Protection of Retail Workers

[James Gray in the Chair]

Before I call the Member in charge of the debate to propose the motion, I point out to Members both physically here in Westminster Hall and virtually that we have a total of 15 Back-Bencher speakers. Allowing 43 minutes for those speeches, that gives us less than three minutes per head for Back Benchers. I do not intend to impose a formal time limit, because I think that substitutes quality for quantity, but we should all limit ourselves to a maximum of two—perhaps three—minutes for Back-Bench speeches.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 328621, relating to the protection of retail workers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

I thank the petition creator and all those who signed it, giving us the opportunity to debate this hugely important issue. As of last Friday, 104,354 signatures were on the petition, so I think it is fair to say that this something that a lot of people up and down the country care greatly about. Having worked in retail, it is one that I, too, care deeply about. Over the past year, while most of us have retreated to the safety and comfort of our own homes, many of our retail workers rolled up their sleeves and got on with it, making sure that our shops remained stocked so that we could all access the essentials we needed as we bunkered down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

We have asked a lot of our retail workers over the past year: not only have we asked them to brave the pandemic, potentially putting themselves at risk from the virus, but we have asked them to implement the measures that were designed to keep us all safe, such as mask wearing and social distancing. As a result, violence and abuse directed towards retail workers has gone through the roof.

Recently, I met some amazing, passionate ladies who work in retail: Jo who works for the Co-op in Northumberland, Kate who works for Primark in Worcester and Jane who works at Tesco in north Wales. Each told me that since the pandemic began, the number of incidents of abuse had increased noticeably. They told me about the fear and the risks faced by ordinary men and women who go to work in shops in all our communities across the country, echoing the issues I have heard from my own constituents.

I heard from responsible retail businesses as well, such as Morrisons, the Co-op, Asda, Sainsbury’s and many others. They are investing millions of pounds trying to protect their staff and are desperate for more to be done. A recent survey by the British Retail Consortium has shown that a staggering 455 incidents of abuse and violence are now directed towards retail workers, not each month or each week, but every day—yes, 455 incidents every day. Men and women go to work—some of them young people or even students in their first job, some of them mothers, trying to manage a job around family life, some of them semi-retired, in the later years of their life, but all trying to earn a living—and are subjected to disgusting abuse as a result.

Another survey, by USDAW, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, found that the top triggers for abusive incidents were enforcing social distancing at 24%, queuing to get into stores at 17%, and wearing face masks at 15%. Nobody likes having to queue to get into a shop or to wear masks, but that is absolutely no reason to be abusive, threatening or violent to someone who is just doing their job. There is never a reason to do any of those things to someone who is trying to earn a living. When I was talking to USDAW members, they told me shocking stories about how people have weaponised covid during the pandemic, spitting at them and threatening to infect them with the virus.

What a pleasure it is serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, even though it is remotely. I have been a member of the Co-operative party and a Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament for all my long parliamentary career, and I have a particular affinity for the small co-operative shops—real grassroots community facilities—that are essential to local communities. Of course, the Co-op is not the only small business working in local communities; there are many more. We must seek to protect all workers in all those shops.

Yes, we would like legislation; yes, we want this petition to be successful; yes, we want to give as much protection to workers in England and other parts of the United Kingdom as those in Scotland have. But we need to go further than that. The small shop is absolutely central to our communities—it is the life of the community. Workers in small shops that stay open late at night, are there when people need them and are very close to home so that people do not need a car to get large amounts of goods in order to be a customer—vital neighbourhood facilities—should be protected as well as workers in the large stores. Some large stores are well managed and have security that is very good indeed. Others are less efficient at keeping a well-managed shop and protecting the workers who work there. I want a change in the law to protect workers, but that is not all. These are designated key workers, who have been key in the first wave of fighting against covid and all the problems of this past miserable year, so I want them to be protected; I want them to be looked after, whether in a big store or a small store. I do not go to as many shops as many people, because I am a married man, and all the research data shows that if a woman takes a man to a shop with her, her bill when they get to the checkout is 20% higher than if she goes on her own. That might be a bit of a sexist comment, but it is my personal experience.

