Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to publish a response to her Department's call for evidence on abuse and violence towards shop staff; and if she will bring forward legislative proposals to make assaults against retail workers aggravated.

The Government recognises the damaging impact that violence and abuse can have on victims, businesses, and the wider community; and we are committed to tackling this issue. Any incident of violent or abusive behaviour towards retail workers is completely unacceptable and especially so in current circumstances during the covid-19 outbreak. Everyone has the right to feel safe at work.

The Government does not hold data on the number of incidents of abusive or violent behaviour towards retail workers during the covid-19 outbreak period, however the Home Office is working closely with police and retail industry to monitor and understand these types of incidents during the current period.

We launched a call for evidence on violence and abuse toward shop staff to help strengthen our understanding of the scale and extent of the issue. The call for evidence has now closed and my intention had been to publish the Government response before the end of March. As the Government must focus its communications on tackling covid-19, the publication of the Government response has been delayed and will be published in due course.