Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I welcome Glyn Roberts, the chief executive of Retail NI, and Neil Johnston, the director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium (NIRC). Thank you very much for your attendance to make a presentation and to answer questions. We are tight for time, so I ask you to be concise when making a presentation and answering questions. I remind members to be concise and to stick to questions if you can.

I will hand over to you, Glyn and Neil, without further ado.

Mr Glyn Roberts (Retail NI): Thank you very much, Chair, for the opportunity to present to you on the Criminal Justice (Sentencing etc) Bill. Our two organisations have done a lot of work on it, working closely with our colleagues in the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW), the shopworkers' union.

When you look at the Bill, you are focused on schedules and amendments and so on, and it easy to forget the human side of it all. When I was talking to one of our members not that long ago, I was struck when he told me that, in the past two years, every single member of his staff has been assaulted. That has resulted not only in the trauma for those staff members but the days that his staff have had to spend in court, which has a further impact on the business and, indeed, the individuals in question. The statistics bear that out. We carried out a detailed survey not so long ago, which showed that 67% of retail staff have been assaulted, with 51% leaving their job because of that assault. That puts into context where we are and the importance of the Bill.

We are delighted to present on the Bill and welcome the opportunity to reform or update sentencing measures, recognising that we need to tackle the issues head-on. The rise in crime against businesses is happening in every part of Northern Ireland, and we need to ensure that local retail workers are afforded the same protections as are in place in other parts of the UK and in the Republic of Ireland. We welcome the progress that the Justice Minister has made, and we acknowledge her observation that no one should face violence or abuse whilst simply doing their job.

As, I am sure, my colleague Neil will say, the challenges that retailers, large and small, face are a growing and increasingly costly affair. However, business owners themselves remain deeply frustrated by what they see happening in their businesses, day in, day out. You will be aware of the concerns that we have highlighted from our research with members as regards crimes against businesses. A lot of their frustration focuses on the current justice and sentencing system. My members feel that those who steal from them, attack their staff and damage their property have little to fear from the current justice system. If they are apprehended at all, criminals are often seen back on the streets within hours, and that cannot be right.

Retailers value their staff, who are the face of their business, and they are frustrated by the lack of legal protection for retail workers. Our research found that 91% of our members described theft and shoplifting as the most prolific crimes that they face. As I mentioned, two thirds of staff have been impacted on by physical violence or threats. It is equally worrying that many crimes are increasingly considered by statutory agencies to be "low-level" offences. There is no such crime category from the perspective of the retailer or their staff.

We also note that the issue of theft by addicts and those who have problems with substance abuse to fund their addiction is an increasingly growing concern across Northern Ireland. We have even had an ongoing problem with meat theft from some of our members in south-east Belfast. There is a unanimous belief that the explosion in drug use is fuelling the rise in theft and other criminal activity.

With that in mind, there is real concern that some punishments will be of no consequence to hardened offenders. We have campaigned for new legislation to make the targeting of shop staff a stand-alone offence with a minimum custodial sentence and for a formal review of sentencing guidelines to ensure that they are appropriate for the crime. However, we note that, unfortunately, the Bill as introduced does not contain a specific reference to "retail worker". Instead, there is a much broader term, "public worker", which is vague and open to interpretation. It is only on page 12 of the explanatory and financial memorandum (EFM) that a single reference to retail is made, which states that the Minister has agreed:

Indeed, that further consideration needs to happen during the passage of the Bill. We need to see results, if not amendments being tabled, to reflect that.

Looking at the bigger picture, I recently listened to an interview with a national retailer who spends £1 million a year on store security. My members, the vast majority of whom are small independents, do not have the resources to do that and are therefore highly vulnerable. They have young staff, some of whom are female, and no private security and are struggling to make sure that their staff are as secure as possible.

The frustration is exacerbated when we consider that other parts of the UK have progressed retail-specific legislation: in Scotland, the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021; and, in England, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. What lessons have been learned from those examples? What engagement has taken place? It is not clear whether any has. I welcome the provision in those examples that retailers who are victims of crime are encouraged to make an impact statement for business, which is a written statement intended to provide businesses with a voice in the criminal justice process. Where statements are considered appropriate, courts can take account of them when deciding sentencing, and many of my members would welcome the opportunity to share their frustrations. In the Republic of Ireland, the Protection of Retail Workers Bill 2025 creates specific offences for assaulting, threatening or harassing retail staff. In short, we do not want our members' staff to be left behind.

Our most recent research shows that we are enduring a spike in aggressive shoplifting, where theft is frequently accomplished by violence. I can put it no more starkly than that. We look forward to further engagement with the Committee and the Department to ensure that businesses, retailers and their staff get the protection that they need. All we are asking for is what other parts of the UK and the rest of this island have: nothing less and nothing more.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you, Glyn. Thank you for being concise and sticking to time. I really appreciate that.

