BOLTON North-East MP Sir David Crausby has backed a calls for the government to crackdown on a rising tide of theft in shops and assaults on their staff.

The Labour backbencher was responding to new government statistics showing a 15 per cent increase in shoplifting in the last decade.

He is also concerned at independent research showing that 115 shop workers are attacked every day, that there were almost 10,000 incidents of violence in convenience stores in the last 12 months with shopworkers abused, threatened or assaulted 21 times each year.

The British Retail Consortium, shopworkers union USDAW and major store chains have written to Home Secretary Priti Patel calling for a specific offence of assaulting a retail worker and review of how the police deal with shoplifting.

Sir David said: “Shoplifting is on the rise and as well as the cost to businesses that puts shopworkers and the public at risk of violence.

"Too often we hear the police aren’t able to respond to shoplifting and cases go uninvestigated serving as further incentive to these criminals. The government needs to give our police the resources they need."