UK Government wants more evidence before banning hitting children

The UK Government has once again rejected a proposal to ban hitting children, claiming it needs to look at evidence coming from Wales later this year to make a decision.

Humanists UK joined a coalition of children’s and medical organisations, including the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the British Medical Association, to call for a change in the law to repeal the reasonable punishment defence and in support of Jess Asato MP’s amendment. 

Labour’s Jess Asato brought back her earlier amendment for the report stage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill on Monday 17 March. She, along with Liberal Democrat and Green MPs, pushed for the UK Government to remove legal defences against corporal punishment, as was done in Wales in 2022, Scotland in 2020, and the Republic of Ireland in 2015. 

Early Education Minister Stephen Morgan rebuffed calls for such a change, stating: ‘We are looking closely at the legal changes made in Wales and Scotland, but we have no plans to legislate at this stage. Wales is in the process of reviewing the impact of changing the law, and will publish its findings by the end of 2025. We want to look at the evidence before taking such a significant legislative step.’

It is unclear what additional evidence the Government is seeking to find, given that Scotland has banned corporal punishment for 5 years, Ireland for 10 years, and more than 60 countries since Sweden first did so in 1979. Jess Asato highlighted that ‘We have a wealth of research to draw on from the last 30 years, and not a single reputable study has found that physical punishment positively impacts children’s development. There is no evidence to show that it improves behaviour in children.’

Reviews of dozens of longitudinal studies have shown that corporal punishment is associated with detrimental effects for children, as well as worsening behaviour. The NSPCC found that countries such as Sweden and Austria introduced bans even without majority public support, but that over time public attitudes changed and corporal punishment of children decreased. The Children’s Commissioner and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child have all called for England’s reasonable punishment defence to be repealed, citing the evidence of harm on children that hitting causes.

Humanists UK’s Education Campaigns Manager Kieran Aldred commented:

‘The UK Government is missing out on a vital legislative change that could protect children from harm by continuing to reject an amendment to repeal the reasonable punishment defence. While waiting for the impact assessment from Wales’s repeal would provide additional evidence, it is unclear why comparable evidence from Scotland’s repeal in 2020 and Ireland’s ban on corporal punishment in 2015 could not be used by Education Ministers now.

With clear calls for repeal of the reasonable punishment defence from the children’s sector, the health sector, and international human rights bodies citing decades of evidence of the harm of hitting children, the UK Government should look again at the evidence base and use the opportunity of a children’s wellbeing Bill to protect children from violence.’