Michael Weatherley – the Conservative MP for Hove in East Sussex – is one of ‘the new breed’ inducted as part of ‘the class of 2010’ and, like all MPs, he’s fully expected to be an expert in a whole raft of specialist feeds.
A trained chartered management accountant, Weatherley once owned his own manufacturing business that twice won the Queen’s Award for Export and Sussex Company of the Year. In days gone by, he’s also worked with music mogul Pete Waterman and served as European vice-president of the Motion Picture Licensing Company.
On top of his daily duties as an MP, Weatherley’s also chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Music Education, chairman (and founder) of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Retail and Business Crime (more of which anon) and treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Music. In fact, Weatherley now sits on no less than 19 All-Party Parliamentary Groups.
“These are basically single interest groups of backbench MPs that lobby Government ministers and departments for amendments to legislation,” explained the MP, “or make a lot of noise to raise the profile of specific issues through tabling parliamentary questions, parliamentary petitions or calling debates.”
Victims of crime: the business context
Describing himself as “a Parliamentary champion on crime issues in the community,” Weatherley expressed a desire to focus his speech on the victims of crime in a business context, with particular reference to the small business sector (which he believes is disproportionately targeted and for whom less support is available).
“I was shocked to hear that, over the past few years, the Government has presided over a period of downgrading of offences committed in businesses, in particular shoplifting, while simultaneously forming a Home Office Steering Group to address the issue. It seemed totally perverse to me that civil servants could be put in place by ministers in the last Government to specifically address an issue while shoplifting drifted seamlessly and unopposed into being sanctioned a ‘victimless crime’.”
The local businesses in Weatherley’s constituency – and, indeed, across the UK – have long been calling for an advocate in the context of a record year for assaults committed against shopkeepers in the process of a robbery. “Systematic shoplifting,” explained Weatherley, “that has led to countless shops shutting down since the advent of the recession and very high profile murders of shopkeepers for little more than the change in their tills, candy, pop, alcohol or cigarettes.”
The speed with which the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Retail and Business Crime was formed is testament to the groundswell of opinion that suggests something needs to be done about this situation.
Indeed, within a month of brainstorming the idea of forming the Group to assist the business sector in placing crime issues squarely in front of serving politicians in the House of Commons, over 350 letters were sent by independent businesses to MPs asking them to join the crusade.
“If a local business has taken the time out to write to you – when they are often micro-businesses and work every hour under the sun – then I take their concerns seriously. After all, crime against our local community stores is not only a crime against a business but a crime that affects the very morale of the community as a whole.”
Vulnerability of shop workers to assaults
The inaugural meeting of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group took place on 29 March, and witnessed attendance not only from an impressive number of Weatherley’s fellow MPs (35 of whom joined the Group), but also in the shape of business representatives who sit on the National Business Crime Forum (and whose members collectively represent hundreds of thousands of businesses across the UK).
In a shocking revelation that made all of us pause for a moment’s thought, Weatherley stated: “Today, running a corner shop is statistically more dangerous than joining the police service when it comes to losing one’s life in the course of the working day.”
During a recent debate with justice minister Crispin Blunt, Weatherley stated that the Sentencing Commission needs to recognise the vulnerability of shop workers to assaults by establishing clear guidance that will protect retail workers.
“Currently, I’m aware that such guidance doesn’t exist,” outlined the MP, “and retailers rightly feel very much like their cases are relegated to the realms of ‘victimless’ crimes by the justice system.”
Crime Reduction Partnerships incur nominal costs to operate (that is the GB pound 350 a year it can cost to gain the necessary professional indemnity and public liability insurance coverage for a village or town), but such monies aren’t always easy to find.
Maybe it could and would be a huge help to these Partnerships if operational costs were to be underwritten by the Government, as is the case with Neighbourhood Watch ventures?
“In such cases,” continued Weatherley, “the challenge would normally be in developing appropriate insurance models, but these models already exist for Neighbourhood Watch. This precedent in underwriting Neighbourhood Watch schemes can realistically be applied as the model for underwriting Crime Reduction Partnerships. The Government should look into doing so as this move would have a huge impact on addressing current levels of crime for a relatively negligible cost.”
In addition, Weatherley suggested that the increasing devolution of power to local authorities carries with it its own set of problems.
“Issues already exist with a lack of standardisation in reporting crime from one police authority to another. As you can imagine, this impacts upon businesses that work on a national level or across several local authorities, where the lack of a joined-up approach manifests itself in terms of it being difficult to meaningfully tackle organised crime.”
The Conservative MP added: “With the passing of the Localism Bill, all MPs and local authorities will all have to be vigilant that the unintended consequences in our communities is not that victims see bureaucracy getting in the way of a collaborative approach to bring organised criminals to justice.”
Who is most at risk from crime just now? “A recent Federation of Small Business report has shown that community-based convenience retailers are significantly more vulnerable than any other category of store to high value robberies – at 41% of the total sector losses – and almost double the value stolen from supermarkets.”
Weatherley went on to state: “This figure isn’t surprising when you consider that independent businesses are likely to be open at unsociable hours, employ fewer staff and have less in the way of sophisticated security measures in place when compared with larger supermarkets. It would seem that a discussion needs to be had in Westminster – and, hopefully, with police representatives from across the country – aimed at building a strategy specifically to address this disparity of vulnerability to crime between large and small businesses, and how it can be combated.”
Not solely focused on small businesses
Weatherley stressed that the All-Party Parliamentary Group is not solely focused on supporting small businesses.
