Children: Physical Punishment Debate
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Baroness Chakrabarti
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Children: Physical Punishment
Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The UCL research is interesting. I note that UCL itself says that the analysis does not necessarily prove causality, although it does demonstrate correlation. The action that this Government are taking is not a small step, including as it does the reform of the children’s social care system and considerable investment in the Best Start Family Hubs programme to support children and parents with some of the difficult decisions and issues that any of us who have parented know that we will face. That strikes me as being a quite important development, very well invested in, in this country.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on her lifelong professional commitment to children and young people. Might doubters in England be persuaded if we explored replacing the common-law defence of reasonable chastisement with a statutory defence of reasonable restraint of a child?