Lord Blencathra
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Crime and Policing Bill
Lord Blencathra Excerpts(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Lord Blencathra
“Retail crime: deterrent action by shopkeepers(1) Where shopkeepers or retail outlets of any kind have obtained video or photographic evidence of theft of goods from their shop or store and the alleged thief has not been caught at the time, then they may—(a) a. circulate that photographic evidence to—(i) any other retailers they consider appropriate,(ii) their Head Offices or security control centres,(iii) any organisations engaged by them in deterring shop theft or arresting thieves, and(iv) any trade body or publication which is relevant to their business;(b) publish the photographs prominently in their stores or shops;(c) publish the videos and or photographs on social media.(2) Where shopkeepers or retail outlets of any kind have obtained video or photographic evidence of theft of goods from their shop or store and the alleged thief has not been caught at the time then they must—(a) retain securely the original or hard copy of the evidence which must be time and date stamped;(b) ensure that the evidence is not edited in any way;(c) send a digital copy of the evidence to the appropriate police force as soon as reasonably practical, but they may collate that and any other occurrences and send them as a bundle;(d) supply information about the nature and value of the goods they believe were stolen;(e) store any other evidence relating to the alleged theft including any eye witness accounts.(3) When the police receive any evidence or information under subsection (2)(c) and (d) they must undertake the following steps—(a) log and record all the evidence they received;(b) do a facial check on the Police National Database;(c) do a check on the passport and immigration databases;(d) check the photos, videos and reports received against any other reports to see if there is a pattern or repeat thieving.(4) When it seems to the police that—(a) there are other similar examples of the person stealing from shops,(b) there is a pattern of offending,(c) the alleged thief is acting in concert with others, and(d) there is evidence that that shop or retail outlet is regularly targeted,the police must initiate a full investigation with an objective of arresting the thief or thieves and bringing them to trial.(5) Where a person accused of being a shop thief has had information published under subsection (1) and it is later proven that the person was innocent or a photograph of the wrong person was published, then that person is entitled to compensation by the shop or retail outlet which published it.(6) The compensation under subsection (5) is £300 per day for each day that the information was wrongly published.(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend any of the provisions of this section.”Member's explanatory statement
There has been a rise in theft from shops and complaints from store owners that the police are not doing enough to stop it. These provisions aim to deter shop thieves and make it easier for the police to take action because the shop owners will have provided sufficiently reliable video and other evidence to justify full investigations and prosecutions.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, as well as moving my Amendment 216A, I shall speak to my Amendments 216B and 216C. These are three large proposed new clauses, and I assure the Committee that I will not be speaking to any other groups of amendments tonight.
Why have I tabled these when there are already laws on shoplifting? I am doing it because theft from shops is now completely out of control, and we need new laws, powers and penalties. The first thing which has to change is the terminology. I disagree with my noble friends and the Minister in the last discussion calling it “shoplifting”, since this diminishes the enormity of the criminal rackets now operating. It sounds rather like the legitimate “grab and go” takeaway food we see in shops, although I assume people are supposed to pay for it before they go. This is not shoplifting; it is shop theft, with some organised on a massive scale as conspiracy to steal.
My amendments address the concerns of the British Retail Consortium following its annual survey published in January this year. It showed that losses from customer theft reached a record £2.2 billion in 2023-24 and that we have record crime levels, despite retailers spending £1.8 billion on prevention. That is a total cost of £4 billion. Retailers want the police to take retail crime more seriously, improve response times, use technology and data sharing to target prolific and organised offenders, and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.
Key actions retailers advocate for include improved police attendance. Retailers want police to prioritise attending incidents, especially when an offender has been detained by staff, violence has been used or key evidence such as forensics need immediate attention and collection.
Retailers want effective investigations. They ask for all reasonable lines of inquiry to be pursued, including collecting and using CCTV footage, eyewitness statements and forensic evidence to identify and prosecute offenders.
Retailers want the targeting of prolific offenders. They want a proactive approach to identify and focus resources on the small number of repeat offenders responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. This includes using criminal behaviour orders and, for serious cases, electronic monitoring.
Retailers want better data sharing and intelligence. Businesses are keen to share data and intelligence through partnerships and platforms, such as Project Pegasus and the Disc system, to help police forces build a national picture of organised crime groups and link up crimes for unknown offenders across different locations.
