Retail crime experts and retailers to give evidence on shoplifting

The sessions will take place on Tuesday 3 September at 10:30am and can be followed live on Parliament TV.      

Giving evidence at 10:30am will be:   

• Professor Emmeline Taylor, School of Policy and Global Affairs at City, University of London.
• Paul Gerrard, Public Affairs and Board Secretariat Director at The Co-op Group .

Questions the committee is likely to ask include:   

• What is the difference between 'shop theft' and 'shoplifting'?
  
  
• What is the relative contribution of organised retail crime on shop theft and how is it manifested?
  
  
• What is the impact of shoplifting on the Co-op and what recent trends have been observed?
  
  
• How effective is the Pegasus Partnership and can it help retailers in a way that existing partnerships do not?
  
  
• How does facial recognition technology help to tackle shoplifting and what are the risks involved?
  
  
• Do policing and business partnerships have public buy-in, and is it important that they do? 

Giving evidence at 11:40am will be: 

• Sophie Jordan, Manager at National Association of Business Crime Partnerships
• James Lowman, Chief Executive at Association of Convenience Stores 
• Adam Ratcliffe, Operations Director at Safer Business Network CIC 

Questions the committee is likely to ask include:  

• What is the impact of shoplifting on smaller retailers?
  
  
• What are the most effective strategies to combat shoplifting by prolific offenders and organised crime groups from a business and policing perspective?
  
  
• How do Business Crime Reduction Partnerships work? 
  
  
• Does Pegasus have an impact on businesses not involved as partners of the scheme? 
  
  
• How does facial recognition technology help to tackle shoplifting and what are the risks involved? 
  
  
• Do policing and business partnerships have public buy-in, and is it important that they do?