... but parents who smack could be in trouble

PARENTS could be prosecuted for smacking children after the Scottish Government pledged support for a ban on corporal punishment for youngsters.

Nicola Sturgeon yesterday said ministers will not oppose a private members Bill from the Scottish Green Party which would see mothers and fathers face charges for disciplining children.

The move has been criticised by opponents who fear it could see families unnecessarily dragged through courts and marks a significant U-turn for the SNP which previously claimed a ban would not be ‘appropriate and effective’. In Scotland the physical punishment of children is already classed as assault, but smacking is generally allowed under the defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’.

But earlier this year Green MSP John Finnie launched a campaign for smacking to be outlawed insisting that it is ‘physical assault in the guise of discipline’.

Yesterday Miss Sturgeon appeared to show her backing for the proposal. She said: ‘The Scottish Government will not oppose John Finnie’s proposal to prohibit the physical punishment of children.

‘It is worth noting that approximately 50 countries around the world – including France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland, to name a few – have already successfully made that change.

‘We will consider how to further embed the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into policy and legislation, including the option of full incorporation into domestic law.’

Her programme for government went on to

insist that ministers would be ‘supporting the proposals in the Member’s Bill to introduce a legislative ban on the physical punishment of children’.

It also states that the government will ‘outlaw all forms of physical punishment’.

There would be a three-year programme launched to help raise awareness of children’s rights amongst youngsters.

But Norman Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, said smacking could be used as appropriate punishment in a ‘loving home where children are respected and cherished’.

He said: ‘It is parents, and not national governments, who bear the responsibility for caring for their children, nurturing them, and correcting them where necessary.’

Mr Wells also argued that ‘unreasonable and excessive punishment’ is already against the law.