Member

We have put in place the Security Industry Authority, which is the regulator for the private security industry. It is setting training standards for licence-linked qualifications and as part of that training, security guards learn physical intervention skills, how to perform a citizen’s arrest, the law on use of force, and how to de-escalate areas of conflict. Individual businesses can and do determine their own policy on the arrest of shoplifters by licensed security guards, in compliance with UK law, but it is a valuable area of work, and giving security guards wider powers of arrest would create potential difficulties. It would require even more specialist training and oversight of the use of detention powers. As described in the amendment, it would entail significant training requirements and a significant cost to business, and it would open up issues of public accountability for the exercise of coercive powers.