Dundee academic warns over smacking ban.

Bill: Academic says parents should be able to judge for themselves

Ministers are labelling parents “child abusers” by pursuing a smacking ban, a Dundee academic has claimed.

Dr Stuart Waiton, from Abertay University, said putting the form of discipline on a legal par with a random street attack was part of a worrying trend of state interference in parenting.

The Scottish Government has pledged to ensure a member’s bill banning the physical punishment of children becomes law.

Dr Waiton, a sociologist who campaigns against the over-regulation of family life, said: “I find it really distasteful.

“It means in their imagination, my mother is a child abuser and anyone else who has ever smacked their children is a child abuser.

“I think it is pretty horrible to think of people like that and not to recognise that parents have the capacity to make a judgment without having some professional hanging over their shoulder all of the time.”

He said it was a “fantasy” to equate a smack to discipline a child with “walking up to someone in the street and punching them in the face”.

Ministers officially backed Green MSP John Finnie’s bill, which removes the defence of “justifiable assault” in Scots law, on Wednesday.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Mr Finnie’s proposals are not a Scottish Government bill. However, we will ensure the proposals become law.

“We believe physical punishment can have negative effects on children which can last long after the physical pain has died away.”

The move would make Scotland the first part of the UK to ban smacking.

Mr Finnie said: “Giving children equal protection against assault will send a clear message to all of us about how we treat each other.”

Lowri Turner, a spokeswoman for the Be Reasonable campaign, which is fighting the proposals, said ministers must “resist the temptation to constantly interfere in how parents choose to raise their children”.

“As the Scottish Government well knows, the law already protects children from abuse,” she added.

A ComRes poll for the campaign found three-quarters of parents agreed a ban would “likely criminalise reasonable parents while doing little to stop bad parents from abusing children”.

Dr Stuart Waiton.