Y Pwyllgor Plant, Pobl Ifanc ac Addysg - Y Bumed Senedd

Children, Young People and Education Committee - Fifth Senedd

02/05/2019

Aelodau'r Pwyllgor a oedd yn bresennol

Committee Members in Attendance

Dawn Bowden
Hefin David
Janet Finch-Saunders
Jayne Bryant Yn dirprwyo ar ran Jack Sargeant
Substitute for Jack Sargeant
Lynne Neagle Cadeirydd y Pwyllgor
Committee Chair
Sian Gwenllian
Suzy Davies

Y rhai eraill a oedd yn bresennol

Others in Attendance

Andy James Cadeirydd Dros Dro, Rhwydwaith Amddiffyniad Cyfartal Cymru
Interim Chair, Equal Protection Network Cymru
Catriona Williams Prif Swyddog Gweithredol, Plant yng Nghymru
Chief Executive Officer, Children in Wales
Dr Katherine Shelton Uwch-ddarlithydd Seicoleg, Prifysgol Caerdydd, ac Aelod o Academyddion dros Amddiffyniad Cyfartal
Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Cardiff University, and Member of Academics for Equal Protection
Emma Gammon Cyfreithiwr, Llywodraeth Cymru
Lawyer, Welsh Government
Jamie Gillies Llefarydd dros Byddwch yn Rhesymol Cymru
Spokesman for Be Reasonable Wales
Julie Morgan Y Dirprwy Weinidog Iechyd a Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol
Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services
Karen Cornish Dirprwy Gyfarwyddwr, yr Is-adran Plant a Theuluoedd, Llywodraeth Cymru
Deputy Director, Children and Families Division, Welsh Government
Menna Thomas Cyfarwyddwr Cynorthwyol—Polisi, Barnardo's Cymru
Assistant Director—Policy, Barnardo's Cymru
Professor Sally Holland Comisiynydd Plant Cymru
Children’s Commissioner for Wales
Rachel Thomas Pennaeth Polisi a Materion Cyhoeddus, Comisiynydd Plant Cymru
Head of Policy and Public Affairs, Children’s Commissioner for Wales
Sally Gobbett Rhiant Ymgyrchydd
Parent Campaigner
Vivienne Laing Rheolwr Polisi a Materion Cyhoeddus, NSPCC Cymru
Policy and Public Affairs Manager, NSPCC Cymru

Swyddogion y Senedd a oedd yn bresennol

Senedd Officials in Attendance

Lisa Salkeld Cynghorydd Cyfreithiol
Legal Adviser
Llinos Madeley Clerc
Clerk
Sarah Bartlett Dirprwy Glerc
Deputy Clerk
Sian Thomas Ymchwilydd
Researcher

Cofnodir y trafodion yn yr iaith y llefarwyd hwy ynddi yn y pwyllgor. Yn ogystal, cynhwysir trawsgrifiad o’r cyfieithu ar y pryd. Lle mae cyfranwyr wedi darparu cywiriadau i’w tystiolaeth, nodir y rheini yn y trawsgrifiad.

The proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the transcript.

Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:20.

The meeting began at 09:20.

1. Cyflwyniad, Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datgan Buddiannau
1. Introductions, Apologies, Substitutions and Declarations of Interest

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee. We've received apologies for absence from Jack Sargeant AM, and I'm very pleased to welcome Jayne Bryant, who is substituting for him this morning. Can I ask Members if there are any declarations of interest, please? No. Okay. Thank you.

2. Bil Plant (Diddymu Amddiffyniad Cosb Resymol) (Cymru): Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 1
2. Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session 1

We move on, then, to our substantive item this morning, which is our first evidence session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. I'd like to welcome Julie Morgan, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, deputy director, children and families division; and Emma Gammon, who is a Welsh Government lawyer. Thank you all for your attendance this morning. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so if it's okay, we'll go straight into questions from Siân Gwenllian.

Bore da. Y cwestiwn hollol amlwg i ofyn reit ar gychwyn yr ymchwiliad yma ydy, 'Pam?' Pam fod angen deddfwriaeth o'r math yma, a pha dystiolaeth sydd yna nad ydy'r gyfraith fel mae hi'n bresennol yn gweithio?