“There’s a reason that supermarkets have half the value of goods stolen from their shops as opposed to small shops,” said Weatherley, “and that is the sheer resource they put in place in terms of sophisticated security systems, more members of staff and greater numbers of security officers. It’s this experience in successfully combating crime in their stores that should be put into a Best Practice model for smaller, community-based stores.”
As far as Weatherley’s concerned, supermarkets don’t suffer less crime because Government has done anything to protect them. “They have taken their own steps to protect themselves. I assure you that if Government hasn’t been able to give the ‘ideal scenario’ support to businesses large and small in the past, then there will realistically be even less resource to do so now.”
That being the case, communities and industry therefore have a fantastic opportunity to ‘step up to the plate’ and rally together to address these issues with Government where the public purse is, quite frankly, found wanting.
A huge concern for all, of course, is the suspected under-reporting of crime and criminality. Businesses often fail to report crimes as they feel – whether rightly or wrongly – that an inadequate amount is done to justify taking the time to respond.
“Retailer’s report that crime is often lost in crime reporting figures,” stated Weatherley, “and that they feel there’s little in the way of practical recourse to bring criminals to justice.”
Support for the victims of crime and criminality
It’s not all bad news, though. There is some support available to the victims of crime, provided both by the private and public sector.
“In the case of the former, I know all of you are aware of instances where industry is providing the solution to its own problems, rather in the spirit of the Big Society, and I named one such scheme – Facewatch – in my discussions with the justice minister.”
Facewatch – whose chairman and founder Simon Gordon was in the audience – is designed to help the victims of low level crime by creating an online partnership between premises, such as bars and shops, and the police service in order to make reporting crime quicker and simpler for both the victim and the Boys in Blue.
“I know that Facewatch was created in consultation with the Metropolitan Police Service,” explained Weatherley, “and I hope very much that this is the sort of thing we can encourage throughout the rest of the UK. It’s certainly the sort of scheme the Government should be supporting.”
The reluctance by businesses who have been victims of crime to report it is not just an anecdotal one. Even the magnificent charity that is Victim Support (and which does tremendous work supporting victims of crime on behalf of the Ministry of Justice) concedes that it has trouble in connecting with all victims, simply due to the fact that the way in which crime is recorded often allows them to fall through the support net.
“For example,” said Weatherley, “if a shopkeeper lives above their shop and a crime is committed in their premises below, then it’s recorded as a business crime whether or not the retailer has been assaulted. This, though, is also their home, and in any other circumstance the victim’s details would be passed on to Victim Support for the appropriate advice and assistance to be given to them.”
In Weatherley’s view, this is “but one concrete example” demonstrating that more needs to be done to bring together police representatives, organisations such as Victim Support and business leaders to discuss how police reporting can change for the better.
Statutory rights within the criminal justice system
Unfortunately, it’s also the case that victims of crime have few statutory rights within the criminal justice system, and what rights they do possess are under threat.
“Currently, victims of crime have the right to receive a basic level of service from each criminal justice agency under the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime,” explained the MP. “Everything victims are entitled to under the Code is pretty basic, and the sort of thing which you would assume they’d receive automatically from the criminal justice system.”
Alas, that Code of Practice is now under threat as part of a Ministry of Justice review of support for victims and witnesses.
The Government has already removed the duty on Local Criminal Justice Boards to report on their compliance with the Victims’ Code (meaning that no-one is monitoring compliance with the Code, or holding agencies to account where they fail to comply), and there’s a danger that the Government will seek to downgrade the Code or, worse still, abolish it altogether.
“This would mean that victims of crime would have no statutory rights to receive a decent level of service from the criminal justice system,” said Weatherley. “Abolishing the Code would be a serious and retrograde step, and would turn the clock back on victims’ rights.”
It’s not just how we deal with crime and its victims that’s the issue here. It’s also the perception of crime that’s paramount. Indeed, it and can have a hugely detrimental effect upon the confidence of people to enter into, or remain in, the independent business sector.
“Following the high profile murder of newsagent Jashbahai Patel in Huddersfield last year,” explained Weatherley, “a survey on retailers’ perceptions of crime was carried out by the National Federation of Retail Newsagents. 51% stated they expected crime to increase. A staggering 31% were unsure as to whether their business could even survive through the next two-to-three years and 57% thought that the police could do more to deter crime.”
Joint role for communities and the private sector
Where improvements can be made, Weatherley feels there’s a joint role for communities and the private sector to play in combating these issues, and he duly drew the audience members’ attention to the work of Baroness Newlove, the Government’s champion for safer communities who recently outlined what is needed:
“A change of culture on the part of communities, no longer seeing crime and anti-social behaviour in their neighbourhoods as ‘someone else’s problem’, and on the side of services, going beyond simply asking communities what their problems are, to seeing them as equal partners in dealing with them.”
In closing, heavy metal fan Weatherley – the first MP ever to wear an Iron Maiden T-shirt in the House of Commons – stressed: “I would ask all of you here today to speak with your MPs, express your concerns and offer solutions. As an MP, I can tell you that a letter from a constituent is worth exponentially more than one from a private company.”
Weatherley’s longer term ambition for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Retail and Business Crime is that it becomes the bridge that fosters the necessary dialogue between business and Government.
“I would extend an invitation to all interested parties here today to attend the next All-Party Parliamentary Group meeting in Westminster,” he urged. “Join in the debate and meet some of our 35 MP members and ministers.”
