Contribution
My Lords, I rise to oppose this amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and its consequent Amendment 505. I believe it is an egregious interference in family life by the state and an intrusion. It is an attack on family rights and it will encourage a childish disrespect for authority. It is disproportionate and heavy-handed and it risks criminalising good and caring parents, as well as overloading children’s services departments.
The law as it stands is sensible. It outlaws violence, abuse and unreasonable chastisement. Crown Prosecution Service guidelines are clear that, if the actions of a parent cause anything that is more than transient or trifling, it is unlawful. This has been the law since 2004, when Parliament narrowed the scope of the reasonable-chastisement defence. The reasonable-chastisement defence simply permits parents to use very mild physical discipline, like a tap on the hand or a smack on the bottom, without being charged with assault. By definition, the defence allows only reasonable behaviour. Therefore, if the defence is removed, it is only reasonable behaviour that will become unlawful.
“Reasonable chastisement” is common and harmless. The Welsh Government admitted in 2021 that there was
“no definitive evidence that reasonable physical punishment causes negative outcomes for children”.
Research recycled by activist academics campaigning for a ban fails to distinguish between reasonable chastisement and beatings. The recent press statement calling for a ban by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which appears to have become an annual event, included the claim that
“now is the time for this Victorian-era punishment to go”.
This kind of highly loaded language must bring into question whether the college was engaging in scientific debate or merely exaggerated polemic. Victorian-era punishment conjures up images of beatings that were outlawed long ago. Either the college is uninformed about the law or it is deliberately exaggerating.
Those who defend loving parents who use mild physical punishment within the context of a warm, nurturing relationship are opposed to child cruelty. The reasonable-chastisement defence will never prevent a court bringing in a conviction in a case of abuse. There is not a single reported case where this has occurred. As stated, the legal defence cannot be used where a parent causes anything that is more than transient and trifling. An example of the law in action took place in Torbay in 2018, where a stepdad was successfully prosecuted for smacking his four year-old daughter too hard. He had left a handprint on her bottom and the judge ruled, quite rightly, that he had acted unlawfully.
A core objective of the Bill is to address the concern that children at risk of abuse are falling through the cracks of our safeguarding system. However, a smacking ban would exacerbate this wrong by increasing the likelihood that genuinely at-risk children are overlooked. It would be a tragedy if major cases of abuse were missed because vital staff members were needlessly occupied with innocent parents. Those in genuine need will suffer while resources are wasted on cases where there are no real problems. Social workers will be even busier than they are already and, as a result, some vulnerable children will not get the help they obviously need.
Everyone wants the state to intervene to protect children who are in danger of abuse, but, if that is to be done effectively, the limited resources available need to be focused on identifying and helping those at risk, not investigating innocent, loving parents because the law of assault has become politicised by activists who do not agree with reasonable chastisement.
Making trivial smacks a criminal offence will cause misery for parents and children. Parents will be required to be treated as suspected child abusers by police and social services when they know they do not deserve to be treated in that way. We do not help victims of real abuse by creating injustice in families where there is no abuse. Some children will be removed from their parents; some will have to give evidence in court against their mother or father. This entirely unnecessary and unjust process would be devastating for the child and their parents, and it runs counter to the Bill’s stated aim to keep children and families together wherever it is safe to do so, as set out by the Minister at Second Reading.