Good morning. The obvious question to ask right at the outset of this inquiry is, 'Why?' Why is there a need for legislation of this type, and what evidence is there that the current law is not effective? 

Thank you, Siân, very much for that question. The reason that we're putting this legislation forward is because we want to promote children's rights. We've got a long history in Wales in the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh Government of putting a priority on children's rights. So, that's the main reason we're putting it forward. We also want to have a situation in Wales where children are not physically punished, and in the situation as it is, where there is the defence, where the defence does exist, children are able to be physically punished because the parents are able to have a defence. So, the situation, the legal situation as it is at the moment, we believe, has got to be changed, and needs to be changed in order to bring up children in a nurturing environment where physical punishment is not able to be used under the law. So, we think we have to take legislative action to remove that defence.

Ond mae yna dystiolaeth i ddangos mai prin ydy'r adegau pan mae'r amddiffyniad cosb rhesymol yn cael ei ddefnyddio. Mae agweddau'n ymddangos yn newid, felly pam bod angen mynd ar ôl hyn?

But there is evidence to show that it's very rare that this defence of physical chastisement is used, and attitudes appear to be changing. So, why are you going after this now?

Certainly, I'm very pleased, in fact, that attitudes are changing, and we have had quite a lot of information that has shown that there's a significant shift in terms of what particularly younger parents think is acceptable and what isn't acceptable. But, nevertheless, when that defence exists, it does make it very difficult to make it absolutely clear that physical punishment is not acceptable. And I think you're probably aware that all the health professionals, all the people who work with children at the very early age, want to be able to give clear messages that any form of physical punishment is not acceptable. And when that defence exists, it muddies the water. It's not clear that we don't find physical punishment acceptable. So, the fact that this defence is not used in many cases is not really surprising, because that defence exists. So, the police would not go forward with cases because they already know there's a defence to cover some behaviour. So, I really think that we need to make the law absolutely clear and we want to make it absolutely clear that, in Wales, we do not want a society where it is acceptable to physically punish children. And I think the only way of doing that is, really, to be quite clear about it and to get rid of this defence.

Ond os ydy agweddau'n newid—a dwi'n falch iawn bod agweddau'n newid—onid ydy'n well i adael i hynny ddigwydd yn naturiol? Onid ydych chi'n mynd i fod yn corddi'r dyfroedd yn dod â deddfwriaeth o'r fath yma ymlaen ac yn mynd i greu dadlau mawr a checru mawr ynghylch rhywbeth sydd yn newid beth bynnag?

But if attitudes are shifting—and I am very happy that they are shifting—wouldn't it be better to let that happen naturally? Don't you think you'd be stirring the waters, as it were, by bringing legislation of this type forward and creating great debate over something that's changing in any case?

It is moving ahead and it is changing, but nevertheless, if you've still got that defence, it does make it very difficult for—. In the very difficult situation, really, that parents often bring up children—because I think we all acknowledge that bringing up children is a very difficult job and people need as much support and help as they can—it's not possible for the key people who help children in the early ages to give the clear message that it's not the way we want to go, to physically punish children. And it's quite clear as well, by the research that's been done, that with legislation change, legislation helps move change along, and so you need the legislation, but you also need the work with parents and you need the promotion, and you need all those things, but legislation is definitely a stimulus to change behaviour and, obviously, although the numbers are going down, there are still some parents who think it's the right thing to do.

09:25

Pa dystiolaeth ymchwil cadarn sydd yna yn dangos fod smacio ysgafn, achlysurol yn niweidio plant? Does yna ddim tystiolaeth benodol yn ôl beth dwi'n ei ddeall. 

What research evidence and robust evidence is available showing that a light, infrequent smack is harmful to children? There is no evidence specifically according to my understanding.

