face the most violent torrents of abuse and that more must be done to protect their security? That could include two things: panic buttons or immediate access to the police. Quite often, the police do not attend.

[Liz Twist]

I thank the hon. Member, who is right to remind us that the issue is about not only supermarkets, but small shopkeepers; I think of some of the villages in my constituency.

I want to talk about some of the comments from shop workers in the north-east given in response to USDAW’s survey. I thank USDAW for sharing them with me. These are quotations. One person said:

“I have had name-calling, threats of being hit with bottles, needles and actual assault.”

Another person said:

“Shoplifters swing crutches, punches and bags. They have made threats on my life and talked of getting me jumped.”

Another said:

“There are homophobic insults, intimidating words and being spoken down to.”

Yet another said:

“I have been pushed over, punched in the head and jostled by a large group.”

I am sure that MPs across the House will agree that no one deserves to suffer such abuse simply for doing their job, and that is true whether someone has been working in a shop for 20 days or 20 years.

We should also highlight the fact that retail has a young workforce. More than one in four retail workers is under the age of 24 and more than 60% of new starters in retail are in that age bracket. Indeed, a small but significant proportion of retail workers are aged just 16 or 17. Retail offers fantastic opportunities for young people to get into employment and it is shameful that they might be deterred from doing so because of the abuse that might be inflicted on them. Many workers also have caring responsibilities that they fit around their shift patterns. It is unconscionable that they are experiencing such fear in their daily working lives.

I encountered these stories in my own constituency, but the figures suggest that this local picture is representative of national trends. In March this year, the British Retail Consortium published a report on the scale of the abuse and violence towards shop workers. It found that incidents including abuse, physical assault and threats with weapons had risen from 450 per day in 2019-20 to around 850 per day in 2021-22. It also found that only 7% of incidents of violence or abuse were prosecuted.

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

I am afraid to say that there are violent incidents towards shop workers in Harrow town centre, which I am privileged to represent, and also too many antisocial behaviour incidents. A couple of years ago, Harrow just missed out on securing a dedicated town centre police team, allocated by the Metropolitan police, which similar town centres across London are benefiting from. Will my hon. Friend encourage the Minister to use his influence with the current Metropolitan police commissioner to allocate a dedicated town centre police team to Harrow, which other similar-sized town centres across London already have?

[Liz Twist]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. I hesitate to venture into other police areas, but we find this issue across a number of regions and I will come on to the issue of antisocial behaviour. Dedicated police teams can be very helpful, so I hope that the Minister will listen to that plea from my hon. Friend.

I am not the first person to bring this matter to the attention of the House; in fact, two Westminster Hall debates have considered similar motions in just the last five years, and one of them came from the Petitions Committee. Clearly, our constituents care enough about the subject to have signed a public petition that has secured over 100,000 signatures.

In 2020, the Government produced their response to a Home Office consultation, which had begun in April 2019, on violence and abuse towards shop staff. The response promised to address the roots of the problem and provide support to victims. In 2022, an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was enacted, meaning that if a victim of one of a range of specified offences had been providing services, goods or facilities to the public at the time of the offence, that would be considered as an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes. The Government have said that they consider the existing law sufficient to protect retail workers. That leads me to this question: which retail workers have the Government been asking? I say that because, having spoken to workers on the ground, it is clear to me that the protections already in place are insufficient.

Despite the debates and the consultation, incidents of violence and intimidation are still rising. USDAW’s survey of retail staff in 2023 found that two thirds of its members who work in retail suffer abuse from customers, 42% had been threatened by a customer and 5% had been assaulted. We are talking about being spat or coughed at, being slapped, punched or kicked, or being attacked with weapons. Shockingly, the executive chairman of Iceland has revealed that three Iceland workers are now HIV-positive as a result of needle attacks on staff. Last year, USDAW’s figures showed that four in 10 retail workers experienced anxiety about work and three in 10 were considering changing jobs as a result. That is why we are continuing to see them speak up about the conditions that they are working in.

As I said, the Westminster Hall debate in 2021 was prompted by a petition asking the Government to enact legislation that would create a specific offence of abusing, threatening or assaulting a retail worker. As I also said, it reached over 100,000 signatures, but still the epidemic of violence continued. Therefore, this year, another petition has started—it is still in force—calling for the same measure to be taken. There is a strong, consistent public demand for change.

From speaking to them, I know that shop workers in my constituency—and store managers, in fact—feel strongly that the creation of a specific offence is the right path to follow. They believe that that would not only recognise the scale of the problem but encourage police attendance, which they feel is lacking, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) has said. There is a widespread feeling within the retail sector that theft has been effectively decriminalised over the past 13 years of Conservative Governments.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees with me on these two points. First, this is a very serious matter and impacts every single constituency in the UK. Secondly, tackling violence and abuse against shop workers does not seem to be a priority on the Government Benches; as far as I can see, there are no speakers from the Government Back Benches in this debate.

