Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle (a) shoplifting and (b) violence against shopworkers (i) in Beckenham and Penge constituency and (ii) nationally.

This Government is committed to tackling retail crime and is absolutely clear that everybody has a right to feel safe at their place of work. Through our Crime and Policing Bill, we have introduced a standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores.

The Bill will also repeal existing legislation which makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence, which means it can only be tried in a magistrate’s court. This will send a clear message that any level of shop theft is illegal and will be taken seriously.

We will provide £5 million over the next three years to continue to fund a specialist analysis team within Opal, the national policing intelligence unit for serious, organised acquisitive crime.

We will also invest £2 million over the next three years in the National Business Crime Centre which provides a resource for both police and businesses to learn, share and support each other to prevent and combat crime.

Further, the National Police Chiefs' Council will receive funding to give further training to police and retailers on prevention tactics. The training will aim to empower retailers to develop and implement tactics to prevent retail crime across all of the UK.

I speak regularly with representatives of the retail sector and chair the Retail Crime Forum which brings together policing and industry to discuss practical ways to work together to tackle retail crime.