Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

214F: Clause 37, page 57, line 17, at end insert—
“(c) is employed by the occupier or owner of the retail premises in delivering goods directly to a consumer from the premises.”

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 214F and 214G, in my name, as we move away from the regulation of weapons to retail crime and shoplifting. I will try to be brief.

In my 15 or so years as an executive at Tesco and as vice-chair of the British Retail Consortium, I spent many hours investigating and studying shoplifting and what could be done to reduce it. We used staff training, the latest waves of technology and generous business investment to combat it. I was always very worried by the wider social impact, as stolen goods were sold on to fuel drug habits and innocent shop workers were sometimes hurt in the process of trying to stop it. The truth is that these risks and their devastating effect on individuals have become much greater as society has changed and become more divided and less moral, and hence violent crime has become more of a day-to-day occurrence. As with so much else, the long Covid lockdown has made things worse, and the police have prioritised other things.

However, this Bill is full of amendments requiring the police to do more. That will put yet further pressure on the police contribution to tackling neighbourhood crimes such as shoplifting and assaults on retail workers, which frighten retail workers, especially in the smallest shops, and lead, sadly, to more shop closures on the high street. For some years I strongly supported USDAW’s campaign for a stand-alone offence of assaulting a retail worker. As the Minister knows, I am delighted that the Bill puts that into law. It is a good day for the Minister, given his USDAW links, and for the noble Lord, Lord Hannett of Everton, smiling over there, who represented USDAW so intelligently when I was at Tesco.

However, the Bill as drafted does not quite do the trick as it does not cover retail delivery drivers, who have also been the subject of growing aggression. This is a particular problem if the driver has to ask for ID because a juvenile under 18 is taking delivery—a flashpoint, according to a recent British Retail Consortium survey—or if there is a disagreement about what is being paid for and delivered. Last week, Tesco even announced that it was piloting giving body cameras to delivery drivers. Another point of significance is that such drivers are already covered by parallel legislation in Scotland. That is not always a recommendation, but given the national character of much of retail, I hope the Minister will agree that this alignment makes sense and accept my Amendments 214 F and 214 G. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I will be very brief this time. My Amendment 214FA seeks to add hospitality venues. This is an important clause which has my full support; I simply want clarification that cafes, restaurants, pubs and bars are included in the definition of retail premises.

In UK law, “retail premises” typically refers to premises where goods are sold directly to consumers for personal use. This includes shops, supermarkets and other establishments where tangible products are offered for sale. Hospitality venues such as cafes, restaurants, pubs and bars primarily provide services: the preparation and serving of food and drink for consumption on the premises. While these venues may sell some items to take away, their main business activity is the provision of hospitality services rather than retailing goods.

UK planning law differentiates between retail and hospitality venues through the use of “use classes”, which categorise buildings and their permitted activities. Class E—commercial, business and service—includes shops, restaurants, cafés, financial services and other commercial uses. While both retail shops and hospitality venues are covered under class E, they are distinct subcategories within this class. Class E(a) refers to shops selling goods, while class E(b) refers to the

“sale of food and drink principally to visiting members of the public where consumption is mostly undertaken on the premises”,

which covers cafés, pubs and restaurants. Therefore, while cafés and restaurants fall under the same broad planning class as retail shops, they are not regarded as retail outlets in the strict sense, but rather as hospitality or food service venues.

Legislation relating to employment, health and safety, licensing and business rates may further distinguish between retail and hospitality businesses. For example, food hygiene regulations specifically address food service establishments, while retail regulations focus on the sale of goods. Under UK law, cafés and restaurants are not generally regarded as retail outlets; they are classified as hospitality venues or food service establishments. The key distinction lies in the primary activity. Selling goods is retail whereas providing food and drink services is hospitality. From what I understand, the core hospitality operations—serving meals and drinks, and providing accommodation—are not generally covered under the definition of a retail outlet. If I am wrong and Clause 37 includes cafés, bars and restaurants, then I am content that there is no problem. However, if it does not, we have a gaping hole in the law and my amendment is essential to plug it. If I am right that those are not covered, I hope the Minister will bring forward a little amendment to ensure that those workers get the same protection as workers in retail shops.

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I understand the additional pressure for delivery drivers. I hope that I have clarified the points on public-facing and hospitality workers. I am grateful for the support across the House and I want to grab the opportunity of a long-standing campaign—from the people who are at the front face of retail violence—for this offence to be implemented. I am proud to stand here today and speak to that offence in Clause 37. I hope that we can settle on it, and have discussions with other colleagues around other matters outside the Committee today. I hope that, on the back of today’s discussion, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, will withdraw her amendment. The other amendments could not as yet be pushed. Between now and Report, we will have an opportunity for discussion, with the groupings that I will try to pull together with the help of my officials. I welcome, however, this long-standing campaign from USDAW, and the fact that the Freedom From Fear campaign has been successful. I hope, on that positive note, that the noble Baroness can withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and my noble friend Lord Davies for their support for my amendment. I thank the Minister for agreeing to further discussions, and to a meeting, although I have to say that I am slightly disappointed by his initial remarks. I would also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, and my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lady Stowell, for the probing and constructive questions that they have put forward on this important part of the Bill. I emphasise again the everyday risk to retail staff and retail drivers who were, of course, so heroic during Covid. Without them, we would all have starved.