Retailers want easier and consistent reporting, with a streamlined, consistent and easy way to report all incidents, as underreporting due to complex systems and a perceived lack of police response is a major issue.
Retailers also want visible deterrence. They support “hot spot patrolling” and high-visibility policing in high-crime locations to deter potential thieves and provide reassurance to staff and customers.
Retailers want tougher sentencing and legal measures. The industry advocates for a robust judicial response, including the introduction of specific laws such as a stand-alone offence of assaulting a retail worker—which I am pleased to see we are going to have—to signal that these crimes are unacceptable and will not go unpunished.
Finally, retailers want collaboration. Overall, shops want stronger collaboration between the police, the criminal justice system and businesses to address the root causes of offending and ensure that staff are supported in providing evidence and attending court.
I am arrogant enough to say that my proposed new clauses address all these concerns and are related. The first would give shopkeepers and retail outlets the powers to deter shop thieves. The second would give powers to arrest and detain them. The third would tackle organised shop theft as conspiracy.
Let me explain my proposed new clause described in Amendment 216A. The Information Commissioner’s Office has suggested that it is inappropriate to publish photos of known thieves because it may infringe their data protection rights. What nonsense—it is a great deterrent, and my subsections (5) and (6) would provide for compensation if a shop makes a mistake and publishes the wrong photograph. Retailers such as M&S, Boots, Morrisons and Greggs are now contributing data, including photos and CCTV footage, of repeat offenders to a national database which is shared with the police and used internally by security staff—for example, on “Banned” boards in staff-only areas—to prevent entry. That is a compliant method which seeks to get round, or comply with, the Information Commissioner’s guidance.
The other thing shops must do—and I suggest they will do—is make it easy for the police to prosecute. The police will naturally not respond to a phone call that says that some anonymous bloke stole from a shop and made a getaway and they do not know who it is; I would not respond to that myself. However, if the shops keep all photographic and video evidence—although it will be digital these days—timed and dated and of court evidential quality, with statements from the observers, then the police will think it worth while to investigate; at least, they will have no reason not to do so. Following on from that, my proposed new clause says that, if the retailers have done all these things and have good evidence which has a good chance of catching and convicting thieves, then the police must take investigative action along the lines in my subsections (3) and (4). I submit that these measures will lead not only to more just convictions but also to deterrence.
My proposed new clause described in Amendment 216B moves on from deterrence to detention. Retail outlets must have the power to arrest and detain suspects under proper controls, but very few now do so because they are afraid of the consequences of getting it wrong. Even when they get it right, criminals will sue for wrongful arrest or excessive force, no matter how untrue that is. My proposed new clause sets out powers for shops to arrest and detain shop thieves, but with very strict conditions as set out in subsection (2). I will not go through all of them, but they are tough conditions on shops and security guards which guarantee that evidence is retained, and the rights of the suspect are properly guaranteed, just the same as if he or she had been arrested and detained by the most woke police force in the country.
The security staff must be properly trained, use minimal necessary force and wear cameras all the time to capture the action. When a suspect is detained in a secure room, it must be covered by cameras at all times and they must be told why they have been arrested. There must be no intimate body searches and there must be female security staff for female suspects, et cetera. It is of prime importance that the police must be called as soon as possible.
When the shop has complied with all those requirements, the police must then respond and do their duty. If the shop has done a gold-plated job of collecting the evidence and handling the suspect properly, then the police must take their responsibility seriously and there would be no question of releasing the suspect on the spot. Of course, they can release or charge them when they have reviewed the evidence at the police station and interviewed the suspect.
Noble Lords may point out that this regime may be perfect for the big retailers and big shops but will not work for the corner shops and smaller retailers. I accept that, but it is highly likely that individuals who steal from small shops will also steal from large multiples, as the type of store selected often depends on the specific motivation and perceived opportunity of the thief rather than a strict adherence to only one type. Ultimately, shop-thieves tend to be generalists in terms of store format, seeking out environments with low security and high opportunity. Large multiples often have more security resources, such as CCTV and security guards, but their sheer size and high footfall can also make them easier targets in certain areas. Small shops may have less sophisticated security, making them a target for burglars or opportunistic thieves, but owners often know their “regulars”, which can act as a deterrent for some. We have got to remove the fear of shops and staff doing their own arrests, and that means professionalising their arresting and detention regime and then empowering them.