Neil, over to you.

Mr Neil Johnston (Northern Ireland Retail Consortium): Chair and members, thank you for the opportunity to give evidence on behalf of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium. For those of you who may not be aware, I say that the consortium represents all the national retailers. That is nearly all the supermarkets and much of the food-to-go sector, including McDonald's, Greggs and Costa Coffee, as well as Boots and B&Q: anybody whom you care to mention that you might see in a retail park or shopping centre and on the high street in Northern Ireland. They employ significant numbers of staff in Northern Ireland.

NIRC strongly supports the creation of a stand-alone offence of assaulting a public-facing worker. The simple principle behind our support is that nobody should face violence or abuse simply for doing their job. For retail workers, that principle has particular force. Our colleagues are required to challenge shoplifting, refuse service to intoxicated or abusive individuals, deal with antisocial behaviour and, importantly, enforce statutory age restrictions. When shopworkers refuse an unlawful sale, they are not making a personal choice; they are upholding the law, and the law should provide clear protection when they do so.

This is part of a serious UK-wide problem. Evidence gathered by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), our sister organisation, has shown violence and abuse against retail workers occurring at extraordinarily high levels, with more than 2,000 incidents a day being reported in its recent crime survey. That represents real people being threatened, abused and assaulted simply for carrying out their work. We therefore welcome the direction being taken in Northern Ireland.

There are useful lessons from Scotland. Since 2021, Scotland has had specific legislation protecting retail workers from assault, threats and abuse with an additional statutory aggravator where the worker is enforcing an age restriction. That legislation has not been simply symbolic. Thousands of cases have been recorded by Police Scotland, and thousands of charges have been reported to prosecutors. For NIRC, the lesson is clear: a stand-alone offence provides recognition, visibility and accountability. It makes the crimes easier to identify through the justice system and sends an unequivocal message that attacking someone because they are doing their job is unacceptable.

Legislation alone will not solve the problem, however. We ask the Committee to focus on what happens after Royal Assent. We need clear PSNI recording, effective prosecution, appropriate sentencing, worker awareness and regular publication of data showing recorded offences, charges, prosecutions and outcomes. We encourage the Department of Justice to establish a baseline before commencement and to report annually thereafter. That will allow the Committee and the Assembly to judge whether the new law is making a difference.

Finally, we urge the Committee to ensure that the legislation clearly protects retail staff when they are carrying out their legal obligations, including age verification and refusing prohibited sales. Our message is straightforward: retail workers should not have to accept violence, threats or abuse as part of their job. NIRC strongly supports the introduction of a stand-alone offence, and we urge the Committee to ensure that that is accompanied by enforcement, recording and accountability: all are necessary to make that protection meaningful.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you very much, Neil. I really appreciate your both being concise and sharp. I will open it up to members.

Mr McGlone: The Committee has heard from different sectors that are looking for their occupation to be singled out — set apart, if you like — for increased or enhanced sentencing of anyone who assaults emergency workers, for example: police, Ambulance Service and Fire and Rescue Service staff and the like. I entirely understand what you are talking about, because I have seen it. The behaviour that you are talking about is disgraceful.

Is a retail-specific offence, rather than the broader public worker offence, required? Are you going along the lines of Scotland, where there is recording of the offence? Did I pick up from you correctly that that has improved the situation beyond improving the recording of the incidents in Scotland?

Mr Johnston: It has done both. It is interesting to hear you say that you have witnessed the behaviour. The BRC survey showed that one in four people in Northern Ireland has witnessed verbal or physical abuse of a staff member in the past year. That figure of 25% is higher than the UK figure, which is 21%. It seems to be an even bigger problem in Northern Ireland than it is elsewhere. We have been behind the campaign at a national level. In Scotland, the legislation came into effect in 2021. At Westminster, the legislation on a fairly restricted "retail worker" offence in England and Wales has been passed, but, for whatever reason, political or otherwise, there is no commencement order. We can see that, in GB, it has been kept focused. There is a decision for the Minister. Along with USDAW and Glyn, we lobbied the Minister to include it in the Bill. She has decided to keep it fairly broad. That is her decision. I am here to argue for protection for retail workers.

Mr Roberts: It is worth pointing out that retail is our biggest sector by a long way. The vast majority of workers are in that sector. Given its size and scale, it is appropriate that retail workers be provided for in the Bill. It is perfectly possible to put down amendments that would give it greater definition — we are not looking to completely rewire or refocus the Bill — and recognise that. Remember that we are not asking for anything different from what the rest of the UK or the rest of the island have: we simply want the same.

