HARLOW’S MP, Robert Halfon, has championed Harlow shop workers over recent weeks following a meeting with staff at the Bush Fair co-op and hearing about the “appalling abuse” they have received. Following the meeting, Mr Halfon raised the case directly with Ministers immediately and called on the Government to introduce a specific legal protection for shop workers. 

A few weeks later the Government announced just that with an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to make an attack on anyone providing a public service, including shopworkers, an aggravated offence. This means that shop workers will be protected in law from abuse and threatening behaviour.

Mr Halfon raised the case again in Parliament today saying that he had “recently visited hard-working shop workers in the Co-op in the ward of Bush Fair” who had “faced abuse, intimidation and often assault”. He added that they deserved “the same protection as NHS workers are now rightly given” in terms of legal protection. 

The Justice Minister,James CartlidgeMP, responded saying that Mr Halfon was a “brilliant champion” of Harlow and that the “overwhelming majority in the country think” that shop workers “are heroes”. He said that the Government is backing shop workers “in spirit and we are backing them in law”.