A few weeks ago, I was in the large Boots down at Cardinal Place in Victoria when I saw a guy in a hoodie come in. He went to a cosmetics shelf, opened a carrier bag and was scooping the shelf contents into it. He then started to go out. I started shouting, “Stop that guy. He is thieving. Stop him! Stop him!” and I charged after him in my chair. He began to run, so I powered up to warp speed but lost him when he went down into the Underground. I went back into Boots, sought out the one and only person on duty and said, “Call the manager. Look at the video tapes”. The response was that there was nothing they could do and there was no point in interfering, as it was just one of those things.
That is not good enough and we are all paying the price through the increased cost of goods to cover theft losses. I might even go so far as to say that Sycamore Partners, the private equity firm that owns Boots, has possibly decided that it can make more profit from letting people steal things than employing enough staff to stop them stealing in the first place. I only surmise; I do not know that for a fact.
Some 10 minutes later, when I was in M&S, an American woman rushed up to me and said she had chased the man who had stolen my shopping, but she had lost him in the Underground. I explained that it was not my shopping but thanked a United States tourist for trying to do what no Brit in the area had tried to.
I am no Mr Jenrick, waging a one-man fight against criminals in London, but a few months ago I was in a small retail outlet in a large supermarket, only a few hundred yards from here, where I saw a man stuffing his jacket pockets full of things, a few yards away from a security guard. I shouted to the guard that someone was thieving. The guy gave me a mouthful of abuse and then walked past the guard, giving him two fingers.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I did not think my amendment was creating considerable extra powers of arrest for the security guards, but it seems that the current power largely mirrors a lot of things that I put in this amendment. My question then is, why are so many shops scared to use it? I appreciate that the retail unit or outlet has to determine whether they let the security guards arrest people, but there is certainly a fear among many security guards in this respect, and many shops say, “We can’t let you arrest people”. We must, somehow or other empower, them to do so.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
There is a genuine fear about what the response would be, and I understand that. The days when I—and potentially the noble Lord, Lord Randall—stopped a shop theft in a retail premises were a long time ago. The climate was different, and now there is the carrying of knives and the threat of violence. That might be a fear, and it is up to individual shops to determine their own policy. Clause 37, which deals with attacks on retail workers and will apply to a whole range of retail staff, adds an extra protection. It will be up to individual shops, but it is important that those two measures are seen as coterminous. Protection of retail staff in the event of shop theft and assault is a further measure to support action on shop theft. However, it is ultimately for individual stores to determine their policy.
The noble Lord also raised the issue of multiple thefts and planning for thefts. I find it objectionable to see criminal gangs organising mass hits on shops, but that is already a factor that aggravates the seriousness of the theft offence. If, therefore, there is evidence that multiple parties were involved in a theft, each of those parties could and should be charged with theft, as well as conspiracy to commit theft. The amendment would require the police to consider charging with conspiracy to commit theft if there is evidence that two more people are involved. I know that the noble Lord knows I am going to say this, but it is for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to decide on relevant charges, taking into account all the circumstances of the case. I do not want to put on statute what charges the police or CPS should bring, but again, the potential is there should they wish to do so.
I will touch briefly on the sentencing aspects of the amendment. At present the maximum penalty for theft is seven years’ imprisonment. The maximum penalty for robbery is life imprisonment. Conspiracy to commit theft or robbery has the same maximum penalty as the base offence. The effect of this amendment, therefore, would be to create a form of conspiracy to commit theft offence that would potentially have, if fewer than five people were acting together, a lower maximum penalty than theft or conspiracy to commit theft have now.
As we discussed previously, the amendment also introduces minimum sentences. I made it plain in our debates on Monday that minimum sentences are rare in law. Parliament has set them in statute only exceptionally. They are not appropriate in this instance. Sentencing guidelines for theft, which courts are required to follow unless it is not in the interests of justice to do so, already highlight when considering the culpability of an offender factors such as involvement of others through “coercion, intimidation or exploitation”. The issue of
“sophisticated nature of offence/significant planning”
is also relevant. The other aggravating factors that the court must consider include taking account of previous convictions.
