Retail Crime Prevention

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Westminster Hall

[David Hanson]

My hon. Friend has put an important issue on the table for the Minister to respond to.

In June, 50 senior retail figures, chief executives of the UK’s most recognisable retailers, the general secretary of USDAW, the chief executive of the Charity Retail Association and the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium all signed a letter calling for legislation in response to the Government consultation. Can we hear about the consultation and the potential legislation, and about what the Government intend to do, so that we can make a judgment about that? Whoever wins this election—that is for the British people—we need to know what measures are in place to take this issue forward.

I met with the Charity Retail Association—not just retail shops as a whole—which wrote to me on 5 June:

“We look forward to joining your list of…organisations in your fight for better protection for shop workers from violence or abuse.”

I wrote to the Minister earlier this year on the consultation that he is now considering. He responded on 3 September:

“Early analysis suggests that, as you highlight in your letter, the vast majority of respondents believe that violence and abuse toward shop staff has increased in recent years and that many respondents are unaware of the measures and tools available to tackle it and provide support for victims.”

My challenge to the Minister is this. Given that those respondents believe violence and abuse has gone up, and they want to see action from the Government, what will the Government do?

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for securing such an excellent debate. Having worked for USDAW for nearly 20 years, I have spoken to thousands of shop workers who have suffered abuse. They often felt that their employer was not doing enough to be on the side of their staff who were facing abuse. That has happened over decades. Does he agree that the Government should take a lead on this and make it clear that it is never right to abuse or threaten staff on the frontline?

[David Hanson]

I absolutely agree, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s efforts in this area. It is right that the Government should do that. I am looking to the Minister to show political leadership on this. For example, 98% of the current police and crime commissioners’ policing plans make no reference to shop theft, 63% make no reference to business crime, 72% make no reference to prolific offending and 79% make no reference to addiction, drug treatment or drug recovery, which are key to preventing shop theft. What pressure will the Minister put on police and crime commissioners for their actions?

The Minister will probably have received a letter today, dated 1 November, from James Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores, supporting the broad thrust of this debate and the consultation, and asking for legislation. The key point from Mr Lowman’s letter that I want to put on the record is this. Since the Government’s consultation began—back through the autumn, summer and spring, to when it was launched—200,000 assaults have taken place on people working in the retail and wholesale sector, in their place of work, because of the issues that we have mentioned around shoplifting and shop theft, and the lack of prevention of those activities.

Mr Lowman makes the valid point that his organisation represents 33,500 shops, including the Co-op, BP petrol stations, Spar, Nisa and Londis—a whole range of shops. They are united in their wish for a Government to take action on this issue and introduce legislation on shop theft and attacks on shop staff. I hope the Minister will give some indication on that in due course.

I also want to raise the issue of shoplifting as a whole. In the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, the definition of shop theft was revisited. At the time, I was the shadow Police Minister. I objected to that change and we pressed the matter to a Division. “Stolen goods from shops” was defined as goods worth £200 or less, which meant that such cases would therefore not necessarily go to court. That has had a dramatic impact on shop theft. Someone could walk into a supermarket today and steal £199-worth of goods and potentially not face court, but instead face an out-of-court disposal. I happen to think that it is important that people go to court and face the consequences of their crime. We need to review the threshold.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and her colleagues will be in the Minister’s position shortly. After this election, whoever the Minister is, they should review the £200 limit on shoplifting. It is causing, potentially, increased shoplifting, because people know there are few consequences to face, and the police do not follow up on that type of activity, because of their stretched resources—which is something we might come to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) for introducing this important debate. Even on the last day of this Parliament, it is important that both sides of the House look at the position of shop workers in the run-up to Christmas, because crime and violence against them has got worse.

I pay tribute to USDAW, having worked on its Freedom from Fear campaign for many years, and having been instrumental in setting that up. USDAW surveyed its members recently, and found that 80% believe that crime and violence against them are getting worse. It was bad 20 years ago and, as Members across the House have described, we are now seeing more incidents of violence and threatening behaviour with weapons. That is not good enough for shop workers, who provide a valuable service—whether on our high streets, which desperately need our support, or in community shops on the edges of towns or in villages.

I am chair of the all-party parliamentary small shops group. We hear from people across the country about the vulnerable position those staff and business owners can be in, and I pay tribute to them. As our retail shops decline, and sole shops decline as well, we see a decline in our communities. High streets are important for bringing us together. Small shops are often the only place that people in those communities get to speak to someone. A shop owner told us at one of our recent events that an old lady said to him that the only time she touched another human being was when he gave her her change. Those stores are so important to their communities and to people across the country, so it is particularly important that we see them not just as profit-making businesses, but as providing a service. Most of the shopkeepers in my constituency say that they do not do it for the money, but because they love their community, and the community values them as well.

Those shopkeepers are on the frontline. More and more prolific offenders are targeting small, isolated shops, and more and more of the shopkeepers in my constituency are having to take on and tackle offenders themselves, which is a position that nobody should be in. Both through my work with USDAW and locally, I have met shopkeepers and shop workers who have been traumatised for life by the experiences they have had to go through. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) described the case of Barry, who I know; when he spoke with my hon. Friend at the USDAW conference, it was an incredibly moving experience.

The trouble is that our justice system is letting these people down. It is not just that police numbers are decreasing and that the response to incidents is not improving: by the time that I left the union, Barry, who I have known for many years, had still not seen the perpetrators in his case brought to justice. The court case was delayed again and again, and he was left knowing that those perpetrators were out there committing more offences, and feeling that he was in danger as a witness.

In my community, we have seen the amount that police can do to tackle prolific offenders reduced. Our local magistrates’ court in Buxton closed in 2015, and the local police cells have now been closed because there is not so much need for them now that we do not have a magistrates’ court. That makes it far harder for those police who are still there to deal with offenders. The number of community orders has decreased by a third; prolific offenders travel across county lines, knowing how to evade different police forces and evade justice, and our police have had to invest enormous amounts of resources in trying to bring those perpetrators to justice.

As we know, 20,000 police officers have been lost, but I ask the Minister what his party proposes to do about the staff who are so often crucial to bringing successful prosecutions. In Derbyshire, not only have we lost just over 300 police officers, but over 400 support staff. Those police community support officers, investigating officers and detectives are often the ones who do the work to ensure that criminals are not only caught, but successfully prosecuted. Without those support staff, that work is very difficult and ties the hands of police officers. I pay tribute to the Derbyshire police and crime commissioner; this year, through additional council tax, we had the funding to hire another 120 officers and staff. We got 58 additional police officers from that, but also 62 support staff including PCSOs, investigating officers and detectives. That is making a real difference to the ability of my local police force to bring perpetrators to justice, which we must never forget is an extremely important part of policing.

This issue is not just about political headlines or the number of police officers, but about the experience of communities. It is about people feeling that they are on the frontline and are not getting the response from Government, the police or society that they need to protect them and to keep those valuable community stores running.

In the run-up to Christmas, all Members will want to pay tribute to shop workers. Those people can expect an extremely busy time, but also, unfortunately, an increase in abuse by people who are stressed, and an increase in violence and in thefts by criminals who seek to take advantage of this time of year, with the extra stock and extra money in the tills. I hope that in spite of the election, we can send a message to our communities and to police forces and shop workers everywhere that we are going to act.