The following are the excerpts of the proceedings in the House of Commons where members raised the issue of high-street retail crime which affects retailers and consumers and costs the UK economy approximately £1.9 billion a year
This is a matter of concern because, quite frankly, the high street is under threat from a host of things. The modern way in which we shop has driven people from actual shopping to online shopping, which has an impact on retail trade….
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I APPRECIATE the opportunity to open this Adjournment debate so early in the day. At the outset, I want to register the fact that I am a member and officer of the all-party parliamentary group on retail crime… I have no pecuniary interest in that matter: it is about ensuring that our high street is protected, and that parliamentarians are aware of issues that are important to high street independent retailers and consumers.…
I thank the British Independent Retailers Association, which is one of the consumer voices for thousands of retail shops across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom… but I am glad that other colleagues have indicated their interest in this matter….
This is a matter of concern because, quite frankly, the high street is under threat from a host of things. The modern way in which we shop has driven people from actual shopping to online shopping, which has an impact on retail trade….
……Retail crime is not a victimless crime: it costs the UK economy approximately £1.9 billion a year, and policing it and putting protections in place costs businesses about £600 million a year.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
I CONGRATULATE the hon. Member on securing tonight’s Adjournment debate. Something I have noted from conversations with retail workers in my constituency is a reduction in the provision of security guards by many companies, despite increasing crime rates. While I understand the budgetary considerations, does he agree that companies need to take their duty of care to both workers and customers more seriously?
Ian Paisley
I thank the hon. Member for raising that point. The protection of workers is very important to us all—I suppose we could all recount stories where members of staff in high street shops have been verbally or physically abused….
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP) FIRST, can I congratulate my honourable colleague and good friend? He is right to outline all the things that shops can do in relation to, No. 1, safety for their workers and, No. 2, safety for their customers… Over those years, I have watched the shops in my constituency and seen shop workers who have been verbally abused, who have been attacked with knives and who have had to call the police after having been beaten up in their shops.
Yet, with all the precautions that are taken in a shop, … it only ever works if the police are accessible, and the problem for us in many cases is that the police are so busy that they are not able to attend incidents in shops at the time when the people need them to be there. CCTV can retain the evidence, but the police need to be there…
Ian Paisley I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I think it is telling that he has probably, like me, seen an increase in this and an increase in the threats to shops…
I went through the history of parliamentary questions asked on this issue. From the response to a written question by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) to the Ministry of Justice in 2018 we learned that a perpetrator of retail crime would, appallingly, have to be convicted 30 times before they were given a custodial sentence, up from 27 in 2017….For a prolific daily offender it took hundreds and hundreds of offences before they received a custodial sentence. What message does that send out to the kleptomaniac…
Chris Philp (The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire) I AM, as always, grateful to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for securing this important debate. It is of course relevant to my ministerial responsibilities….
I would like to start by saying clearly that any form of retail crime is completely unacceptable. I agree with the hon. Member about the importance of emphasising that this is a serious form of crime and that it should not, at any point, be dismissed or treated by the police or anyone else as somehow minor or to be disregarded….
