Lord Hampton (CB)

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 67 and 505 in the name of my noble friend Lady Finlay of Llandaff, to which I have added my name and to which she spoke so eloquently. I am afraid that I am unable to comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, because my cerebral cortex received so many messages of complaint that it shut down quite early on. I have lived on this planet for 60 years, I have been a parent for 20 years, a cricket coach for 15 years, a teacher for 10 years and a kinship carer for over a year, and I have never hit, slapped or smacked anybody, except one unfortunate time in a tour game against Tredegar Ironsides, and the opposition scrum-half started it. As has been mentioned, this is the children’s well-being Bill, but it is quietly going on its way without mentioning a fundamental problem of well-being: legalised violence against children. That is what we are talking about. Not a quick clip around the ear, not a short, sharp shock that teaches them right or wrong. Not something that was done to us and we are no worse for it. No, we are grooming our children to believe that violence is acceptable by the powerful against the weak for their own good. That is not an acceptable message. I believe that the results from Wales and Scotland are showing no major increase, if any, in prosecutions. I suspect that, for most people, it will not be a surprise that hitting a child is a bad idea, so a change in the law would remove the defence only for those who really aim to harm children. The rule of thumb is an urban myth. It has never been acceptable to hit women. Why do we still allow violence against children?