Protection of Workers Bill makes progress at Scottish Parliament

The ‘Protection of Workers Bill’ aims to increase protection for retail workers by: creating a new statutory offence of assaulting, threatening, abusing, obstructing or hindering a retail worker, and creating a statutory aggravation to that offence where the retail worker is enforcing a statutory age restriction.

Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, said: “I’m delighted to see my bill pass the first hurdle in the legislative process and it was encouraging to see all parties get behind this important issue. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank SGF, who have supported this from day one.”

“With further Covid restrictions just announced for the country, we will see more pressure on our retail staff, especially with an uncertain Christmas on the horizon.”

There will now be two more legislative stages before the bill can be made law.

Scottish Grocers Federation chief executive, Pete Cheema, said: “We are delighted that MSPs have voted to accept the general principles of the Protection of Workers Bill. This is a significant step forward in the right direction and it is crucial that we continue to get the message across to our politicians that abuse and threatening behaviour towards shop staff is unacceptable and that suitable additional legal protections must be put in place. Daniel Johnson’s Bill provides that opportunity and we will continue to work with him – as we have been doing since 2016 – to secure a step-change in Scotland’s approach to retail crime.”

ACS chief executive, James Lowman, added: “Retailers and store colleagues are most at risk from violence and abuse when just doing their job, whether it be enforcing age-restricted sales policies, refusing to serve intoxicated customers or trying to prevent shop theft. We’re delighted that MSPs have supported the progress of the Bill after an excellent campaign by the Scottish Grocers Federation, and we welcome the creation of a new statutory offence for attacks on shopworkers that will send a clear message to offenders that these incidents will not be tolerated.”