My Lords, in my time as a Minister I have had a to-do list in my mind, and included on it was tackling assaults on retail workers and the historic disregards. I am very pleased that in the Bill we will be able to do both, so tonight is a very good night.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for bringing back his amendment and for his obvious commitment to support business owners in areas affected by high crime rates, in particular business owners from diverse communities. In Committee my noble friend Lord Sharpe made it clear that shoplifting offences involving the theft of goods of up to £200 can and should be dealt with by the police as a criminal offence. Section 176 has no bearing on the ability of the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute a person for theft from a shop or on the court’s powers to punish offenders.
My noble friend also spoke about a survey conducted by the National Business Crime Centre to ask police forces about the reporting of retail crime. I will repeat what he said, because it is important. He stated that the survey asked
“whether forces had a policy where the monetary value of shop theft determined whether the crime was investigated. Thirty-four out of 43 forces responded … the survey found that no
forces used a £200 threshold for making decisions about responding to shoplifting offences.”—[Official Report, 3/11/21; col. 1272.]
I have heard what the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said today and I understand the concerns about the prevalence of shop theft. I understand in particular the concerns from owners of small businesses, such as small independent shops operating in areas with high crime rates. If the noble Lord is amenable, I would like to meet further with him to discuss it.
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Kennedy, for their fulsome support of the government amendment and for repeating the point that we are sending a very strong signal about how seriously we treat this issue. There is more that we are doing. As my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe said, prolific shoplifters often have a drug or alcohol dependency, and shoplifting funds this addiction. We need to have the right interventions in place, and the Government’s 10-year drugs strategy, published last week, sets out the Government’s intention to invest in substance misuse treatment, including clear referral pathways for offenders into treatment to reduce the risk of reoffending and help reduce acquisitive crime, including shop theft.
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It is essential that everyone plays their part, which includes the need for retailers to work with their local neighbourhood policing team. Many areas have a business crime reduction partnership to bring together businesses and their local neighbourhood policing team to tackle local crime priorities. Business crime reduction partnerships play an important role in sharing information between businesses and police to identify and tackle prolific shoplifters. In turn, the Home Office is also working with the National Business Crime Centre and the National Association of Business Crime Reduction Partnerships to ensure that effective partnership working takes place. The National Retail Crime Steering Group, which I have spoken about previously, has published best practice on sharing data about lower-level incidents and crime that may not require an immediate police response but build a picture of the level of crime in an area and help to establish an appropriate longer-term solution. This information is hosted on the British Retail Consortium website.
My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe asked about reviewing the legislation. We will pay close attention to the impact that this amendment has, as we do with all new legislation, as I said before. The Sentencing Council reviews the sentencing guidelines on a regular basis. As I said earlier, the main indicator of whether incidents have reduced is the experience of retail workers and whether they feel safer at work. We want to see a real shift in the working culture so that abuse is not part of the job.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked whether the amendment could cover verbal threats over the phone, and it could well do. It could also cover volunteers, depending on the circumstances; for example, volunteers working in shops.
I think I have persuaded the noble Lord that repealing Section 176 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act is not the way to reduce low-value shop theft, but we will have those conversations later.
It is very nice when, occasionally, you get plaudits from all around the House, so I am going to bask in it for one second and thank noble Lords—it will not happen often.