I hope the Minister will understand that I drafted a very narrow amendment advisedly; I reduced what was originally proposed by the experts from the retail industry. It very much confines the opportunity to retail, and to drivers from retailers. I am very happy to look at the wording and I can see that we need to keep it narrow. I have resisted a number of representations from other sectors in putting forward this amendment, because it is so important that we look at the evidence base, which seems to be stronger in respect of violence, both towards retail workers and drivers. I look forward to our further discissions; I may bring this issue back at Report. In the meantime, however, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 214F withdrawn.

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The Government’s rhetoric must be met with practical measures. This amendment offers one such measure. It would not overload the courts. It would simply ensure that, where an offender has persistently exploited the leniency of the system, the system responds with firmness, clarity and consequence. I hope the Minister will look favourably on this amendment. It would strengthen public protection, reinforce judicial tools already at the court’s disposal and send a clear message that persistent shop theft will not be tolerated. I beg to move.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 216 in my name. I look forward very much to hearing the Minister’s response to the proposal from my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower for tougher community treatment of repeat offenders. As it is focused on the community and on suspended sentence orders, it seems to fit in very well with the spirit of the Sentencing Bill, which we will no doubt be debating on a number of further days.

As the Minister the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, has already acknowledged, and as the recent Crime Survey shows, shoplifting has risen very significantly in recent years, especially since Covid. Indeed, we heard on the “Today” programme this morning that the average number of days it takes to deal with shoplifting cases has increased by 80% in the last decade.

My own experience has taught me something else: the biggest problem with shoplifting is not so much the law as the patchy and sometimes non-existent nature of police enforcement in relation to shoplifting and associated misdemeanours. The general acceptance that thefts worth less than £200—the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, was the first to mention that minimum—do not matter to the authorities is a particular bugbear of mine and of others who care about decency and limiting neighbourhood crime and its distressing effects.

That issue lies behind my Amendment 216, which would reverse that deplorable trend. My amendment would require the College of Policing to issue a code of practice to ensure that police forces also investigate shoplifting where the value of goods is less than £200. Letting people walk into shops, steal things and get away scot free eats at the heart of a civilised society, as the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, explained earlier. You only need to visit San Francisco in recent years to see the awful effects on its once golden streets. However, there is hope there: a Democratic mayor is at last seeing good sense. I hope the Government will follow that lead and consider my amendment this evening.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, on the noble Lord’s Amendment 215, I have great sympathy for its suggestions. Electronic monitoring can certainly play a useful role, although there is mixed evidence of its ability to reduce reoffending. However, there are multiple challenges in implementation, including inconsistent use by probation services, delays in procuring new GPS tags and gaps in responding promptly to breaches. However, my main problem is that, from a policing perspective, I worry there is no slack available in police time to monitor curfews, exclusion orders or electronic tagging. I fear it may be counterproductive to give the police yet more work when they are having great difficulty coping with what they already have.

I have a similar reservation about Amendment 216, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. In principle, I would support a code of practice to improve enforcement. However, in the absence of more police resources, the danger is that this would only exacerbate the current situation, where chief constables are faced with having to rob Peter to pay Paul in other areas of policing, and victims of other crimes would likely suffer as a consequence.

I would stress prevention over cure. I draw the Committee’s and the Minister’s attention to a West Midlands Police programme that diverts repeat low-level shoplifters into services like drug rehabilitation. Since its pilot in 2018, it has been credited with saving local businesses an estimated £2.3 million through reduced shoplifting. Surely this is something we ought at least to investigate.

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I repeat that I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, but I do not believe that—

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her courtesy and the depth of her reply, but I am not quite sure how we solve the £200 problem. The points she made about enforcement are very good ones, but the difficulty is this belief that if you steal something worth less than £200, nothing will happen to you; thus my parallel with San Francisco. What are we going to do about that?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The first thing we want to do is Clause 39, which, of course, was opposed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies. But in addition, this is about making it clear to everybody that it really does matter, and driving it through to the police that there should be no immunities—that there are no levels below to which this should not apply.

For all these reasons, I do believe these amendments are not required, but I would be very happy to discuss the matters further with both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, and I encourage them to speak with me if they feel there are matters that I have not fully taken into account. But, for now, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.