Question Time attack on smacking ban plan
Proposals to ban smacking in Scotland came under fire on BBC’S Question Time, with a social worker in the audience claiming they were “unsustainable”.
The audience member told the panel on the discussion programme hosted by David Dimbleby that “one million” extra social workers would have to be recruited to make the legislation work.
The Scottish Government has said it will support a member’s bill tabled by Green MSP John Finnie to outlaw the physical chastisement of children. On the programme, former Labour leader Kezia Dugdale MSP spoke in support of the proposal but attracted criticism for suggesting it didn’t amount to a smacking ban.
The social worker said: “How do you expect social workers to support this? It is just unsustainable to have these types of laws and expect professionals to be able to make them meaningful … I support the principle and I absolutely advocate as a pro- fessional that no child should ever be smacked. But policing that and equipping social workers, you would need to have one million more of us to support families and make it meaningful.”
Kez Dugdale, a signatory to the bill, said: “I think we have to be very careful about the language we use here.
“We are not banning smacking. Your kitchen is not going to be raided by police officers because you have pulled your kid away from a hot pan and tapped them on the bum. That’s not what this is about.”
Be Reasonable, the campaign against a ban, said: “It’s worrying that the former leader of a Scottish political party doesn’t understand that if she votes for a ban she is voting to criminalise those who breach the ban.
“The social worker got it right. It would take an army of social workers to oversee the hundreds of thousands of Scottish families where parents sometimes discipline a child with a little tap on the behind.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “This proposed bill will give children the same legal protections as adults and end the defence of ‘justifiable assault’.”