MPs call for full ban on smacking
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Your support makes all the difference.MPs led renewed calls for the Government to impose a full ban on smacking yesterday, warning that loopholes in the law were allowing child abusers to escape justice.
David Hinchliffe, the influential chairman of the Commons Health Committee, said he was prepared to draw up his own legislation to enforce a ban, insisting that present rules allowing "reasonable chastisement" of children left social workers "with one hand tied behind their backs".
His call was echoed by a coalition of child protection groups, which said the child abusers were allowed to hide behind current laws. Figures produced by the "Children Are Unbeatable" campaign showed that a child was killed every week in Britain by a parent or carer, while in Sweden no children had been killed since a ban on smacking was imposed a decade ago.
According to a Mori survey for the NSPCC to be published in February, 83 per cent of MPs agree that "in some cases physical punishment can lead to physical abuse".
Mr Hinchliffe said: "I have personal experience from my work as a social worker for 20 years of cases when a child has been taken to court for care proceedings where the child has been injured, sometimes seriously.
"But cases have been lost because the injuries were characterised as reasonable chastisement and the court has accepted that. A ban would be geared towards offering education to help people find alternative ways of disciplining their children."
Phillip Noyes, policy director of the NSPCC, a leading member of the coalition, said: "We won't stop the punches and kicks if we continue to tolerate the smacks and slaps. Hitting children is wrong and the law should clearly say so."
Hilton Dawson MP, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children, said: "We need a child protection system rooted in the human rights of children not to be assaulted. Administrative reforms can't cover up the fundamental flaw: this archaic law sends carers a message that it is OK to hit children."
Britain was chastised by the United Nations last year for failing to introduce a ban on smacking. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child criticised the Government for "taking no significant action" to introduce a ban and criticised its failure to modernise English law, which is based on a statute from 1860 allowing "reasonable chastisement" of children.
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