Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many shop workers were assaulted in each of the last six months for which figures are available.

The data requested is not available broken down by month. However, the Home Office runs an annual Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) which asks business premises in different sectors about their experience of various crime types, including assaults and threats (a combined category) in the last year.

In 2014, the most recent year for which figures are available, there were around 410,000 assaults and threats against businesses in the wholesale and retail sector. The 2015 figures will be published on 28th April.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) also publish annual figures on the number of violent incidents in the workplace based on findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales. However, this information is not available just for shops. According to the 2013/14 crime survey, there were an estimated 583,000 incidents of violence at work, comprising 269,000 assaults and 314,000 threats. HSE will publish figures for 2014/15 on 31st March.