James Cleverly MP
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Dear Home Secretary,

Retail crime is a scourge on our high streets which has a profound cost not just on retailers but the shopworkers who are too often forced to endure this criminality.

In recent months, reports from across the retail sector demonstrate the extent to which this crisis is escalating, with soaring rates of retail crime including shoplifting and the violence, threats and abuse directed towards retail staff.

Across the first six months of this year alone, for instance, Co-op reported 175,000 recorded incidents, representing around 1,000 incidents a day and an increase of 35% on the previous year.

Throughout the country criminals have been given the freedom to loot, with organised crime gangs often stealing to order and persistently repeating these offences in the same shops. What’s more, these criminal acts often act as flashpoints for anti-social behaviour against retail staff who are subject to appalling levels of violence, threats and abuse as they go about their jobs.

This behaviour is unacceptable, and alongside the co-operative retail sector, the Co-operative Party and the shopworkers' union USDAW have long campaigned for more to be done to address this crisis.

Important steps have been taken, including the recently launched Retail Crime Action Plan which rightly seeks to ensure a police commitment to prioritise this issue. The actions already taken by retailers themselves to tackle retail crime are commendable and must be supported, including the retail sector’s approach under Project Pegasus.

But whilst we recognise and welcome the important steps that have been taken by retailers to address this epidemic of criminality, we urge the Government to go further in supporting their efforts.

Immediate steps towards this have been outlined by the Shadow Home Secretary, critically including a new and specific offence of assault against retail workers, and ensuring all shoplifting crimes are investigated by the police by scrapping the current £200 rule on theft of goods.

Given the scale of the crisis facing our retailers, high streets and shopworkers in the face of this soaring criminality, we urge you to seize the opportunity and follow the blueprint outlined by the Labour Party in supporting retailers and cracking down on retail crime.

Yours,

Alice Macdonald, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Norwich North
Andrew Pakes, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Peterborough
Anna Turley, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Redcar
Baggy Shanker, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Derby South
Chris Vince, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Harlow
Douglas Alexander, Scottish Labour and Co-operative Candidate for East Lothian
Gareth Snell, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Stoke on Trent Central
Helena Dollimore, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Hastings and Rye
Jack Abbott, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Ipswich
Jackie Jones, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Ceredigion Preseli
Jayne Kirkham, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Truro and Falmouth
Jo Platt, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Leigh
Kirsty McNeill, Scottish Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Midlothian
Miatta Fahnbulleh, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Peckham
Oliver Ryan, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Burnley
Rachel Blake, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Cities of London and Westminster
Sally Jameson, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Doncaster Central
Sarah Hall, Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Warrington South