Therefore, I cannot accept the noble Lord’s amendment, for my reasons and those that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, has mentioned. However, I do not want him to leave the Committee tonight thinking that this Government are not committed to tackling shop theft. We are, through the measures that we have taken and are encouraging police to take, through the measures in this Bill to change the definition of shop theft in Clause 39 and in providing protection for retail workers in Clause 37.
Shop theft is shop theft. It costs all of us resource on our bills. It costs businesses resource. It is money which should be invested in the local economy rather than going into the pockets of people who opportunistically, individually, for whatever reason—from poverty to organised criminal gangs, from drug abuse to alcohol abuse—commit shop theft in many of our stores. I want to make sure that we do all we can to reduce it and to provide deterrents to it. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, including my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge and, for his full support for my amendments, my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower.
The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, said that if someone is stealing from their shop, shopkeepers do not have time to go through the video cameras to get the evidence. If a shopkeeper has someone stealing from their shop and cannot be bothered to look at the TV cameras to see the evidence for it, he cannot complain about shop theft. If he has the evidence, for goodness’ sake, he should use it. I do not think that the noble Baroness read my amendments on all the protections that I have built in for those who do want to arrest criminals. The Minister set out in his excellent speech all the powers of citizen’s arrest that a security guard or a shopkeeper can have, but the noble Baroness said that no one should have the power to arrest except a policeman who is properly trained. That is rather bizarre, to use a word that was used earlier about my amendments.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
The noble Lord is misinterpreting what I said. I did not say that it was not possible to look at CCTV coverage. I said that if you are a small shopkeeper and the shop is being run by one or two people, you are not going to sit there and do everything that the noble Lord has suggested in that amendment—date stamp things, take photographs, make sure that everything is absolutely hunky-dory, that it is handed over in a file. That is just pie in the sky. It will not work. If the noble Lord is going to quote me, can he please quote me correctly?
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I said in my speech that I understood that small shops would have difficulty with this, but also that the people who steal from small shops in the main also steal from the big shops. If one can prevent them from stealing from the big shops and arrest them there, we will also bear down on the theft from the smaller shops. Of course, smaller shops have a more difficult problem, but it will not be solved by just putting more policemen on the beat.
Of course, the police have to prioritise. In London, in particular, they have to put terrorists at the top of the list, along with rape, murder and serious violence, so shop theft will inevitably be lower down. I was familiar with the Oxford Street experiment a few years ago; I do not know whether it is ongoing. There, the shops discovered that if one shop—say, Debenhams or Selfridges—phoned up and complained, it was no good. If they co-operated among themselves, they could get enough evidence together to justify the Met then coming along and grabbing some people who were working in a concerted effort to steal from their shops. They also discovered that, if they gave the police a gift-wrapped package of good evidential material, then the police would take it seriously. That is the key message here. It is bogus to suggest that just having more police will deal with this problem.
I liked what the Minister said. I have no criticism whatever of the Government on this. We are on the same side. I liked his strong words that this is not shoplifting, it is theft. I also liked his saying that we must make it easier for the shops to report crime, and that is what I have been suggesting. He did not support publication of photographs; I understand his nervousness there. However, I hope he does support the co-operation between shops and others to share all the photographs they have internally between their own security staff and the shops, and possibly any police liaison units, so that they can develop a full picture of what is going on. That makes it easier as the guys move from one shop on Oxford Street to somewhere else; they can move in and grab them in the act.
I am sorry that I suggested lower penalties. I am not sure that I am getting soft in my old age; I did not intend to lower penalties at all. Of course, even with the maximum the Minister has suggested, this will still be halved when the person is sent to prison. All penalties are halved. Again, I take the view that there is no harm having minimum sentences for this.
As I say, I am grateful for the words of the Minister. We cannot stop here. I am not sure that we can come back to this on Report, but we have constantly to bear down on shop theft. It is completely out of control. It has been getting out of control for many years. All Governments keep nibbling away at it, but we are not managing to crack down on it. I hope that, over the next few years, we will look at all aspects of trying to deal with this. If some of the ideas in my proposed three new clauses were considered workable, I would have no qualms with the Government grabbing them and implementing further measures. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.