Community news

A University of Sussex law professor whose recommendations form the basis of a new ban on the smacking of children in Wales is calling for England to follow suit.

A law that removes a defence of reasonable chastisement for parents that physically punish their children was passed in the Welsh Assembly in 2020 and came into force on Monday 21st March 2022. The legislation is based in large part on the recommendations of a report by Professor Heather Keating of the University’s School of Law, Politics and Sociology.

Entitled 'Legislating to Prohibit Parental Physical Punishment', the report was commissioned by the Public Policy Institute of Wales (now Wales Centre for Public Policy) at the request of the former Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Children and Communities, as part of the Welsh Government’s commitment to abolish the defence of reasonable punishment of children.

The report reviewed the legislation of countries such as Sweden, New Zealand and Ireland, as well as accompanying research, and identified the factors to be considered when parental punishment reform proposals are being developed.

After the law came into force, Keating, an expert in the legal rights of children and Emeritus Professor of Criminal Law & Criminal Responsibility at the University of Sussex, said: “I am delighted that my recommendations have been acted upon by the Welsh government. These were borne out of strong evidence showing that legislating against the physical punishment of children can – when accompanied by sustained information campaigns and support to parents - contribute to significant changes in both attitudes towards and the prevalence of such actions.

“Previously, parents in Wales who smacked children could rely on the reasonable chastisement defence to a charge of common assault as long as they didn’t cause more than a ‘trifling’ injury or a temporary redness to the skin. This new law means that smacking a child in Wales will be unlawful, as it already is in Scotland.”

On the situation in England, Prof Keating commented: “English law continues to provide this archaic defence and, as it stands, legal reform seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. Support for a ban on smacking seems to be growing in England, however, and I would hope the example from other nations within the United Kingdom will prompt the government in Westminster to look at its own position and join the 63 other countries that have now outlawed the physical punishment of their children.”