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During a debate on Thursday (5) members of the House of Lords voiced unanimous concern over the alarming rise in retail crime and its impact on businesses, workers, and communities. Lord Hannett of Everton (Labour), former General Secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW), initiated the debate, citing alarming statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS figures showed that nearly 470,000 shoplifting offences were recorded across England and Wales in the year leading up to October 2024- a 29 per cent increase and the highest figure since records started in March 2003. Lord Hannett highlighted widespread underreporting of retail crime, noting "many retail workers do not report incidents because they simply do not believe that anything will happen when they do." He pointed to a British Retail Consortium survey revealing over 1,300 incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers daily in 2022-2023, with only a third reported to the police and fewer than 8 per cent leading to prosecutions.