Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment because it is trying to achieve consistency in law. At the moment, the law protects a retail worker more, when in fact those who provide services are doing exactly the same thing. Broadly, they deal with the public and they are trying to get rules enforced. They are just trying to make sure that things work well. My reading of the present advice on providing protection to retail workers is that they are protected if they provide goods, but not if they provide services. The consequence of that is that people who, for example, work in betting shops, theatres and cinemas do not receive the same protection that they would receive if they were providing that same retail worker service and also providing goods, and that seems inconsistent. Then there is the further group of workers that the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, referred to: people who work in transport, such as taxi drivers. All of them face people who are often affected by drink or drugs, for example, and have to challenge bad behaviour, but they do not receive this protection. That seems odd. I find it odd that the Government do not want to protect that group of workers in the same way. For reasons of consistency, and because the workers I have described—those who work in betting offices, for example, where you get some pretty bad behaviour at times—deserve that protection, they ought to be included. My final point is that although the present legislation excludes wholesale workers—should I name the companies? Perhaps not—you only get access to some of these wholesale or, I would say, retail sites by joining a club; you do not pay any money. I think we all know the ones I am talking about, where you get access to better prices merely by joining the club. Apparently, that is not retail. I think it is pretty much like retail. They still get bad behaviour on these sites. For all those reasons, I think this amendment regarding public-facing workers is a good idea and I encourage the Government to support it for the sake of consistency for those who provide services to us.