There's certainly no evidence showing that a light smack does any good for children. That's certainly absolutely true. The only way you could get a proper evidential survey is if you did a trial, and you had a trial where you had some children who were smacked and some children who weren't, and compare them. And, of course, you would never do that, because that would really be quite unethical, to say, 'We'll set up a trial and we'll have a group of children who we'll allow to be smacked and a group of children who wouldn't.' So, it is very difficult to get any actual evidence, but I think that the research that we've looked at and the research that we've commissioned—the overall view is that there is the potential, certainly, for harm from any form of physical punishment.

Ac wedyn, yn olaf gen i, mi fydd yna rai pobl yn dweud, 'O, dyma ni eto—y wladwriaeth yn ymyrryd ym mywydau teuluoedd yng Nghymru a rhyw fath o nanny state yn digwydd eto.' Beth ydy eich ymateb chi i hynny?

And then, finally from me, some people will say, 'Oh, here we go again—the state is interfering in family life here in Wales, and we're in some sort of nanny state, and it's happening again.' So, what's your response to that?

Well, I'm always a bit mystified by these sort of comments. Because, as I've said, I think bringing up children is a very difficult job. Parents need all the help that they possibly can, and from what I've seen, most parents do really welcome the help and guidance that there is there from the state. And I think the role of the state is to try to set the sort of society that we want our children to be brought up in, to give the broad parameters. We don't want to interfere in what individuals are doing in their family life—it's up to families how they bring up their children—but I think it's behoven on the state to try and set the sort of parameters, and that physical punishment is not one of the things we want to see happening in Wales. We feel that we want children to be brought up in the sort of society where it's not acceptable to physically punish your child. Why would you want a big person to hit a little person, for example? Why would anybody want to promote that? So, I feel quite clear that this is the right way for us to go in terms of setting the boundaries, and that I think that many parents would welcome the fact that we were doing that.

A jest un cwestiwn arall. Ydy o'n flaenoriaeth, o ran amser deddfu sydd gennym ni yn y Senedd yma, ac yn wyneb yr holl faterion eraill sydd angen sylw? Mae yna argyfwng yn digwydd mewn llawer o feysydd—iechyd, addysg. Ai hwn ddylai gael blaenoriaeth?

And just one other question. Is it a priority, in terms of the time we have available to legislate here in the Assembly, given all the other issues that need our attention? There is a crisis in many areas—in terms health, education. So, is this what should be having the priority here?

I think it's an absolute priority, because I think it's a very fundamental issue. I think the sort of society you want to bring up your children in—and looking after and nourishing children is probably the most important thing that we can do. And, of course, you could say we're at quite a crisis time at the moment, really, and the Brexit issue and all these sort of issues, but, really, I think the Welsh Government has always said that we're absolutely determined that that doesn't distract us from doing the bread-and-butter stuff that we've planned to do. And, of course, this was a commitment in our manifesto. It's something has been discussed in the Assembly for many, many years. In fact, I looked at the chronology before coming, in preparation for this committee, just to see how long this legislation had been discussed. In January 2002, Christine Chapman held a short debate in the Senedd called, 'Hitting people is wrong, and children are people too'. Since then, there have been continuous debates and discussions, and previous Ministers have given commitments that this is something that the Assembly is planning to do. Of course, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child have constantly said that this is something that we should be doing. So, by doing this, we are following the advice of international bodies. And the Welsh Government, in 2007, said that they wanted to change it but didn't have the power to change this law. So, it's been continuous, it's been going on, really, ever since devolution began. So, I can't really accept that this is something that is not important enough to bring now. I think it's really important and I think it's very important for Wales, as a nation, that we do this.

09:30

Thank you. I've got a supplementary from Suzy Davies. 

Thank you, Chair. Just a very, very short supplementary question on the point that you made earlier about evidence—there being no definitive evidence that reasonable punishment causes negative outcomes, but that it doesn't produce positive outcomes either. Would it be fair to say, or do you accept the suggestion, that when parents do punish their children via smacking, they're doing it with the intention to produce a positive outcome?

I think it's very possible that some parents do think that and, certainly, this is what was thought in the past and it was certainly acceptable in the past. Many people did it, and many of us were physically punished, but we've moved on, we're in a different time, and we're in a different atmosphere now, really, and I just think with the worldwide move to get rid of physical punishment, we want Wales to be up there in the front.

