Jacob Collier

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) on securing this debate and on the passionate way in which he laid out the case. The Crime and Policing Act was a key moment in our journey to a society in which the job that we do does not determine how we are treated at work, and retail workers across my constituency are now safer, thanks to the actions of this Government and the campaigning by the Co-operative party and USDAW in particular. Before I was elected, I went to visit Central Co-op workers in my constituency in Stretton, Horninglow and Winshill, and I was shocked by what I heard. Pretty much every worker that I spoke to had faced verbal or physical abuse of some kind simply for doing their job. They were proud, hard-working people simply going out to do a job and provide for their family. Sexism and racism makes women workers and workers of colour even more vulnerable. Probably the most horrific story I heard when I spoke to those workers was about a female colleague doused in liquid and threatened with a lighter. I cannot imagine what that would have been like for her in the moment and then reflecting on it afterwards. But in true brave spirit, she was back at work within days. Often, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly said, the trauma of that abuse goes home with people. It does not just affect them and their mood; their wider family are impacted, too. That abuse is an assault on their pride in who they are. Often, retail workers, particularly those who work in shops, will live local to where they work. I heard one case of a female shop worker who was verbally assaulted and then saw the person who had committed that abuse as she was walking home in her uniform. Due to this Labour Government making assault against retail workers a specific offence, I can say to those people I met, “We have heard you. We have acted.” It must be noted that the law change did not include verbal abuse or wider customer-facing roles, so that is why I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly on securing this debate and on the points that he has made. I cannot pretend that things will change just because the law has changed—sadly, they will not. The fact that we have to put up signs in shops and hospitals and on our buses asking people to be kind shows that, as a society, the basic respect that we had for each other has broken down. I hope that we can restore that. The change in the law was, however, a clear statement that assault of retail workers will not be tolerated. We have repealed the appalling Tory law that meant that those stealing items under £200 were effectively decriminalised.