Keir Starmer has announced a crackdown on ‘free-for-all’ shoplifting that often sees offenders go unpunished.
The Prime Minister says an extra 3,000 police officers have been put on the streets to combat shop theft, and that his Government will make assaulting retail workers a specific criminal offence.
That came after Ken Murphy, CEO of Tesco, called for retail abuse to be criminalised in the Mail on Sunday in 2023, and after bakery chain Greggs began moving items behind the tills to deter shoplifters helping themselves to sandwiches.
The offence is set to be introduced in the Crime and Policing Bill but has ping-ponged between the Commons and the Lords.
Labour says it will also scrap the £200 threshold for shoplifting offences, below which the crime is a summary-only offence that can only be tried before magistrates.
This could remove what Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has previously described as the ‘virtual impunity’ shoplifters feel when they steal items worth less than this, and could see offenders tried at Crown courts and jailed for up to seven years.
Speaking at retail union Usdaw’s annual meeting in Blackpool, Sir Keir said: ‘Working people – grafters – go to work, do the right thing, keep our high streets thriving and yet too often they are abused or assaulted by people who think they can get away with it and just cheat the system. It’s disgraceful.’
The PM has suggested ‘tide could be turning’ on shoplifters, with a 17 per cent rise in charges and a marginal fall in overall offences.
However, analysis of Government data suggests that two in three convicted shoplifters are going on to reoffend and that those who do shoplift again are doing so more often.
Keir Starmer has vowed to end the ‘free-for-all’ of shoplifting with a crackdown on retail crime with a speech at Usdaw’s annual meeting today
Shops such as Greggs have resorted to putting stock behind the tills to deter shoplifters who often act with impunity
Official figures released following a parliamentary question by Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP shows 67 per cent of shop thieves reoffend within a year.
The Centre for Social Justice, which analysed the data, says the average number of crimes committed by shoplifters has almost doubled in five years, from 5.5 to 9.1.
Sir Iain, who is chair of the CSJ, said of the Government this morning: ‘There must be zero tolerance for criminals who target shopkeepers and undermine our local communities.
‘Addressing this, and the felt lack of consequence for committing crime in Britain today, should be at the heart of the government’s upcoming High Street Strategy.’
Official data suggests 509,566 shoplifting offences were reported in 2025, down one per cent from the year before. Retailers estimate the true number to be much higher.
Shops may also be recording offences as robberies following advice from police last year to treat any incident involving violence or threats against staff as such, rather than as shoplifting.
Business robbery rose 78 per cent to 26,158 offences in 2025, according to Government data.
The British Retail Consortium says criminal gangs are ‘systemically’ targeting shops, doing retailers out of £400million of trade. Retailers are facing, on average, 36 incidents of violence involving a weapon each day, it claims.
Organised criminal organisations are stealing goods to order and reselling them locally in order to fund wider criminal enterprises. The CSJ says one in four independent retailers have seen their goods for resale in their area.
Last week, Marks and Spencer chairman Archie Norman claimed self-service checkouts may also be fuelling the rise in thefts, claiming that ‘normally good, honest people’ are simply taking goods they can’t scan at the tills.
The firm has previously hit out at Sadiq Khan for failing to crack down on crime in London after mobs of youths were captured on camera raiding the M&S Food store in Clapham during a gathering organised online.
Mr Norman said of the Clapham incident: ‘When something like that starts to become common it says to everybody, including ordinary citizens, that it’s not safe.’
Rather than waiting for Starmer’s government to catch up, a number of retailers have already taken steps to protect their goods – and their staff.
Greggs has removed self-service cabinets from stores in Croydon, Peckham, Whitechapel and Upton Park in London, as well as in Birmingham and Wilford, Nottinghamshire.
It says these stores are among a ‘very small number… which are exposed to higher levels of antisocial behaviour.’
The sausage roll-loving chain is also introducing software that supplies information directly to police stations. Lunchtime competitors Costa Coffee and Pret a Manger have resorted to introducing security guards to protect their fridges.
Greggs has suffered attacks in recent months, with one especially prolific shoplifter (pictured) stealing close to £2,000 worth of items from the bakery
Each have fallen victim to habitual shoplifters who are seen in viral videos filling their bags with impunity, unchallenged by staff who are terrified to engage – and are discouraged by their employers from doing so.
Workers at the Greggs store in Croydon told the Mail they have previously had boiling hot tea thrown in their face after challenging a thief – while a security guard was once targeted by a crook with a belt.
One said: ‘The branch has struggled because of all the homeless outside taking drugs and drinking alcohol who come in and help themselves.’
In February, a serial shoplifter nicknamed ‘Hamster’ was spared jail despite stealing from a single branch of Greggs 38 times in less than two months.
Adam Gosling, 39, habitually stole a total of £1,817.50 of stock from the shop in Greenford, west London, between December 30 2025 and February 10 this year – and was given a suspended sentence.
The Government’s track record on tackling crime is set to be a key issue at the upcoming local elections – at which Starmer is expected to be given a bloody nose.
Recent Ipsos polling suggests the British public expects Reform and the Greens to benefit the most on May 7, and that a third of people view ‘crime and policing’ as one of the influences on their vote.
A stunning 56 per cent of the 1,089 Brits aged 18-75 asked said they expected Labour to shed councillors.
Some MPs have already urged the Prime Minister to set out the timetable for his departure ahead of an anticipated drubbing.
Some analysts have predicted that Labour could lose more than half of the seats it is set to defend in under two weeks’ time – more than 1,500 in all.