Pointless punishing of innocent parents

EXCESSIVE punishment of children is abhorrent and should, rightly, attract the full force of the law.

Scots Law as it stands today is robust on assault regardless of whether the victim is a child or an adult.

So with abusers already under threat of punishment, what lies behind the SNP’s Damascene conversion over an outright ban on smacking?

They told us they did not support parents using physical chastisement, but had no plans to legislate. Green MSP John Finnie had other ideas and his proposals had been out for consultation.

Suddenly yesterday, a Nationalist U-turn. The Scottish Government will ensure his Bill becomes law and quickly enough to make Scotland the first part of the UK to ban parents from smacking, removing the current ‘reasonable assault’ defence.

Yet again Holyrood is out on a limb as there is no appetite for change among the public. A survey says 74 per cent do not back the criminalisation of smacking.

Could the driver be that the Greens, usually so supine that they often seem to have been annexed by the SNP, are becoming truculent?

They threatened to defy their masters over the next Holyrood Budget, warning they would not back unimpressive Finance Secretary Derek Mackay unless he takes yet more tax from hard-working Scots.

So is the smacking ban a fillip for the Greens, a moment in the sun for an MSP who has risen without trace – and a favour to be called in later?

If so, this is a dangerous game, for the forthcoming legislation is likely go to one of two ways. It may go the Irish route and gather dust on the statute books, a monument to vapid virtue signallers and yet another waste of taxpayers’ money.

Or it may drive a wedge between the law and parents as a charter for axe-grinders and busybodies, another tool with which the Nanny State can jemmy the front doors of Scottish families.

Short-termism has become an unfortunate hallmark of the SNP. Too often they bulldoze through ill-judged and unnecessary legislation. The disastrous Offensive Behaviour at Football Act is a classic example.

Existing breach of the peace laws were sufficient to help maintain order at matches, but the SNP had to be seen to act and their never-mind-the-quality-feel-the-width approach proved a shambles.

As with the disastrous Named Persons plan to foist a state snooper on every child in the land, the smacking ban is dressed up as a child-protection matter and who could be against that?

But let’s not be fooled by the emotive spin and coolly consider the facts.

Named Persons, since ruled illegal, risked diverting scant resources away from genuinely at-risk children while targeting functioning families.

The smacking ban will similarly be called progressive by the spin doctors but does it truly represent a step-change in the protection of children?

Norman Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, warns on page four that a ban will be nigh-on impossible to police.

As ever, legislation is one thing and enforcement quite another.

Yet a ban puts families at risk of being dragged into court with children giving evidence against parents.

Social workers face yet more work on their already overcrowded plates.

Isn’t it the case that Holyrood is squandering time and money on a Green hobby-horse?

An outright ban on even the gentlest physical reprimand seems unlikely to do any more than existing laws to protect seriously at-risk youngsters.

Yet this blunt instrument’s unintended consequences risk putting a parent in the dock over a trivial smack.