[Liz Twist]

I certainly agree that the Government have failed to go far enough. They had the opportunity last year when they introduced the aggravating-factor legislation, but we need to go much further than that.

As I said, there is a widespread feeling within the sector that theft has been effectively decriminalised. In the same vein, another policy being criticised is the practice of issuing fixed penalty notices for shop thefts under £200. The failure to investigate those thefts leaves workers feeling as though the crimes that they have experienced, often involving abusive behaviour towards them, are not taken seriously by the police or the Government.

The lack of confidence in our institutions has been reflected by a drop in the reporting of incidents of violence and abuse. The British Retail Consortium notes that there has been a decline in reporting of such incidents to 32%, as workers have increasingly lost faith that the police will take action. The commitments made in the retail crime action plan, which tells police to prioritise incidents involving violence, are welcome, but we must ensure that local police forces are encouraged and supported to implement that approach on the ground. We must also ensure that they have the resources to respond. In my area, Northumbria police are still 400 police officers down from 2010, and it is the same in other parts of the north-east.

Retail workers find themselves at the frontline of antisocial behavioural issues, but the problem goes beyond shop floors. Across my constituency and the country, people are concerned about the antisocial behaviour taking place in their own communities. When my submission for this debate was accepted, it sparked a conversation in my office about times that, as customers, we have seen those acts of aggression play out. In the winter months, with the nights getting dark ever earlier, the worry of bad behaviour in shops will create not just a fearful situation for the staff but one that risks turning away customers.

Strikingly, USDAW’s most recent survey suggests that an estimated two thirds of abusive incidents are linked with addiction, yet we see nothing in the Government’s announcement of the Pegasus programme acknowledging that relationship or exploring the role that drug and alcohol treatment services have to play in tackling this issue. That is another area in which the Government’s promise to address the root causes of retail crime rings completely hollow. It is astonishing that, despite those statistics, the debate, the personal examples and the outcry from businesses and staff alike, workers still feel afraid of their place of work and are worried that, just by showing up for their shift, they will be putting themselves in harm’s way. The sector has long been calling out for more to be done on the issue, and I am proud that Labour is a party willing to listen to that call.

On a local level, I am pleased that our police and crime commissioner, Kim McGuinness, has been getting heads together within the retail sector and local police forces to identify what has been working and what has not—listening to our retail workers, so that they feel recognised and supported. There is also work to be done nationally. Labour will create a new specific offence of assault against retail workers. That has been called for by the likes of the chief executive officer of Tesco, Jason Tarry, who said:

“We want our colleagues to be safe at work. Creating a standalone offence not only sends a strong message to the small but violent group of people who abuse and attack shopworkers, but also makes it clear to shopworkers that as a nation we take protecting them seriously.”

Labour would go further, scrapping the £200 rule that stops shoplifting from being investigated and putting guaranteed neighbourhood patrols back into town centres, with 13,000 more neighbourhood police and police community support officers.

When it comes to the abuse and crime that affect our shop workers, the numbers do not lie. Sadly, they have become common practice and although so many across the industry are calling for something to be done, their calls are going unanswered. To put it simply, we need to do more to protect the retail workforce. No one should have to go to work in fear of being verbally abused, assaulted or victimised just for doing their job. I hope that the Minister will reconsider the seriousness of the situation and make this abuse a crime in its own right. That is what those people I spoke to in my constituency want. It is what the sector wants and what our retail workforce deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

Yes, I would be happy to do so—it would seem churlish to decline such an invitation.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned wages. I observe in passing that the minimum wage will go up by about 10% from next April to £11.44 an hour. That is quite a considerable increase, well above the rate of inflation. Of course, under the last Labour Government, it was only £5.93. If we adjust for inflation and the increase in the tax-free threshold, the take-home wages of someone working full time on the minimum wage are 30% higher than 13 years ago, which is welcome.

The Greater Manchester police were mentioned by, I think, the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I commend Chief Constable Stephen Watson, who is doing a great job with GMP and led the way by implementing this concept of always following up all evidence, which seems like common sense, but it was not being universally done. He implemented that in Greater Manchester about a year and a half ago, and it led to a 44% increase in arrests and prosecutions. It is exactly that approach that worked under Stephen Watson’s leadership that we are applying nationwide, including to shoplifting.

I will say a word or two on several other points raised in the debate. The first is the offence of assaulting a retail worker. We know that Scotland has a separate offence and that there have been calls to have a similar one here. Of course assaulting a retail worker is an offence: it is assault. It could be common assault, grievous bodily harm, grievous bodily harm with intent and so on. It is a criminal offence and, as I believe the hon. Member for Blaydon acknowledged, we legislated in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 to make it a statutory aggravating factor where the victim is a public-facing worker—that includes retailers and others. That means that a judge is obliged, in statute, to pass a higher sentence than they otherwise would, in recognition of the fact that the victim is a public-facing worker.

[Liz Twist]

The problem is that if cases are not taken through to court for prosecution, that aggravating factor does not come into play. I think that what all of us here are arguing is that the assault itself against a shop worker should be seen as a particular offence.

