Contribution
My Lords, when I saw Amendment 97, I was pleased to see that the focus was on the post-implementation review report on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Act. I am keen that the UK Government dig deeper into the impact of what is known as the Welsh smacking ban. I am keen that the Government review the evidence and data and, I hope, draw a conclusion that this should not be brought into UK law—but that they do that by looking at the evidence.
As somebody in Wales, I have obviously been involved in this debate for some time. I have had lots of media discussions and spoken on the issue over the years. Having heard the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, talk about the report, I felt as though we probably read different reports and had different interpretations, which just shows that it is worth digging into. I have some serious reservations about the success of the law change, as there have been some rather unintended, though predictable, outcomes. I want to raise a few of those.
I understand that the proposers of this amendment are motivated by concern about the abuse of children, but it is important to note that we are all motivated by a concern about the abuse of children. That is something that we share. But one of my worries is the impact of the law change, given the pressures it is placing on social services in Wales. Thousands of new referrals have been made to Welsh social services that have involved the police, and these are costing millions of pounds and lots of time. To be honest, this can mean that real abuse is being squeezed out or relativised by what is happening.
The influx of referrals is not a surprise when any report of smacking automatically triggers an investigation by social services. The escalation of reports is no doubt because of the Welsh Government’s guidance to a wide range of organisations which work with, care for or volunteer with children that anyone who witnesses a parent smacking a child should immediately contact social services. My concern is that valuable resources are being taken away from protecting children who are at genuine risk of harm and diverted into trivial cases where harm has not been caused. Even if people ideologically do not agree with the chastisement of smacking, it is not the same as abuse. Even the most zealous anti-smacking campaigner—or so I thought, before I heard some people in this debate—should concede that a well-intentioned tap on the back of a tot’s hand or leg by a parent who loves their child does not mean that they are an abuser.
I was a bit shocked when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, say that any child might say, “If I don’t get a good grade, I’ll be beaten”. It is a shocking thing to hear a child say that, when it is actually illegal to beat a child in this country—of course it is. The idea that that is the same as smacking, in the way that the law in England permits, and the conflation of brutality with smacking—a mild physical chastisement as parental discipline—is the kind of sleight of hand that distorts the evidence, makes this a far too emotional discussion and is so insulting to parents. That is what I found shocking.
If we examine the guidance notes issued by various Welsh local authorities, we can see how resources that might be best spent protecting children at serious risk of beating if they do not pass their exams, for example—and that would be worth investigating—can become diverted. One example used in a guidance note was when a teacher reported that a young pupil stated his father smacked him because he was naughty. The advice from the Welsh Government was that the teacher should trigger a Section 47 investigation, which would include two uniformed officers visiting and talking to the four year-old. That sort of escalation, dragging the family into the orbit of social services and police forces, is what I worry about. There are obvious implications for the workload of front-line staff with a statutory duty to investigate all referrals, regardless of severity. That creates a danger of services being unable to prioritise cases where there is a genuine risk of abuse or neglect.