Emily Thornbury MP (Labour, Islington South and Finsbury) had questioned the Government and in a written answer, Victims and Sentencing Minister Edward Argar said that assaulting people while they serve the public is treated as an aggravating factor; but he then continued: "The Ministry of Justice does not collect or publish data on the use of aggravating factors."
Ms Thornberry has voiced her disbelief: "What is the point of introducing this new law if ministers aren't even going to keep a record of how many times it's been used? It just shows they have no plan to stop this epidemic and refuse to get tough on these aggressive and intimidating thugs who are terrorising our shops."
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “Emily Thornbury is absolutely right to identify that the Government doesn’t even collect statistics on their only response to the retail crime epidemic so far, which is to change sentencing guidelines. So how can they check if it is working? While we do welcome tougher sentences, the problem is too many crimes are not being investigated and the criminals are not being brought to court.”
Labour’s Daniel Johnson MSP successfully brought in a new protection of workers law in Scotland, which makes it a specific offence to assault or threaten a shopworker in the course of their duties. Importantly the Act requires the Scottish Government to separately record these offences and we know that nearly 7,000 incidents have been recorded in under two years. A similar law was proposed by Labour MP Alex Norris, but it was rejected by the Government.
Paddy continued: “Shoplifting is not a victimless crime. Theft from shops has long been a major flashpoint for violence and abuse against shopworkers. Having to deal with repeated and persistent shoplifters can cause issues beyond the theft itself like anxiety, fear and in some cases physical harm to retail workers. It is clear to us that only Labour has the policies to help give our members freedom from fear.”
Labour has given a commitment to Usdaw that they will continue their strong track record of keeping people safe in their work, building on the campaign to protect shopworkers from violence at work. This will include continuing support for, and ensuring that all retail workers are protected by, the measures outlined in the draft Assaults on Retail Workers (Offences) Bill and the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021.
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest trade union with over 350,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades
www.usdaw.org.uk
Mirror exclusive: Fury as Tories fail to keep track of convictions for shopworker attacks
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/fury-tories-fail-keep-track-30997014
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter
@UsdawUnion