Case Study - Retail Crime

In her speech at Labour Party Conference in 2023, then Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper MP said that there was an ‘epidemic of shoplifting and violence against shop workers’. She was right. According to the ONS, retail crime rose 37% in 2023 to an all-time high of 430,104 offences – although this was likely an undercount because so many offences were never reported or recorded. Alongside this, incidents of violence and abuse against shop workers rose 50% year-on-year to 1,300 incident a day.

There were two legislative issues driving this rapid increase in retail crime. The first was the 2014 Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing act which defined ‘low-value shoplifting’ as theft of good worth less than £200, punishable by a fine paid by post. The idea was it would be easier to prosecute for these offences by avoiding the need for magistrates’ courts and sentencing. However, in practice the fines were rarely paid, and criminals simply went unpunished. This had the knock-on effect of deterring police from following up on crimes, as they knew that, even if caught, the preparators would face little or no sanction. In turn this meant that shopkeepers were less likely to even report crimes as the police were unlikely to intervene.

Low-value shoplifting had been, in effect, decriminalised.

The second issue was the lack of a specific offence for violence against shopkeepers. Combined with the difficulties in prosecuting for theft, criminals in shops were becoming emboldened, particularly when challenged over thefts.

Retail crime is a problem for all retailers, but more so for smaller and independent businesses. A shopkeeper on an 8% margin, which is usually on the higher end, has to sell £2,500 of goods to make up a theft of £200, which can often be several days’ turnover. Also, small shopkeepers struggle to invest in expensive safety equipment such as CCTV or security staff.

Keystone Consulting’s client is a trade association representing these small shopkeepers. Their members were the ones being most hurt.

Government policy around retailers recognised the problems, but because lobbying around retail was dominated by the giants such as supermarkets and big chains, policy was too often focused on their priorities.

Keystone’s solution was to pull together interested members and coordinate them to get the message across to decision makers. The members were supported in this by other stakeholders who provided context, examples and other avenues for communications.

Here are a few examples of how we achieved this.

• Arranging for members to ask questions to clarify understanding of the current situation, such as facts around sentencing and effectiveness of current legislation. It was established, for instance, that a shoplifter had to be convicted and incredible 31 times before they were given a custodial sentence.
• Putting together events to show the impact of retail crime on smaller retailers and drive the message home to key stakeholders in both the political and policing spheres that what is a minor problem for larger retailers is a deadly serious matter for independents.
• Running the secretariat of the APPG on Retail Crime to help members establish themselves as parliamentary champions on the issue. We helped to identify which Parliamentarians would stand up for retailers and present their case in Parliament and beyond to maximise effectiveness in a noisy news cycle.
• Engaged with the police leadership, including serving officers and Police and Crime Commissioners, to show that the proposed legislative fixes would help them get arrests and convictions, and ultimately to help them tackle law and order challenges.
• Writing legislation to be presented through Ten Minute Rule Bills, private members’ bills and legislative amendments to demonstrate to the Government these changes could be made in a practical sense.

Thanks to our campaign, the previous government had announced policy changes, including the creation of a specific offence for violence against shopkeepers, to be introduced in the 2023 Criminal Justice Bill.  However, the election frustrated that, and the bill died before it became law. Even so, the Conservatives held our against removing the £200 threshold.

Working with key figures from the APPG, we helped our Parliamentary ambassadors move to lobby the Opposition of the time, now the new government on this issue.

The Labour manifesto for the 2024 election included commitments to both change the law on the £200 limit and introduce the offence of violence against shopkeepers. It was also mentioned in the Kings Speech where the Government committed to a Bill that “will include measures to: … tackle retail crime. Create a new specific offence of assaulting a shopworker and introduce stronger measures to tackle low level shoplifting.”

This was followed up by commitments in the Budget 2024 that the Chancellor will scrap the effective immunity for low-value shoplifting, provide additional funding to combat organised gangs which target retailers, and to provide more training to police.

We are now waiting to see both changes become law with the passage of the Crime and Policing Bill.