Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the number of reported incidents of (a) assault and (b) abuse against lone retail workers in each of the last three years.

The Home Office publishes data on the number of incidents of violent crime and public order offences (including assaults and verbal abuse) recorded by the police in England and Wales. The latest data can be found here:

Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables - GOV.UK

It is not currently possible to identify which of these incidents were committed against retail workers during the course of their work, as these incidents fall under categories of crime, such as assault.

In the Crime and Policing Bill, we are bringing forward a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores.

The offence will be allocated a specific Home Office Crime Recording Rule, which will help provide a more complete picture of the problem, in turn informing future policy decisions and enabling the police to respond accordingly.

The Home Office has also published estimates from the Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) on the proportion of retail premises which experienced at least one incident of assault or threat. This data can be found here, and includes those premises which did not report the incident to the police: Crime against businesses statistics - GOV.UK