My Lords, as we approached the start of Report, I looked at the progress made in the Government adopting a significant numbers of amendments proposed in Committee and at the sensible amendments achieving broad cross-party support on Report, some of which I hope we will see adopted, and there was cause for some satisfaction. There was a feeling that this Bill, pushed along by a huge amount of hard work by campaigners outside your Lordships’ House who have provided us with extensive briefings and support showing the level of society’s concern about the failure to protect victims of domestic abuse, truly can protect people in their own homes. This is a humanitarian Bill about preventing physical and mental suffering, damage to health and well-being, and even death.
But as the deadline for amendments approached, it struck me that there was one remaining gaping hole in protections for children. There is the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, on in utero protection, but until now we have not even debated broad protection for children in the domestic setting, despite this being the major, long-awaited and much-debated Bill specifically covering that area of life.
In retrospect, that is extremely surprising, particularly when we look at what is happening elsewhere on these islands. Last November, in Scotland, a law giving children the same protection from assault as adults enjoy, in domestic and all settings, came into force. In Wales, the same protection will come into force in 2022. In Northern Ireland, it is under serious consideration. And of course the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the UK adopted in 1990, requires the abolition of corporal punishment in all settings.
There are now also 58 other nations around the globe that have brought in what is generally known as a smacking ban, Sweden having been the first state to
do so, way back in 1979. I am not generally, however, going to use the term “smacking ban”, because, although it is helpful for public understanding, having wide currency, it to some degree trivialises the protection from assault that I am talking about.
Let us make no mistake: children in England can now be assaulted in ways that, were one adult to do to another, would be considered absolutely unacceptable by the law and the public. Imagine being on a bus and seeing one person lean over and slap another across the legs with clear intention to shock and cause pain; you would be on your mobile phone to the police in a second. At night, down the pub—if you can still imagine such a thing—the same behaviour would see the bouncers approaching in full force to restore order. Yet we still explicitly in law allow such behaviour towards children, the most absolutely vulnerable individuals in our society.
In the school playground, should one child behave towards another as their parent may have done the previous evening towards them, officialdom would rightly swoop down, and, should it be a pattern of behaviour, there is a real chance that that child might receive the extreme penalty of exclusion from school.
Amendment 82, which I am presenting, is simple. I apologise for my oversight in not providing an explanatory note, but I think the meaning is clear: it abolishes the defence of “reasonable punishment” that currently exists under Section 58 of the Children Act 2004, and it says that
“battery of a child cannot be justified”.
I know well that this debate is not new to many in your Lordships’ House. A quick internet search demonstrated just how hard many participating in the debate today worked back in 2004 to try to bring protection from assault to children. That led to restrictions on corporal punishment by a parent, so a parent can still be charged with common assault if a physical punishment causes bruises, grazes, scratches, swellings or cuts. However, a defence of “reasonable punishment” is still available in the law, even when there is physical evidence of severe punishment. It is pretty well impossible to prove that punishment is unreasonable. It is a test of intent, and we are talking about events that generally happen behind closed doors. That was a degree of progress in 2004, but not nearly enough, and it is certainly not enough for 2021.
Among the people who worked enormously hard back in 2004 were the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Whitaker and Lady Finlay, who have kindly signed this amendment—bringing broad cross-party and non-party support to it—and who will be speaking shortly. I know that a number of others would have signed the amendment, had there been space. I thank all of them for their support and their experience.
They are reflecting the view of a large number of campaigners and experts. Many noble Lords will have received a briefing from the Association of Educational Psychologists that contains a very long and distinguished list of organisations, from campaigning to medical professionals, that support such a move as this. I particularly thank the Social Workers Union, which has published an article doing that just today. That the AEP has been leading recent campaigning in England
on the issue is not surprising when you see the evidence that it has assembled. It reports how the physical punishment of children causes anxiety and depression, damages self-esteem and models aggressive behaviour, which is often copied. The evidence also shows that it damages the quality of parent-child relationships.
I suggest that we also have to consider the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, which affects everything today. Children have had a hugely difficult time: for a five or 10 year-old, it is a major chunk of their life—a dominant experience that will certainly continue to have impacts on them. They need our protection and support.
Before I bring this intervention to a close, I have one final point to make. I have no doubt that some will suggest that this amendment would run the risk of unreasonably penalising struggling parents trying to do their best in extremely difficult circumstances, with the lockdown, poverty, inequality and all the other stresses of life today. But this is very much the opposite—a necessary message from a society that, surveys show, already understands that physical attacks on children are not a good thing.
We need to support parents to use positive parenting strategies to better understand and anticipate their children’s behaviour and be more confident about how to set boundaries and support their children in developing self-regulation—and to control their own behaviour. Force escalation is a key issue in protecting children from assault. Research shows that when force is used, there are changes in brain activity that can lead to an escalation in the degree of force used. The AEP notes that, in a survey of parents, two in five admitted to going further than they had intended.
9.30 pm
However, as important as it is to support parents, on its own it is not sufficient. We need to understand that parents who have been subjected to assault themselves as children, who have often had little or no education in methods of managing child behaviour, and who all too often are under enormous pressure need support.
When smacking bans have been brought in in those 58 other countries that already have them, there has not been a rush to litigation or a flood of parents locked up in jails. Back in 1999, research for the Children’s Society spoke to the experts themselves, the children. A seven year-old said:
“I was just thinking that if they changed the law then a lot of people will realise what they had done to their child and they would probably … be happy that the law was changed. If they don’t change the law they will think ‘oh well, the child doesn’t mind so we can keep on doing it’.”
That voice of a seven year-old is an excellent place to finish my argument.
I will not push this amendment to a vote. My extremely experienced and knowledgeable collection of supporters from your Lordships’ House persuaded me, somewhat against my natural inclinations, that that would not be the right thing to do at this time. Of course, that does not prevent the Government deciding to incorporate it into the Bill as its progress continues. I ask the Minister to consider that carefully. I am not expecting sudden action today, but certainly in future.
I have a further ask of the Minister: will she agree to meet campaigners, fellow Peers and me to examine the evidence and discuss ways forward or, if it is more appropriate, to approach the relevant Minister on our behalf to arrange such a meeting? In the meantime, I beg to move.