Neil makes the point about follow-up very well. We cannot see this in isolation, saying, "We get this, and we are one more step towards the promised land". There are loads of other things that we need to do, from looking at the fines that shoplifters get to making sure — we have been doing a lot of work with the PSNI — that police neighbourhood teams are appropriately resourced. Unless they get the resources that they need, we will never solve the problem. We also need, for instance, crime recording. That is very important, because, when the Policing Board and Chief Constable set the policing plan, business crime is not included as a KPI or a priority, never mind retail crime. There is no requirement for the Chief Constable to report back on what the police are doing on business crime, full stop, never mind retail crime or any other crime that our members face. There is work to be done.

Equally, I could apply the same thing to policing and community safety partnerships (PCSPs). We surveyed our members and found that nearly 40% of them did not know what a PCSP was. There is no requirement for the business community to have any sort of representation on PCSPs. It is not just about this issue in isolation; there is a ton of other stuff across criminal justice and policing and to do with accountability measures that needs to be fixed as well.

Mr Johnston: I have the figures from Scotland in front of me. From 2021-23, there were 8,000 reported cases, of which 3,500 were reported to the prosecutors and nearly 3,000 were marked for court proceedings. When the legislation comes into operation, we need to be able to get that sort of data, not just something generic about how many people have been charged with the offence but information on how many cases related to retail and different contexts. It is only through doing that that Scotland has been able to say, "Right, this is the scale of the problem in Scotland, and we need to address it". Our members have invested a lot of money to deal with that. My members in particular have invested a lot in dealing with restricted sales. We need to know where the problem is so that the PSNI can be held to account.

On a number of occasions, Glyn touched on the figures: we have seen a doubling in shoplifting in Northern Ireland in the past 10 years. The problem of shoplifting and assault is worse in Great Britain, and the PSNI is to be congratulated on that, but that does not lessen the fact that we have a serious issue with assault and there has been a gargantuan increase in shoplifting that needs to be addressed.

Mr McGlone: I appreciate that. I have one brief follow-up question. Glyn, you mentioned the use of fines. From what I have seen, many, though not all, instances of assault, be it verbal or physical, are addiction-fuelled. Where am I going with that? You cannot get blood from a stone.

Mr Roberts: Take Belfast city centre and the experience of one of our members, which I referred to at the start of my remarks. Every single member of their staff has been assaulted. That needs a proper multi-agency approach. I do not think that it is anywhere near where it needs to be. There is no policing response. There needs to be a multi-agency approach. Indeed, many statutory agencies simply do not have the budget. It obviously requires that.

When it comes to increased fines for shoplifting, it is important that on a number of —.

Mr McGlone: I think that you were directing comments on increased fines specifically to the assault issue.

Mr Roberts: We are looking for people to get a specific sentence, if they are found guilty. Legislation in other parts of the UK sets that out. In line with sentencing policy, a specific type of assault would require a specific statutory sentence. We want to go further in a lot of other areas but with shoplifting in particular. Again, as we mentioned, a lot of the time, when staff are assaulted, it is because they have engaged shoplifters.

Mr McGlone: It is not the shoplifting; it is the consequence of the staff member trying to prevent the shoplifting or that person from leaving the premises.

Mr Roberts: It is not on every occasion, but, a lot of the time, it is when shopworkers challenge shoplifters that things turn ugly and people get assaulted.

Mr Johnston: People do not take kindly to the refusal of the sale of age-restricted items, such as alcohol and cigarettes, particularly if they have a drink or drug problem. It might not even be the case that they have a problem. It could just be the fact that it is the evening. Unfortunately, shops that stay open in the evening see that. It is a widespread occurrence that staff are regularly abused, if not assaulted.

Mr McGlone: Yes. OK. Thank you for that.

Ms Egan: Thank you, Neil and Glyn, for coming in. I might need to declare an interest, as I used to work in an off-licence. A lot of what you have said rings quite true to me, though I am glad that I was never physically assaulted.

I am really interested in some of the proposals that you have put across. Can you talk a bit more about the impact statements for businesses and how they are working in Scotland? Do you think that being able to hear directly from businesses about the impact that those crimes have had on them is having an impact on the sentences that are being handed down?

Mr Johnston: I am not sure that I have any evidence in that particular regard. What we have taken an interest in is the number of prosecutions that are being forced through. I am afraid that I cannot give you any evidence on that front.

Mr Roberts: It has a part to play because, obviously, it will impact on the specific sentence that an individual will receive. A lot of the incidences that we are talking about have been recorded. If we were to add in the unrecorded incidences, the situation would be a lot worse in practice. What we are really trying to do is to empower the worker and the retail owner.

Mr Johnston: There is an issue with it being a crime that sort of goes under the radar to a certain extent. Not many workers who have been assaulted will want to appear on television to recount their experiences. It is a traumatic experience for staff to be verbally abused let alone physically abused. I guess that, from that point of view, it can only be a good thing to allow victims to put that impact on the record.

