Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to better protect shop workers from abuse and violence in the workplace as set out in the British Retail Consortium's Shopworkers' Protection Pledge, published in September 2020; and what steps her Department is taking to help reduce the number of incidences of abuse and violence towards shop workers in the workplace (a) at all times and (b) during the covid-19 outbreak.

The existing Sentencing Assaults guidelines by the Sentencing Council already requires courts to treat the fact that an offence was committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public as an aggravating factor, making the offence more serious. The Government does not consider that a change to the law is required

The Government is working closely with retailers through the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) co-chaired by the British Retail Consortium to deliver a programme of work which aims to provide better support to victims, improve reporting, increase data sharing and raise awareness of this despicable crime.

Following the outbreak of Covid-19, the Sentencing Council published interim guidance in April that clarifies that, when sentencing assault offences relating to the transmission of Covid-19, the courts should treat this as meriting a more severe sentence.