Latest attempt to ban smacking would only ‘criminalise loving parents’

Some public figures are urging the Government to criminalise parents in England if they smack their children.

In a letter co-ordinated by the NSPCC, over 7,500 signatories – including actor Sir Michael Caine and former England captain Alan Shearer – called for a smacking ban to be introduced through an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

But the Government has repeatedly explained that it has no plans to remove the legal defence of reasonable chastisement until it reviews the impact of the bans Scotland and Wales. As in England, Northern Ireland protects parents who use a light smack from being charged with assault.

‘Horrified’

Speaking to Sky News, Be Reasonable spokesman Ciarán Kelly warned that a smacking ban would only lead to the “criminalisation of loving parents” who are engaging “in the most trivial of actions and interactions with their children”.

He said parents would be “horrified” to learn that the Welsh Government has previously suggested that trying to put an unwilling toddler into a car seat, or picking up a child throwing a tantrum in a supermarket and restraining them, could fall foul of such a ban and be classified as assault.

Mr Kelly highlighted that 1,500 instances of smacking were assessed in Wales during one year, which if scaled up for England could amount to around 30,000.

He asked whether we want social services, who are already “pretty overstretched in the difficult job they have to do, having, essentially overnight, another 30,000 things to investigate?”

He continued: “To put loving parents into the same camp as abusers is going to make it harder for the genuine victims to be helped.”

Parents

Last month, a poll revealed that more parents of school age children in England and Northern Ireland oppose a ban on smacking than support it.

Of 3,692 parents surveyed by YouGov on behalf of the charity Parentkind, 43 per cent said it should be legal “for parents to smack their children”, while only 39 per cent were in favour of a smacking ban.

The Christian Institute spearheads the Be Reasonable campaign, which opposes the criminalisation of loving parents who use smacking as a form of ‘reasonable chastisement’, which is protected under law.