Smacking children unacceptable, say seven in 10 Britons

NEARLY three-quarters of the public say smacking children is unacceptable, a poll has revealed.

A survey of 3,500 adults in England found that a slim majority now back a change in the law to end physical punishment. The poll was commissioned by the NSPCC to determine support for the scrapping of the defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’.

It has already been outlawed in Scotland and Wales, with campaigners calling on politicians to promise to end the practice at the general election. Some 52 per cent of adults in England back a ban on physical punishment for children, up from 50 per cent in 2023.

And the number who believe smacking, hitting, slapping or shaking a child is unacceptable rose from 67 per cent in 2023 to 71 per cent.

There was support across the political spectrum – 61 per cent of people who voted Tory in 2019 thought smacking was unacceptable, while 83 per cent of Labour voters and 81 per cent of Liberal Democrats agreed. And 55 per cent of those surveyed thought physical punishment weakened the relationship between parents and children.

Sir Peter Wanless, NSPCC chief executive, said: ‘If an adult hits another adult because they don’t approve of how they’re behaving, it’s described as physical assault.

‘But if a parent uses physical violence and harms their child by taking the same actions, the law considers it acceptable. This is not right.’

But campaigners against a change in the law dismissed the results, saying they did not give a true reflection of public opinion. Simon Calvert, of the Be Reasonable Campaign, said: ‘The law protects children from abuse. The reasonable chastisement defence only applies where parents do something reasonable like tap a tot on the back of the hand.’