Retailers are demanding urgent action from the Home Secretary Suella Braverman over rising levels of retail crime, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) reports.
According to the trade association, 88 retail leaders from firms including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Primark, and Boots have signed a letter to Braverman, making two demands of the government.
The retail industry firstly wants the government to create a nationwide standalone offence of assaulting or abusing a retail worker, with tougher sentences for offenders.
Secondly, they called for greater prioritisation of retail crime by police across the UK, after police data for one major retailer showed they failed to respond to 73% of serious retail crimes that were reported.
Furthermore, 44% of retailers in the BRC’s 2023 Annual Crime Survey rated the police response as “poor” or “very poor”.
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The survey also revealed incidents of violence and abuse towards retail staff had nearly doubled on pre-pandemic levels to 867 incidents per day in 2021/22.
Meanwhile, it put the scale of retail theft at £953m, despite more than £700m being spent on crime prevention.
This brought the total cost of retail crime to £1.76bn for the 12-month period to April.
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “We need to see a standalone offence for assaulting or abusing a retail worker – as exists in Scotland.
“We need government to stand with the millions of retail workers who kept us safe and fed during the pandemic – and support them, as those workers supported us.”
It comes as retail bosses are actively speaking out about the detrimental impacts of shoplifting to the well-being of staff and retail operations.
John Lewis Partnership chair Sharon White described the recent boom as an “epidemic”, revealing that the surge in crime was costing the business £12m year on year.
In turn, Primark owner Associated British Foods chief executive George Weston called for tougher enforcement on shoplifters, while Iceland executive chairman Richard Walker revealed Iceland employees have been “slapped, punched and threatened with weapons” amid the recent surge.
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