Ms Egan: Yes. Do you envisage that the individual — for example, the sales assistant — who has been assaulted and is the specific victim could give a victim impact statement and, as well as that, the business owner could then give an impact statement for the business? They are two slightly different things, because the impact statement is about how the direct victim feels, while, I assume, the business impact statement is about the wider impact on the business.

Mr Roberts: For instance, one impact, if you are a small independent retailer, is that two of your four or five staff might be in court giving evidence, not necessarily about their own case but about other related incidents. That has a clear impact on the business. Our members, in the main, cannot afford private security. Obviously, they do the Safe Shop training with the PSNI. A lot of them have invested in installing facial recognition technology, which, again, is not cheap. Over the summer, as members know, we were involved with our High Street Heroes campaign. We visited a lot of small rural towns and, indeed, retailers that serve quite large estates. Again, you have young, female staff who are there late. We need to ensure that staff such as them are given as much protection as possible within the law.

It goes back to the point that no worker should have to put up with that. Figures show that 51% of retail workers who have been assaulted have left their job. To put that in a broader context: if 51% of any workers had to leave their job due to discrimination — whether it be political, religious or ethnic — or whatever, there would rightly be a very strong outcry, but we have 51% who are leaving as a result of "normal" crime, so to speak, and there is less of an outcry. There is a feeling that, somehow, what we are all talking about is victimless and does not have an impact in the same way. It does have an impact, and we have not even got into the issue of the shopworker's mental health because of that and their ability to recover. There are so many layers to it.

Mr Johnston: There is also the scale of it. As I said, shoplifting has doubled in the past 10 years. In the past year or so, it seems to have peaked. It actually seems to have peaked earlier in Northern Ireland. Our members and the PSNI are doing a great job in trying to curb shoplifting, but, if you consider that there has been a doubling in shoplifting in the past 10 years, one could extrapolate that there has probably been a doubling of assaults and incidents of abuse of shopworkers over the same period. The two are strongly related.

Ms Egan: That is really interesting. I have worked in retail when shoplifting has occurred. We had always been given advice about what to do if you were working there alone. I do not think that there were ever any convictions or anything taken forward, as far as I am aware, as a result of the incidences that I witnessed.

I am interested in the issue of the public worker offence, which other people have raised, and the feeling about how broad it is and whether that is a positive or negative thing. Is it positive that it is so broad that it could involve not just retail workers but delivery drivers who work on behalf of your retail members?

Mr Johnston: That has been our concern in Britain. A lot of my members are heavily involved in delivery in England and Scotland. Delivery workers get an unbelievable amount of abuse and are not covered by this. It is interesting that Scotland decided to keep it quite tight, and Westminster decided to keep it quite tight for England and Wales. We represent the interests of retail workers, and that is what we are here to argue for. We understand that there are other sectors, but our chief focus is on retail workers. I note only that England, Wales and Scotland have kept it quite tight.

Ms Egan: Those are interesting examples.

Mr Roberts: There could be a clear definition in the Bill of which workers it applies to.

Ms Egan: OK, and is that what you would support?

Mr Roberts: Anything would help. As I said, we are not asking for anything that the rest of the UK or the island of Ireland do not have. It is perfectly possible that we could revisit the legislation, if we needed to tweak or develop it, in a future mandate.

Mr Johnston: If, at the end of this, we have x number of offences every year under the Act, it is essential that we can drill down into the PSNI statistics and see precisely the context in which the attacks are taking place. Otherwise, we will have missed an opportunity. We need to be able to use the justice system not just to counter the problem but to measure the problem so that we can direct resources accordingly.

Ms Egan: That is really helpful. Thank you, both.

Mr Bradley: Thanks for your presentation. When I was growing up, shoplifting was hardly ever heard of, but it has become prevalent and organised. I was speaking to a guy who owns a high-end department store, and he lost £1,000 in a week over the summer. That is a lot of money. He has now installed CCTV, and, again, that costs money. What statistics can you collate on shoplifting thefts and assaults that could help us to formulate an amendment to the Bill? Do you have any statistics at all, or are you relying on statistics from elsewhere?

Mr Johnston: Largely, we are relying on statistics from elsewhere. We carry out national surveys, and we can, to a certain extent, break down the results to get the picture in Northern Ireland, but we do not have any true grasp of the statistics. For example, you mentioned organised crime. We touched on drug- and substance abuse-related crime. There is no doubt that there is a significant organised element to shoplifting throughout Northern Ireland, particularly in the border areas where it is a two-way activity, with gangs coming across from the South into the North and vice versa, because they can do their shoplifting in the other jurisdiction, so to speak.

