Assaulting a shop worker in England and Wales will be made a specific criminal offence, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced.
Other measures announced include:
- Serial offenders to be required to be wear electronic tags to monitor their activities;
- A pilot of new community sentencing measures to tackle prolific shop theft offenders;
- An investment of £55m over the next four years in facial recognition technology to help identify and catch offenders.
The move comes as retailers across the UK face a rising tide of retail crime. There were around 76,000 incidents of violence in local shops over the last year, along with more than 600 incidents of theft an hour, according to the 2024 Association of Convenience Stores’ (ACS) Crime Report.
Similar legislation has been in place in Scotland since 2021.
The ACS welcomed the announcement, which Chief Executive James Lowman said sends a clear message to local shops that retail crime will be taken seriously by the police and the wider justice system.
He added: “Our members face theft, violence and abuse on a daily basis, with over five million incidents of theft recorded over the last year alone along with over 76,000 incidents of violence. Nobody should have to come to work and face what retailers and their colleagues have faced over the last year.”
Retail trade union Usdaw said it will study the detail of the government’s proposals. General Secretary Paddy Lillis said: “Usdaw has long called for action that includes a standalone offence for assaulting a shopworker and that has been vehemently opposed by this government and their Conservative MPs on many occasions.
“This long overdue U-turn is the culmination of many years of sustained campaigning by Usdaw and others. Our members have had to wait too long for their voices to be heard and common sense to prevail. We will have to see the detail of what they are proposing and it must be at least what we won in Scotland three years ago. It also cannot fall short of Labour’s commitments to 13,000 more uniformed officers, patrols on high streets, banning repeat offenders and ending the perverse £200 threshold for prosecuting shoplifters.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak commented: “Our local shops are the lifeblood of our communities, and they must be free to trade without the threat of crime or abuse.”