I want to change the culture. This is not about every consumer, but about a small minority of people who do not like obeying the laws that we pass in this Parliament. They do not like the fact that there are age restrictions on buying alcohol, restrictions on buying tobacco, or the special restrictions on buying too many items of one good that were introduced during the covid epidemic. Most customers are good, well-behaved, excellent people, going about their business, buying things and being nice—the sermon in my church on Sunday was about, “Let’s get back to being nice to one another.” We need a cultural change, speaking up when we witness verbal abuse or any abuse in our local shops or supermarkets. Let us work together to change culture: let us make sure that we drive out the antisocial behaviour, whether verbal or physical abuse, that is becoming far too common.

Mr Gray, as ever, it is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair. I shall do my best to follow your instruction, although I cannot guarantee any greater degree of quality if I get rid of quantity. Following the recollection by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) of the sermon he heard at the weekend, I agree wholeheartedly that we should all be nice to one another, but I also hope that men and women alike will go and spend what they can at our shops as we emerge from the covid pandemic. The Co-op being a theme of today’s debate, there are two pioneers here today—if I can use that phrase, borrowed from the Rochdale pioneers of the co-operative movement. Those are my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), who gave a fine exposition of the issues in his opening speech, and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who is further down the call list and has done a great deal of work in this area.

If I have any time left after those opening remarks, I will be very brief. Last Wednesday, I was fortunate to visit the newly opened Co-op store in my constituency, on Church Lane in Marple. They are doing a great job there, regenerating that part of the town and improving that end of Market street. I was able to hear at first hand from Nick, Julie and Melissa about their experiences, particularly during the pandemic—which have been ably explained by others—but also more generally. As an example, workers at the Sainsbury’s in my constituency now wear a body cam as they limit the queues going in. What a sign of the times! Many of us have been able to exist in a degree of comfort and convenience during the pandemic, but those on the frontline—on the shop floor—have had to bear witness and have been assaulted in all manner of ways. It is simply intolerable.

I am not one to recommend a change in the law lightly. The first step, as has been shown by some police and crime commissioners, is to enforce the existing law properly, particularly against prolific offenders. I think that an example in Sussex showed recently that a targeted approach, whereby the police are able to take this matter as seriously as they should, yielded strong results and gave shop workers the confidence that their daily experience is being taken seriously. However, if that is not enough, then a change in the law is necessary and I would support assaults on retail workers becoming an aggravated offence.

An admirable three minutes—very good.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

I thank the Member in charge, the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), for agreeing to lead the debate for the Petitions Committee. In doing so, I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who has worked on this issue since he joined the House in 2017. I was proud to support his ten-minute rule Bill—I think that was well over a year ago—highlighting the realities of working in the retail sector and the abuses that too many people who work in the sector face.

I will place something on the record as a former worker in the retail sector. For those who do not know, I was a trainee butcher in Tesco; you would not believe the number of times I have said that, Mr Gray. That was my first proper job and I received abuse from members of the public; it was nothing unusual to have meat quite literally thrown at us in shops. It was really very common for customers to think it perfectly normal to shout at staff on a regular basis and to think nothing of making threats of physical and verbal abuse.

I also stand here proudly as an USDAW-supported Member of Parliament; I have been for many years and it is in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. USDAW does Freedom From Fear work every year. Its last survey was in 2020. Of the respondents, nine in 10 shop workers confirmed that they had been verbally abused; 60% said that they had reported threats of abuse; and 9% had been physically assaulted. Those figures are stark and deeply concerning, showing that when someone goes to work they live with the fear of either being threatened or actually physically assaulted.

I pay tribute to USDAW for the work that it has done over decades to try and improve this situation. When I was working in retail some 20 years ago, this work was going on then. Actually, it has gone on too long—this abuse is simply unacceptable. I agree, as I do occasionally, with the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), that if the law cannot be enforced, I hope that the Minister will tell us today that there can be a meaningful change in the law to protect retail workers, in the same way that we protect other frontline workers in the NHS, the police, the ambulance service and the fire service. Retail workers really are frontline workers who deserve our support.