Mr Roberts: We surveyed our members, and 91% say that they experience shoplifting almost daily. Let us not forget that retailers here pay the most expensive business rates in the UK. They have been clobbered by the National Insurance increases, and we have heard about energy costs, so the issue of retail crime is as much a part of the cost-of-doing-business crisis as rates, National Insurance and so on.

Neil, rightly, referenced the organised element. Members have told us of well-paid tradesmen from a local building site stealing coffee and sandwiches. They are well able to afford them but somehow think that it is OK to walk into a store and steal coffee and sandwiches. We have seen retailers near universities where students somehow feel that it is acceptable to steal from convenience and other food stores, so there is a culture there that needs to change. Let us be very clear: that is robbery. Shoplifting is not some Robin Hood-type thing. It is robbery of the first degree, so we need to look again at the fines for shoplifting. I am not saying that that is where the entire solution to the problem lies.

There is, no doubt, a significant challenge in many town and city centres with people who have mental health issues, addiction issues or a drug problem. That is why we need a multi-agency approach to help those individuals. Clearly, that is not working, because the police do not have neighbourhood teams, and a lot of the charities and the statutory sector do not have the resources that we need. There is no policing solution to this, nor will fines alone solve it. It goes right across the criminal justice system. In fact, we need to focus just as much on other Departments, such as Health, when looking at how we solve the problem.

At the end of the day, we have been managing the problem for years. We have not been trying to fix it or find a solution to it. We have been managing it, and we have seen that that simply does not work any more.

Mr Johnston: Following on from that, the turnover of some of my supermarket members is eye-wateringly huge, but the profit margins in food retailing are tiny. They are 2% or 3%. People do not look sympathetically on big UK chains, but they are in a very competitive market. Ultimately, the costs fall to the consumer, because all the supermarkets are in an extremely competitive environment and have a profit margin of only 2%, 3% or, at most, 4%.

The costs of the losses and the huge multimillion pound investments that my members are making throughout the UK all feed into prices. When they feed into prices, the Government and politicians are the first people to turn around and say that the price of food is too high. One of the drivers of that, unfortunately, is the level of crime.

Mr Bradley: Do you think that the deterrent for theft and assault is big enough? I will give you an example, which is not connected to retail. A traffic warden friend of mine was assaulted while wearing a body camera. He went to the PSNI, and it issued a community resolution notice to the man who committed the assault, but the police did not tell my friend anything until after it had issued that notice. There seems to be a reluctance in the PSNI to take offenders to court. Part of that reluctance is due to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) also being reluctant to take people to court. There is no real deterrent.

Mr Johnston: That is not our experience. When our members report, the PSNI follows up with a desire to get prosecutions. Whether the sentencing is adequate is a fairly open question, but the legislation could help with that. It could identify the scale of the problem, and, once we know more accurately the size of the problem, we could keep an eye on the sentencing that comes out of the legislation.

Mr Bradley: Do you have data that tells us how many members of your group who have been assaulted have had a prosecution in court?

Mr Johnston: Not at the minute. That would be one of the advantages of the legislation.

Mr Bradley: Yes, but you are telling me that it is pretty high.

Mr Johnston: Absolutely.

Mr Bradley: How do you know that it is pretty high?

Mr Johnston: We know anecdotally from talking to the management of all our companies and large supermarkets that it is a large-scale problem, particularly for those that are open in the evening.

Mr Bradley: It is a large-scale problem, and the PSNI is very good at responding, but do you have any statistics on how many of those thieves have been taken to court and prosecuted as a result of the PSNI visiting a shop following an assault?

Mr Johnston: We do not have the detailed stats.

Mr Roberts: There is a problem straight away with a lot of our members not reporting because of a failure to get the right outcome. That is worrying. We are very clear that members should report the crime, however difficult the process.

We have suggested that we need to take it out of the court situation in the same way as the police can levy postal charge requisitions (PCRs) if your car is parked the wrong way. The Minister did a consultation on non-court fines where the police have a greater ability to levy fines and penalty notices. That could be considered. So much of it needs to change.

As I said at the start, the Policing Board does not set the Chief Constable objectives on business crime. There are no KPIs in that respect, and there is no recording mechanism for business crime. That needs to change. That would give us more of an evidential basis on which to base policy.

Mr Kingston: Thank you, Glyn and Neil, for your attendance and for highlighting the importance of ensuring that retail workers are included in the Bill. It is important that attacks on retail workers be treated with the seriousness that the issue deserves. You have highlighted the prevalence of such attacks.

