Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced new powers to close illegal mini-marts, barbers and vape shops for up to 12 months, following a BBC investigation into organised crime on British high streets.
Under current rules in England and Wales, authorities can only close a shop for three months, extendable to six months using anti-social behaviour legislation. The government’s planned change doubles the potential closure time.
“Shops linked to organised crime can be shut for up to 12 months after BBC investigation prompts law change.”
Mahmood praised the BBC’s reporting, saying people felt high streets were being taken over by “organised crime [and] immigration criminality”. The government was “not prepared to tolerate it”, she said. This type of criminality “makes people lose faith, not just in their local area but in democracy, in what our country is, and we can’t let that happen”, she added.
The Home Office says the extended closures will give investigators more time to gather evidence, pursue prosecutions and identify business owners, while preventing rogue operators from simply reopening and resuming illegal activity.
For nine months, BBC News repeatedly asked the home secretary for an interview about what they had found. Last week, they were invited to join Mahmood on police raids of mini-marts on Soho Road in the Handsworth area of Birmingham – a high street bordering her own constituency.
At one shop, police and Trading Standards officers found illegal cigarettes and snuff (finely ground tobacco). A shopworker was arrested after a makeshift weapon – a plank with a nail – was found under the counter. The shopworker, who said he was a student from Afghanistan, admitted that he thought selling illegal cigarettes was wrong. When asked why he was selling them, he replied: “Perhaps you should ask the manager, he’s the owner.” However, the owner was not about, he said.
Trading Standards officers have repeatedly told the BBC they lack the necessary powers to tackle the problem. John Herriman, chief executive of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), said: “Closure orders are a key enforcement tool… for tackling ‘dodgy shops’.” There is “almost universal support” from his profession for the new measures, he adds.
Other Trading Standards officers told the BBC it would become less financially viable for unscrupulous business owners to simply sit out closure orders, and would force landlords to pay more attention to who they are renting to.
The BBC investigation exposed drug gangs, child sexual exploitation, money laundering and immigration crime linked to shops selling illegal cigarettes, vapes and drugs. Mahmood described it as “a massive national problem”. The question now is whether the new powers will be enough to reclaim Britain’s high streets.