The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has welcomed recent claims by the Labour party that it would clampdown on shoplifting by introducing tougher punishments.
Speaking at the Labour Party conference yesterday (11 October), shadow home scretary Yvette Cooper said that under new plans, all cases of shoplifting, regardless of their size, would be investigated by police, The Telegraph reported.
She claimed that the party would ditch the current rule that means those charged with theft of items under £200 do not have to attend court, following a change to the law in 2014.
Copper also pledged to bring in an offence that would see anyone convicted of assaulting a shop worker jailed for up to two years.
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She said said: “We will stand with USDAW [Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers], with the Coop, with Tesco, with our convenience stores, with retailers and shopworkers across the country, with a new law and tougher sentences for attacks on our shopworkers because everyone has the right to feel safe at work”.
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “We welcome the Labour Party and the shadow home secretary’s commitment to introduce a new law to protect retail workers from violence and abuse.
“With more than 850 incidents of violence or abuse every single day, we need action to protect our retail colleagues.”
She added: “We need a standalone offence to improve the visibility of the issue, so that police can allocate appropriate resources to the challenge, and to act as a deterrent to would-be offenders”.
This comes as Co-op Food managing director Matt Hood and John Lewis Partnership chair Dame Sharon White have termed the surge in retail crime “an epidemic”, as shoplifting has risen by 27% in the past year across ten of the largest UK cities, according to the BRC.