I understand entirely your concern about clause 37's heading, "Assaults on public workers etc": people's first thought will be that that means only public-sector workers. However, clause 37(3) states:

I think that that would include retail workers —

which, presumably, is more about public-sector workers. Glyn, you referred to the wording in the memorandum on page 11. This process dates back to 2016 when Claire Sugden was Justice Minister. Paragraph 63 of the memorandum states:

Paragraph 64 states:

I am certainly not speaking for the Department, but it has decided not to list areas of work. You mentioned delivery drivers; retail workers; bus drivers, public and private; care workers, although I am not sure whether they are covered elsewhere; and people in leisure centres and gyms. If you were to list professions, you would leave somebody out. I note that the Bill would also repeal assaults on the police and on the Fire and Rescue Service, because they are captured elsewhere. It seems as though the Bill is designed to capture everybody who provides a service to the public and that that would include retail workers. How do you respond to that?

Mr Roberts: First and foremost, we want it to be defined. It is not about having an exhaustive list. There is a template elsewhere in the UK. It is not as though we are reinventing the wheel or starting from scratch; it is about looking at the legislation in Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. We are not asking for anything that is completely different from any other part of the country. We are by far the biggest sector, given the size and scale of the retail sector and the workers whom our respective members employ. It is about ensuring that small independent retailers are given the same level of protection as large multiple retailers. We are not asking for wholesale changes to the Bill, but it requires better definitions and some sharpening in places. We have worked very closely with the Minister and the Chair of this Committee on that. It is not as though we want wholescale reform or changes to the Bill; a fairly minor technical amendment could be proposed by the Committee to give it better definitions.

Do not get me wrong: this issue is crucial. I realise that there is a large amount of legislation that, for one reason or another, the Executive are not able to progress, but it is important for the thousands of retail staff who have been assaulted that this goes through. People are being assaulted day in, day out. It is important that this place sends a signal that the assault of retail staff is unacceptable. Why should workers in Northern Ireland be treated any differently from workers in any other part of the UK? It is important that the Assembly is able to progress the legislation and get it through before purdah kicks in.

Mr Kingston: As we keep saying, we are keen that the wording of the text is right. It is one thing having something said in the Assembly or in the media, but it is important that the text is right.

Mr Johnston: I emphasise that it is as much in the recording as in the definition. As I said earlier, when people are prosecuted in future, we need to be able to see the context of the situation that the PSNI was recording. For example, was it in a delivery setting or a retail setting? That is as important as trying to tighten down the definition at this stage.

Mr Kingston: My reading of it, as it stands, is that it would apply to retail workers, but I am happy to listen to any proposal. It is important that that is stated publicly and that it is understood.

I want to check what you think of another thing, which is in Part 6, "Particular Persons or Groups". There are two aggravations: hostility and vulnerability. In relation to public workers, there is both a new offence — the offence of assault on public workers — and an aggravator for what seem to be more serious offences, like manslaughter, kidnapping, threats to kill and wounding. The new offence of assault on a public worker can result in imprisonment of up to one year or two years. Presumably, that is for — I do not want to diminish them — assaults of a lower level relative to wounding or manslaughter. Have you a view on that? It could have been left as an aggravation. For an aggravator to apply, you must have committed a crime, such as an assault. It could have been stated simply that any offence against a public worker was an aggravation. I am not against it, but it also creates a new offence, and, again, that probably highlights the seriousness of recognising the public role and the vulnerable situation that public workers are in.

Mr Johnston: In Scotland, the idea was to go beyond the aggravation to make it a stand-alone offence, and, partially, the intention of that point was to focus on retail. Therefore, aggravation is included in the Bill, which we agree with, but we have gone on a slightly different road by having a broader definition. It will definitely include retail workers but many, many others as well. The intention in Scotland, England and Wales was to focus on retail workers, given the scale of the issue. As Glyn said, the best part of 100,000 people work in retail in Northern Ireland, so the desire was to have a stand-alone offence for the protection of retail workers. That is what has been done in Scotland, England and Wales. Here, the Minister has decided to go broader.

Mr Roberts: In our survey, 51% of our members reported that staff had left their jobs because of assault. That is an incredible statistic.

Mr Kingston: Of those who had left, 51% had left because of assault.

Mr Roberts: Yes.

Mr Johnston: It is also incredible to think that a quarter of the population of Northern Ireland has seen somebody being abused in a shop. Sadly, probably most of us here have seen that. It is a sad state of affairs, frankly.

Mr Roberts: The impact on the mental health of the worker who has had to leave their job because of assault puts further pressure on the health service as well, so it is important that the Assembly and the Executive send a signal that there is a zero-tolerance approach to the assault of retail staff and, indeed, the assault of front-line responders, emergency services and the police.

Mr Kingston: OK. Thank you.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you, Neil and Glyn. It seems clear that it is about getting proper recognition of what you have been struggling with for years. Despite all the work and the investment that has gone in, such as on security cameras etc, the situation is getting worse rather than improving. It is clear that, by having the offence recognised, it will then be recorded so that you can really get an idea on the scale of what is happening. Then, obviously, you need a deterrent, which you would hope to be able to increase.

