Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has told shopworkers he would crackdown on violence against them in stores if he wins the general election.
The candidate reiterated Labour’s promise from its manifesto to introduce a specific offence for assaults on store staff to a group of Morrisons employees at the supermarket’s Swindon branch, The Mirror reported.
Starmer said: “It’s not just the shoplifting, it’s also the abuse and threats. […] This is such an important issue. We have to crackdown on it.”
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Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak agreed to include violence against retail staff in the Criminal Justice bill earlier this year, however, the item was tabled when he called the snap election for 4 July.
Starmer added: “We also need to reverse this idea that anything under £200 that people steal is not going to be actionable.”
The Labour manifesto last week vowed to create a new specific offence for assaults on store staff to protect them from “threats and violence”, adding the party would “scrap the effective immunity for some shoplifting introduced by the Conservatives”.
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