The next speaker represents a town where my grandfather was a butcher for 60 years.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and I hope that connection with Coatbridge will buy me an extra 30 seconds in this debate.

Not a chance.

I commend the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for leading this debate today.

Throughout the coronavirus crisis, key workers across the retail sector have played an invaluable role in our communities, ensuring that we can maintain our basic right to access food. Without their incredible contribution, it is undoubtedly clear that we would have failed to get through this unprecedented global crisis in the manner we have. However, despite their heroic efforts, it is incredibly disappointing that the coronavirus crisis has resulted in a significant increase in abuse, threats and violence towards our retail workers. It is high time that we tackled such abuse and provided retail workers with the proper protections and respect that they deserve, especially given the current climate.

Weekly data released by the representative body of the UK’s retail sector, USDAW, show that abusive incidents towards shop workers have doubled since the outbreak of covid-19. Respondents to its survey reported being spat at, coughed at and sneezed at when asking customers to practise social distancing—I am sure every Member will agree that that really is abhorrent. When averaged across all 3 million workers across the retail sector, it amounts to a staggering 3,500 assaults every single day. Although not all shop workers suffer to this extent, some experience much worse, with one in six reporting being abused on every single shift. These are not mere statistics; this issue affects our parents, our partners, our brothers and sisters, and our children, who are needlessly suffering just for carrying out their job.

Many incidents arise as staff carry out their legal duties, including age verification and, more recently, the implementation of covid safety measures. We must all recognise that outwith our NHS, the biggest body of work throughout this pandemic has been undertaken by these undervalued and underpaid workers, who have been tasked with implementing, and ultimately enforcing, many of the guidelines that affect our daily lives. Despite retailers and businesses spending enormous sums on crime prevention, the situation is getting worse. Retail workers are employed in one of the sectors most vulnerable to violence, yet they are still being neglected and ignored. Of course, we are seeking to put that right.

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate with you in the Chair, Mr Gray. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and note that I am a proud member of USDAW, which does so much great campaign work on this issue.

The pandemic has shown once and for all how vital retail workers are. They have been largely unsung heroes on the frontline of the pandemic—dealing with the public, keeping us supplied and keeping our society going, yet they are regularly abused and assaulted. We have heard some of the shocking statistics from hon. Members, and things have got worse over the last year. In Co-op stores alone in the first quarter of 2021, there have been almost 400 incidents where weapons have been used against shop workers, and more than half of those have been sharp implements such as a syringe, knife or bottle. That is just in the first quarter of 2021.

As today’s report from the Home Affairs Committee says, many incidents go unreported. Some of the people who are reluctant to report incidents said in their evidence to the Committee that it is part of the job, but it should not be part of the job. When I discussed this issue with local shop workers in Didsbury in my constituency, it was clear that this was a really big problem. Despite what the Daily Mail might think, Didsbury is an enviably nice, welcoming, cosmopolitan and mainly middle-class area—and a no-go zone for no one—but we have had issues in recent years with gangs of young people shoplifting. The fear is that when they are challenged, they then become aggressive and abusive, or worse.

A couple of years ago, I wrote to the regional managers of the bigger stores in the area, asking for their support for better security and engagement with the local traders association. Most of them were positive and responsive, but not all, and it should not be down to the attitudes of individual employers or owners for retail workers to be properly protected. The Government need to introduce a framework of protection for workers, which means ensuring that people understand that there are consequences for abusing or assaulting retail workers. As the petition asks for, we need the creation of a specific new criminal offence of assaulting, threatening or abusing retail workers. That is supported across the country by staff, by unions and by shop owners, from small businesses to retail giants. We have heard that, in Scotland, legislation to protect shop workers from violence will come into force on 24 August. I congratulate everyone who has made that happen, but if it is good enough for Scotland, why not for the rest of the UK? We have an opportunity. We do not need to wait for a full Bill to pass through Parliament. If we can support new clause 45 as tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, we have an opportunity to make a real difference for retail workers, so let us take that opportunity. Let us help the people who should not be scared just by going to work. “Freedom From Fear”, the USDAW campaign slogan, should not be just a campaign slogan. It should be reality for the people who serve us.