Theresa May faced growing pressure to outlaw smacking yesterday as Welsh politicians took the first steps to criminalise corporal punishment of children.
The move means that smacking is now likely to be banned in both Wales and Scotland by the end of the year, leaving the English law which permits slapping looking increasingly isolated.
A three-month consultation was launched in Wales on a law which would remove the longstanding legal defence for parents which says they can use ‘reasonable’ force to punish their children.
Welsh politicians are considering banning parents from smacking their children
Theresa May, pictured with her newly reshuffled cabinet at 10 Downing Street yesterday is coming under increasing pressure to ban smacking across England
The Scottish Government has thrown its weight behind a similar move in Scotland.
In England Mrs May’s ministers continue to hold out against a chorus of complaints over the legal right to smack from pressure groups, charities and Children’s Commissioner for England Anne Longfield, who two years ago joined a protest to the UN calling for a ban.
Parents in England have the right to administer ‘reasonable punishment’ to their children under Victorian laws last updated by Tony Blair’s government in 2004. The current law says parents can use corporal punishment and cannot be convicted of common assault as long as they do no physical or mental harm – usually taken to mean they must not cause bruising or any other injury.
Advocates of the right to smack accuse campaigners for a ban of making false comparisons between parental discipline and child abuse. They also warn that any law against smacking would be an intrusion into family life that could be used to criminalise ordinary loving parents.
There are signs that the rights of parents in England are already under pressure in civil Family Courts. In one case late last year two parents described as ‘loving and caring’ by a judge lost their children to adoption after a plank of the case against their right to keep their children was that they used smacking to punish them.
Welsh minister for children Huw Irranca-Davies said: ‘We want parents in Wales to be confident in managing their children’s behaviour without feeling they must resort to physical punishment.
‘If there is any potential risk of harm to a child then it is our obligation as a government to take action. Legislation was introduced many years ago to stop physical punishment in schools and childcare settings – now is the time to ensure it is no longer acceptable anywhere.’
Mr Irranca-Davies said he was aware there were differing views on the legislation and that the consultation would provide everyone an opportunity to have their say.
He added: ‘As a parent of three boys myself, I know being a parent can sometimes be a challenging experience. Children do not come with an instruction manual and sometimes parents need guidance and support to help them raise healthy and happy children.’
But, he said, physical punishment could have ‘negative long-term impacts on a child’s life chances’ and was in any case ineffective.
In Edinburgh Green MSP John Finnie has introduced a Holyrood bill to remove the defence of ‘justifiable assault’ from Scottish law. Late last year Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish administration said it would ‘ensure the proposals become law.’
Opponents of a ban in England urged Mrs May to resist pressure to follow the Scottish and Welsh direction.
Author on the family Jill Kirby, a former head of the Tory-leaning Centre for Policy Studies think tank, said: ‘The Government should resist this attempt to intrude further into family life.
‘Critics of smacking talk about parents hitting children, but that misrepresents what parents do, and wrongly confuses the difference between discipline and child abuse. There is a danger that good and well-meaning parents who, for example, smack a child on the leg in public to stop it doing something dangerous, will be dragged into the criminal courts. The focus of the courts should be on real abuse.’
The Department for Education in Whitehall has said there are no plans to outlaw smacking in England, and officials have maintained that it is wrong to turn good parents into criminals. They have also said that it is highly unlikely that the courts would ever allow a child abuser to get away by claiming reasonable punishment.
However it was Tory ministers in Westminster who opened the door to a smacking ban in Wales last year by transferring powers to legislate on parental discipline to the Welsh Assembly.
The Government’s response to developments in Wales and Scotland will now be in the hands of a new Education Secretary, Damian Hinds.
The rule of reasonable chastisement was set down by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn in 1860 in a case in which a school principal was convicted of manslaughter for beating a boy to death. The judge said a parent ‘may for the purpose of correcting what is evil in the child, inflict moderate and reasonable corporal punishment.’
The principle was made into statute in 1933 by the Children and Young Person’s Act.
Smacking has remained legal in Scotland following a 2003 law which banned punishment by hitting children on the head, shaking or hitting with a belt or cane.