Rishi Sunak on Wednesday described witnessing shoplifting up close in his mother’s pharmacy as he relented to a long-running campaign and agreed to criminalise assaults on store workers.
Assaulting a shop worker is to be made a separate criminal offence carrying up to six months’ imprisonment, the Prime Minister confirmed in the runup to an election this year, having previously ruled out such an offence despite calls from retailers and MPs.
Grilled on an LBC phone-in, he said he had seen shoplifters in the pharmacy where he worked sometimes while growing up in Southampton.
“It happened when we were there, and it’s an awful thing. I know what it feels like,” he said, while stressing they never chased the thieves down the street.
One caller said his local corner shop in Birmingham has had to hire private security. Shoplifting is estimated to cost London £9.2 million every month, the Evening Standard revealed in January, with new figures showing a 48 per cent spike in offences over the previous year.
Brazen thieves have burst in to stores with wheelie bins, suitcases and holdalls to clear shelves of items. Staff who try to intervene are subjected to racist and sexist slurs, threats and violence.
“We've got your back,” Mr Sunak told shop workers, promoting the use of facial recognition technology and criminal tagging against prolific thieves as part of the new measures.
The PM was quizzed on how the new prison terms are consistent with the Government’s plans to scrap custodial sentences of under 12 months, to relieve pressure on packed prisons.
“There are definitely situations where it would be better and in fact will cut crime to treat people with, for example, tags in the community,” he said.
“But that will be a choice at the time wherever is better for the situation we’re dealing in.”
Mr Sunak defended the Government’s record on crime and policing more generally as he urged Conservative voters defecting to Reform UK to stick by him.
He claimed that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour would take “no action” on the average Tory voter’s concerns about immigration or net zero.“And if you vote for Reform, all you're going to do is put Keir Starmer in power,” he said.
Victims and Safeguarding Minister Laura Farris conceded the Government had spent “quite a lot of time going back and forth” on whether to make a separate criminal offence of assaulting a shop worker.
But the problem was increasing and making a separate offence would help in recording it, with “bespoke sanctions” and effective use of facial recognition technology especially in shopping centres.
Ms Farris also told Times Radio: “We’re not hearing from the retail sector that this is sort of individuals stealing a loaf of bread, we’re hearing something far more sinister and organised and methodical that’s been taking place.
“They [retailers] say that they think it’s by and large organised crime, and by the way there will be no excuse ever for assault on a retail worker.”
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) earlier this year published a report saying violent and abusive incidents against shop workers had increased 50% between 2021/22 and 2022/23.
BRC chairwoman Helen Dickinson welcomed the new crackdown, saying that “the voices of the three million people working in retail are finally being heard”.
Paddy Lillis, general secretary of retail union Usdaw, said the Government’s U-turn was “long overdue”.
But shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the proposals were “a pale imitation” of Labour’s own plans, arguing: “Under the Tories too many communities and high streets are being blighted by staggering increases in shoplifting, up 30% in the last year alone.”