That's fine. I just wanted to make sure that that was on there.

Certainly. I'm not saying—. I've been very keen to make sure I take into account the views of people who think it's the right thing to use physical punishment. I was pleased to meet the Be Reasonable organisation, which I think you're taking evidence from later on today. So, I have met them, and I was very pleased to listen to their views and the discussion we had, I thought, was very helpful. So, I certainly don't think that people who are using physical punishment are necessarily—. They think that they're doing it for the right reasons, yes.

Okay. Just to get it on the record. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. 

I'm glad you mentioned the Be Reasonable campaign because, clearly, 76 per cent of the people surveyed actually said that parental smacking should not be a criminal offence. But also, this Welsh Government commissioned research, 'Parental Physical Punishment: Child Outcomes and Attitudes', and they actually said,

'In our view the evidence does not definitively show that “reasonable” parental physical punishment causes negative outcomes. But there is evidence of an association with negative outcomes, and no evidence of benefits, either in terms of long-term developmental benefits, or in terms of its efficacy'.

So, they're actually saying quite clearly at the beginning that it doesn't definitively show that reasonable parental—. So, how do you—? Sorry. How do you reason with information that's been received by this Welsh Government that contradicts the moves you're making on this?

I absolutely appreciate that there are different views between different researchers—

—on these issues, and I think I did cover earlier in my answer to Siân Gwenllian about the fact that there are no benefits associated with physical punishment, as you've just said, and there is association with negative outcomes, but that's different than saying that negative outcomes are a result of it. So, I think that's the research point being made. But the Wales Centre for Public Policy review of the evidence did actually conclude that

'The majority of researchers in the field make the judgement that the balance of evidence is sufficient to support the claim that all physical punishment under all conditions is potentially harmful to child development.'

That is what their conclusion was. But we're going with the fact that we think it's the wrong thing to do in any case.

Thank you. We've got some specific questions now on implementation and the first are on enforcement from Dawn Bowden.

Thank you, Chair. Morning. If the Bill becomes law, what should a member of the public do if they see somebody—a parent—smacking a child?

Well, obviously every person makes an individual decision of how they respond to anything they see—anything, at any point. So, obviously, it would be up to the individual. But we hope that the awareness of the law will be pretty prevalent. We are planning a very wide-ranging, intensive information programme, because we think it's really important that, as well as bringing in the law, we bring in the awareness of the law, so that the public and parents are fully aware that it will not be legal to physically punish your child after this is introduced. But we are having a long lead-in for that in order that we can make sure that we make everybody as aware as they possibly can. So, obviously, if a member of the public did see something that was happening that was not legal, you rely on the member of the public to do what they think is right in that circumstance.

09:35

Which would include reporting it to the police, I guess.

Okay. So, enforcement of the law, as we've already just touched on, is a matter for the police and—sorry, I can hear myself, I've still got my earpiece in—the Crown Prosecution Service and the judiciary, not for the Assembly, as such. So, how can you guarantee that the Bill is not going to lead to significant increases in parents being prosecuted? Because that will be outside of the control of the Assembly, clearly.

We don't anticipate that there will be a significant number of prosecutions. We've done our best to look at other countries to see if we can anticipate what will happen, but the number of countries that have a similar system to us and who've actually got data and have monitored it is very small, really, and it's only New Zealand that we can really look at. But looking at the New Zealand evidence, it looks quite clear that the number of cases that have actually come to prosecution is very small indeed. I think under 10 a year, probably. So, that's what we can see by looking at international comparisons.

But the purpose of the Bill is to protect children. It is to change behaviour as well, and we hope that behaviour will change naturally, so that we may not even have as many as 10 prosecutions a year, because of the awareness raising that will actually happen. We also want to make quite sure that there is a proportionate response to any possible offence that has been committed, and, obviously, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service—they have to decide whether to proceed with anything on the basis of whether there's enough evidence and whether it's in the public interest, which of course includes the interests of the child. So, already, that is already built in.

