Member

Putting thousands more families on the books for nothing more than a tap on the back of the hand or a smack on the bottom will further burden those responsible for child protection, leading to more vulnerable children slipping through the cracks. Amendment 97 would require the Westminster Government to examine the situation in Wales. The Be Reasonable campaign produced a report on the first three years of the ban. It found, as we have heard, that over 300 parents have been criminalised and referred to an out-of-court diversion scheme. These are parents whose actions were not abusive. If they were, I hope they would have been prosecuted, just as they would have been before the law changed. Their actions were, by definition, reasonable, but they have entered the criminal justice system as a result of the change in the law.