Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of expanding the definition of assault of a retail worker to include workers in other high street outlets serving customers.

Through our Crime and Policing Bill, this Government has introduced a new specific standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker to help tackle the epidemic of shop theft and violence towards shop workers that we have seen in recent years, and protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores.

For the purposes of this new offence, our definition of a ‘retail worker’ is intentionally narrow given the vital need to provide legal clarity and ensure there is no ambiguity for courts in identifying whether an individual is a retail worker, and the assault took place in the course of their work.