I want to go to the three crime codes in the Scottish legislation: serious assault of a retail worker; common assault of a retail worker; and threatening and abusive behaviour towards a retail worker. Can you elaborate on those categories? What do you think of them? Would you consider including others? The current categories are there. What information needs to be routinely gathered, and by whom?

Mr Johnston: Our chief one is that we are prosecuting and recording the offences against retail workers, first and foremost. I need to emphasise this while we are emphasising the scale of the problem: our problem is, thankfully, not as great as the problem elsewhere. Both shoplifting and assault are greater problems in Great Britain. The PSNI is doing great work here, but we need to get a better grip of the numbers. The legislation can help us to do that by focusing on public-facing workers and, as I have said before, recording the context of each of those incidents so that we can see —. There needs to be a variety of approaches, and there will be, to sentencing, depending on the nature of the offence, but the important thing is that people are being prosecuted and that we are recording that in an accurate fashion so that we know where the hotspots are, so to speak.

Mr Roberts: It will not give complete reassurance, but it will send a signal to retail workers that their assault is being taken seriously. If you were to ask our colleagues from USDAW, the shop workers' union, with whom Neil and I work very closely, they would say exactly what we are saying. They have been on entirely the same page as us on this. On this occasion, the unions and business are completely aligned. USDAW regularly surveys its members on this, and its surveys reflect what our two organisations have been saying. Unions and business are on exactly the same page on this.

Ms Ferguson: I will move on. If we have a specific retail worker stand-alone provision — I am not familiar with the Scottish legislation — will that include only permanent retail staff, or will it capture temporary/agency staff, security contractors and so on within the retail space?

Mr Johnston: I imagine that anybody who is an employee will be covered.

Ms Ferguson: I would want to see that defined.

Mr Roberts: Absolutely. There does not tend to be a huge number of agency staff, certainly among our members. There is a whole range of flexible contracts and working hours to reflect the needs of people who have caring responsibilities or are single parents and so on.

I will add a further point. This is particularly important in Northern Ireland because we have a higher density of independent retailers than the rest of the UK and the rest of the island. You will know that, in your constituencies, you have a higher density of smaller independent retailers. Sadly, they have gone from other parts of the UK, but they are still here, thankfully. It is about the impact that an offence has on those smaller retailers who do not have security staff, cannot afford the facial recognition technology and, at times, have staff working on their own. They are providing an invaluable service in many communities, maybe where there are older people or people who cannot travel to the big out-of-town stores and rely on those local stores to be open and to provide a valuable service. That is not just food and convenience stores; it is pharmacies as well. That is of particular importance to Northern Ireland because we have a higher density of smaller independent retailers who cannot afford security staff or facial recognition technology. Therefore, it is important that the legislation goes through and provides that reassurance. Are there other things that we need to do? Yes, absolutely, but this legislation is important.

Ms Ferguson: I get that there is probably a huge level of non-reporting, under-reporting or whatever. Have you had any conversations with the PSNI, given the current data, on the offences that have been reported and have gone through? Has the PSNI been able to assist with any data? I assume that it has the information but that it might not be easily accessible. It would need to be aggregated down across a range of datasets. It is consistent across the board that data is so powerful, not just for you but across all Departments.

Mr Johnston: There is good data on shoplifting, as I mentioned earlier.

Ms Ferguson: This is assault. I do not want to equate shoplifting to assault.

Mr Johnston: Exactly. That is the nub of the problem. We have quite a good, clear picture on shoplifting, which has started to decline. For assaults, however, we do not have accurate data, because assault is assault at the moment. Hopefully, the legislation will allow us to drill down into the data more accurately for context. At the moment, as far as we are aware, the PSNI does not have figures for where those assaults have taken place.

Mr Roberts: We have been very vocal in supporting the PSNI's getting a proper budget settlement, particularly for it to have more neighbourhood teams. Unless the PSNI has those neighbourhood teams, we are never going to solve the problem. That is therefore really important. The PSNI provides a range of training: training through the Safe Shop initiative in particular. We encourage all our members to get to know and keep in regular contact with their local neighbourhood police officer. I have to say that, given the difficult circumstances in which the PSNI finds itself with the pressures that it is under, I really cannot fault its response and, indeed, its follow-up response. We have a really good relationship with the PSNI, including through the business crime partnership forum on which both our organisations sit. Indeed, our recent awards included an award for neighbourhood police officer of the year, as voted for by Retail NI members. That is a recognition of the important role that the police play in keeping our members' shops, staff and customers safe.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): It is just me remaining to ask questions. It is very clear that this is as much about recognition and reporting as anything else, as Ciara said. Even though the Bill contains clause 37, which defines assaults on public workers etc, with the aggravation provisions being set out in clauses 38 and 39, you still want there to be an additional clause covering assaults on retail workers.