So, we do anticipate that there will be a proportionate response to this legislation. And, of course, we've had meetings with the police, we've had meetings with the Crown Prosecution Service, we've had meetings with social services. And we are going to have an implementation group, and this implementation group will include all the key people who will be implementing the Act. And the first meeting is on 14 May. So, we, obviously, hope this legislation will get through, but we are going to start preparation now, in terms of working out the actual implementation, the day-to-day.

Sure, I understand that. So, those discussions that you've had with the various organisations, including the police—is that how you've arrived, in the explanatory memorandum, with the figure of around 38 prosecutions a year? Because I think the evidence shows that something like 270 cases have been brought before the court where reasonable chastisement has actually been used as a defence. And based on that—I'm assuming that that is based on those figures—the explanatory memorandum is suggesting, possibly, 38 prosecutions a year might result from this legislation. Am I interpreting it correctly?

I think the 274 prosecutions—that was based on an audit that the police carried out on recorded crime offences of common assault against children and cruelty against children. And they say it's very, very caveated. You can't absolutely be sure of that, but that's the best that they can do on available data. But in those cases, there were no charges and no prosecutions. So they never reached a prosecution. 

Okay. And those were the cases specifically where reasonable chastisement was used as a defence. Am I right in understanding that?

So, if we had removed that defence, the estimate is that, possibly, 38 of those would have gone forward to a prosecution. Am I interpreting that correctly?

09:40

Certainly. So, not quite. They're two separate pieces of data and analysis. I'm just going to take my headphones off; it's a bit weird, isn't it?

So, the police data was a retrospective piece of analysis to try to help us establish a baseline, to see whether something around physical punishment was recorded in their systems, and whether that would help us establish a baseline of, potentially, how many times physical punishment had happened, and therefore what that would mean in terms of us considering cost and the potential increase in referrals. The New Zealand data—I'll just pop that back, if I can, so I can get that right. Because there's no requirement in Wales on the police or the CPS to collect specific data on the number of times the defence may have been used in the past, predicting future numbers is therefore difficult. So, I think in the letter from the Minister to the committee, we said that the only published data that we could find across the world—and I think that sort of speaks in part for itself as well—is actually from the New Zealand police force, and we used that as a proxy to estimate the potential numbers of cases that might be prosecuted. So, the two sets of numbers are separate and we've used that to estimate the potential numbers of cases over a period of five years, should the law change. We had to look then at population numbers, and our population of nought to 14-year-olds, which is where the data was collected in New Zealand, is about 60 per cent of the New Zealand numbers. We took 60 per cent, therefore, of the data and the prosecution numbers that they had, and that's how we came to it. And I think it's really important to understand, at the moment, because there's no precedent or requirement to capture this information, this is more of an art than a science, and so we're doing our very best to get the information, to get the data, to make these best estimates, but one doesn't necessarily equal or correlate to the other.

Okay. So, it is a best guesstimate based on evidence that's already out there. Okay, I understand. Okay, thank you very much.

Yes, just on the UK police information that you have there, or the work that they did for you there. Presumably the information they had related to cases that included other features as well as smacking, otherwise it's highly unlikely that it would have reached the police in the first place. Are you able to say if any of the cases to which they referred were simply about smacking, or was it just one feature in a range of behaviours?

The information that they produced was where physical punishment of some description was logged. The rest of the detail behind that we don't have. We can certainly find that out for the committee. What we do know, though, is that anything else that took place or the result of those incidents being reported, there was no further action, so there were no prosecutions.

Thank you. If you don't mind, that would be quite helpful, because it helps us understand how that got to the police in the first place. Okay, thank you.

Yes, we'll write and provide that to the committee.

I think it would very helpful to have a further note, and explaining the differences between the two sets of figures, because I think what the committee is struggling with is if there were 274 cases where it was used as a defence, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume there might be 274 prosecutions in a year rather than 38?

It's probably worth just saying then, at the moment, that actually we would expect the numbers to be much smaller, because obviously, at the moment, there is no awareness raising. As the Minister said, there will be a lot of that. And the other thing is that, because of the conversations that we have been having with police and others, the role of the implementation group will be looking at how we can reduce numbers over time. But, of course, we will provide something explaining that a bit further.

