UK retailers welcome two billion pound funding for police

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves outlined a more than two billion pound increase in police spending as part of the government’s latest two trillion pound Spending Review. Reeves outlined the plans during a speech on June 11, in which she said the funding reflected a 2.3 percent per year increase in police spending power “to protect our people, our homes and our streets”.

The funding also backs the government’s ‘Plan for Change’ initiative, which aims to put 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles within England and Wales.

The uptick in financing was welcomed by director of business and regulation at the British Retail Consortium (BRC), Tom Ironside, who noted that the organisation supported the plans outlined by Reeves, particularly “with the huge rise in retail theft and the continued impact of violence and abuse on retail colleagues".

Ironside did call on the chancellor, however, to funnel additional policing resources into directly addressing these issues, “with over 2,000 incidents every day, and shoplifting, which costs retailers and their customers over four billion pounds a year”.

Elsewhere, Ironside said the BRC further welcomed Reeves’ plans to increase funding for skills and training, given that retail was “one of the biggest spenders on upskilling its workforce”. He added that the organisation looks forward to seeing more detail on the planned Skills & Growth Levy.

Reeves announced a 1.2 billion pound “record investment” for skills a year, which she said would support “over a million young people into training and apprenticeships”. “We’ve seen growing businesses eager to recruit, look elsewhere. Potential wasted and enterprise frustrated,” she added.