Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the length of prison sentences for violent shoplifting offences.

In the last year of the previous government, shoplifting soared to a twenty-year high, with more and more offenders using violence and abuse . We will not stand for this.

Everybody has a right to feel safe at their place of work and this Government is committed to tackling retail crime.

That’s why we will introduce a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores. We will also end the effective immunity, introduced by the previous Government, granted to shop theft of goods of £200 and under. This will remove any perception that offenders will escape punishment