Mr Roberts: Yes.

Mr Johnston: Glyn is clearly saying yes. I am saying that we want methods to be found to know the context after the event so that if x thousand prosecutions are brought, we can tell what percentage of those x thousand prosecutions happened in a retail context.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): If we were not to go for a stand-alone offence of assault on retail workers, a clause in that Part of the Bill that inserted a duty to record assaults against specific categories of public workers would satisfy the recording element, I presume.

Mr Johnston: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): What struck me about your presentation was that it is as much about shoplifting as it is about assaults. The two are connected in many ways. Would you not be better campaigning for a separate clause on shoplifting in order to protect retail workers? England has criminal behaviour orders, although, again, orders are only as good as their enforcement. Is the way in which to go not for there to be an aggravator for shoplifting and then perhaps something that protects workers by preventing a serial shoplifter from entering the premises?

Mr Roberts: There are repeat shoplifting offenders. We now have facial recognition technology whereby if, for instance, a repeat shoplifter who has been convicted enters a store, the owner, manager or duty manager will straight away get an alert on their phone, and that person will then be asked to leave. AI is playing an increasingly important role in that regard. Given the time that is left in the mandate and the pressures that there are on legislation, the Assembly, for whatever reason, does not have long to run, and —.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): You would be surprised. You would be surprised how quickly a Department will run with something if it suspects that a party, an individual MLA or the Justice Committee will float it.

Mr Roberts: We are very open to that happening. We have been concentrating on getting the Bill over the line. It has been around in one form or another since 2016, so almost 10 years now. The rest of the UK and the rest of this island are already well in advance of us. We are therefore playing major catch-up. We have been trying to say, "Let us get this over the line". Is there more that needs to be done? Yes. We have been working on a paper for whoever is the Minister of Justice next May, and I hope that a Justice Minister, and all Ministers, will be in place next May. In that paper, there will be a lot of stuff that could easily be cut and pasted into a new Programme for Government or, indeed, parties' respective manifestos.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I advise you to do all that work for the next term, but do not give up on this term just yet. Section 22A of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 was repealed in England. There was perceived immunity depending on the value of goods stolen. I think that it was for goods totalling £200 or less. We surely do not have that immunity here. Shoplifting is shoplifting.

Mr Johnston: Shoplifting is shoplifting, and the PSNI will turn up for every reported call. We are not in the same situation as that which, sadly, pertained in England and, hopefully, has been rectified.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Yes. It strikes me as perverse that someone could steal something below the threshold of £200 and get immunity.

Mr Roberts: That resulted in a notion that it was somehow OK to carry out what is called low-level shoplifting. It was a major mistake by the then UK Government to bring that in, because it contributed to a culture in which it was somehow considered to be all right to shoplift, that it was a victimless offence and that it did not matter, because, "Sure, it's only Mars bar". For a small independent retailer who is struggling to pay their rates bill or their National Insurance bill, it is a big deal, however. That is why I have said that, given the higher density of smaller independent retailers, it is important to get the legislation over the line. Is there more that we need to be doing? Yes, there is. All that I can say from our side is to watch this space.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Have you an opinion on the offences and tariffs? Under clause 37(5), a person who is found guilty is liable:

with the statutory maximum being £5,000, if I am not mistaken — and is liable:

Imprisonment for 12 months or two years. To put that in context, actual bodily harm carries a maximum sentence of five years. That is slightly different. I suspect that if a retail worker were harmed, the offence would be actual bodily harm, but if it were common assault, or akin to being punched, slapped or pushed, subsection (5) of clause 37, "Assaults on public workers etc" would be used.

Mr Johnston: I do not have the figures to hand, but, in Scotland, the number of serious offences ranges from six a year to 20 a year. I do not want to use the wrong terminology, but a lot of important offences need to be addressed, and they are not what you are discussing.

Mr Roberts: Day in, day out, our members tell us about the number of repeat offenders they know. Those people's list of offences is as long as your arm. We therefore need to get stronger on the issue. There need to be stricter fines for shoplifting. For example, if someone falls behind with paying child support, it can be deducted from their salary. There is therefore a range of measures that could be taken for shoplifters. Equally, I have no doubt that the police and judiciary would take into consideration, and recognise, if someone had a serious problem with addiction, mental health or anything else. Policing alone is not the solution to the problem. There are mitigating factors in some cases, but it is about our sending out the view, "This is unacceptable. This is a serious crime. It is impacting on not just the lives of workers but our economy, town centres and high streets".

Mr Johnston: I understand from where you are coming, but our focus is on getting the legislation over the line.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thanks very much for you time and your answers. We really appreciate it.

Mr Roberts: Thank you.

Mr Johnston: Thank you.