[Chris Philp]

Obviously, as I have said, that is already an offence—it is assault, it is illegal and it is a criminal offence. We need to make sure that the culprit is identified by the police and that those cases are then prosecuted. The retail crime action plan that I set out a few moments ago will increase the number of prosecutions of those who assault retail workers, as well as of those who steal from retail stores. I am confident that that will be the result of that action plan.

One or two hon. Members mentioned the £200 threshold. I want to make sure that everyone is clear about that. A change to the law in 2014 made the theft of goods valued at under £200 triable summarily only, which means triable just in the magistrates court. To be clear, it is still a criminal offence, it can still and should be prosecuted, and the maximum sentence is six months’ imprisonment, which is the maximum that a magistrate these days can impose. Stealing more than £200-worth of goods is triable either way, meaning that it can be heard in a Crown court. The maximum sentence upon conviction in the Crown court for that offence, of theft, is seven years. So, to be clear, stealing goods to the value of less than £200 is criminal; it can and should be prosecuted; and it is punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment.

I hope it is clear from my remarks that we are taking this issue extremely seriously. The increase in shoplifting in the past year or two in this country, as well as in the US, France and Germany, is of concern, which is why we are taking the action that I set out. We need a zero-tolerance approach, because if we do not have one, the problem just escalates. We have seen in some American cities, such as San Francisco, the situation getting completely out of control. Looting has become commonplace in San Francisco and elsewhere, and we cannot allow that to happen in the UK. That is why we have developed our plan, and why I have asked the police to take a zero-tolerance approach. I am sure that all of us, Members of Parliament and PCCs up and down the country, will hold the police to account to deliver the plan.

[Liz Twist]

rose—

[Chris Philp]

I was about to sit down, but as the hon. Lady secured the debate, it would be extremely discourteous not to give way.

[Liz Twist]

I thank the Minister. Will he address the issue that I raised about the resourcing of the police? In my local Northumbria police area, we are still 400 police officers down. That is irrespective of whatever the picture is nationally, and the situation is the same across the north-east. Clearly, that affects the response of the police. What can he say about that? Can he commit to increasing the numbers in Northumbria?

[Chris Philp]

I can confirm that across England and Wales as a whole, as I think the hon. Lady knows, we have 149,566 police officers; that is as of 31 March this year. The number is higher than it has ever been in history and it is about 3,500 higher than the previous peak in March 2010, so there is a record number nationally. As for each individual force area, the choices made by individual PCCs—

[Chris Philp]

I am going to conclude, because I do not want to overburden the Chamber and I wish to finish answering the point. The numbers in individual force areas reflect choices made by individual PCCs over time, for example, about the precept and about the balance between officer numbers, police stations and so on. What we have done in government is make sure that there are record numbers nationally. We have also put more money into policing, so this year PCCs had £550 million more available to them than last year. In addition, we fully funded the 7% pay rise between 2.5% and 7%, which this year entailed an extra £330 million.

Those resources are going in. In addition, from next April we are funding—in every one of the 43 police force areas in England and Wales, including the hon. Lady’s—specially funded antisocial behaviour hotspot patrols. I would expect them mainly to concentrate on town centres and high streets, where shoplifting may also occur. Where we have piloted those in the past four or five months, including in Blackpool, parts of Staffordshire and parts of Essex, we have seen reductions of 20% or 30% in antisocial behaviour and other forms of criminality. We will therefore fund each force, in addition to its regular funding settlement, to have those hotspot patrols, which should deliver something like 30,000 hours of specialist patrolling in each force area each year from April. I think that that will make a real difference.

[Liz Twist]

With regard to the Minister’s explanation of the differences and the choices that local police forces have made, I am sure he will know that the impact of increasing the precept and the value of housing in our local communities mean that authorities such as mine suffer disproportionately because of the way the precept is worked out. Choices there may be, but they are choices within the funding envelope.

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Lady for her final intervention. The police funding formula, which is rather old now, accounts for the council tax base as well as population, crime levels and so forth, but it needs reviewing and updating. As I said, when we lay out the police funding settlement for next year, which we intend to do this side of Christmas, I hope that police forces up and down the country, including in her area, will see that they will get a material resource uplift next year, as well as the special funding I mentioned for hotspot patrolling that has made a huge and visible difference in the areas in which it has been trialled.

This is a serious issue and the Government take it seriously. We have a plan, we have agreed it with policing, and we will now get on and deliver that plan operationally.

[Liz Twist]

This has been an interesting debate, and a very important one to our retail workforce who are suffering violence and abuse, both verbal and physical. Clearly I am disappointed that the Minister has not gone a step further and agreed that violence and abuse towards the retail workforce should be a crime in its own right. I know that the shopworkers and retail staff in my constituency would very much welcome that recognition. Although there are other assault offences that can be used, this is a very specific one that needs to be addressed. I regret that the Minister has not made that change. Retail staff and I will continue to push for it to be recognised as a specific crime.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of violence and abuse towards the retail workforce.