Thank you very much. The next questions are from Jayne Bryant.

09:45

Thank you, Chair, and good morning. Just thinking about those 274 offences, the annex of the explanatory memorandum concludes that

'malicious reporting via ex-partners was prevalent', 

and says that

'Issues such as legal access and financial support issues featured prominently.'

Have you assessed the risk that separated parents may accuse each other of smacking a child in order to gain advantage during private law family court proceedings? 

Yes, well, that's something that happens a lot already. Unfortunately, there are malicious allegations, and I think the police, the CPS and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service are very used to this. So, we have had discussions with CAFCASS, who will be part of the implementation group and who will be working with us to address these issues. But, no, we're very aware of that. It's something that everybody's very used to dealing with at the moment, and there's no doubt that it is likely to occur.

Okay, thank you. It's arguably the first time that there's going to be an obvious public perception of a divergence between criminal law in England and Wales, and the CPS guidance will need to be amended to clearly reflect it. You've mentioned that you've met the CPS. Can you confirm that the meetings were specifically about the charging guidance?

Yes, I've met the CPS, and the previous Minister met the CPS, who are very supportive of the course of action that we're taking, and, yes, that has been part of the discussion. And they absolutely agree that the charging standard on offences against the person will need to be amended to make it clear that the defence no longer applies in Wales. So, that is something that they are going to do and will be working towards. We're also having the CPS as part of the implementation group. So, we want to have that group with everybody together so all the nitty-gritty stuff can be thrashed out with everybody around the table. 

And you're happy that there'd be a smooth transition for the specific guidance on that. Are you happy with— 

Having met with the CPS I feel very confident that there will be a smooth transition, yes.

Great. The explanatory memorandum also refers to 'logistical issues' when taking evidence from children and says that

'Registered Intermediaries (RIs) must be considered for use at court in every case involving a child witness.'

It goes on to say that apparently

'there is currently a shortage of RIs and a very limited number of Welsh speaking ones. This could create delays in the process.'

Do you believe it could be a barrier to delivering the intentions of the Bill?

Yes, I think it's very important that there is an adequate number of registered intermediaries. I think we did write in the letter to explain what the position was, but the position has changed since then. So, I'll update you on the situation. There was a recruitment exercise between October and December 2018 last year, and 15 candidates were successful at interview. Of these, eight have successfully completed the training, three will be able to retake the training, and four applicants are still awaiting training. So, that will result in 15, and of the eight candidates who are already trained, one is a Welsh speaker. One further successful candidate states that they are proactively learning Welsh, and this is in addition to an existing Welsh-speaking registered intermediary who is already working in Wales. So, there is a definite improvement in the number of intermediaries who will be available. 

It's done by the Ministry of Justice. So, these figures are Wales only? 

Yes. But it's recruited by the Ministry of Justice. It's not recruited in Wales. 

Can I just ask a quick supplementary on that? So, do we know, when they're advertising for these posts, if they're appointed by the Ministry of Justice, that the Welsh language aspect is an active part of that recruitment process? 

Well, actually I'll ask Karen to come in, but I think because it's recruited UK wide the Welsh language didn't actually come into it and we had to find out whether anybody spoke Welsh. Is that correct? 

That's absolutely correct. So, it was an after the fact question that we needed to ask. 

So, they are now aware that we do need to have that in Wales, are they? 

And, as the Minister was saying, it's only this week that we've been having discussions with them again, which is why we know this information off the top of our heads, so they understand that there is a Welsh language requirement and a need in Wales, and we'll continue to have those sorts of conversations with them over time. 

09:50

Thank you. We're going to move on now to some questions on awareness raising and cross-border issues from Suzy Davies. 

Before I do that, can I just ask you two questions on the back of Jayne's questions please? The conversations that you had with the CPS about the charging guidance, can you tell us what discussion you had around the public interest tests during that discussion, and about where you think the threshold, or where the CPS threshold for that is likely to bite should this defence be removed?

Yes. I'm not sure that we've had any specific discussion about that. Karen, do you have any—

No, we didn't have any specific discussion about that in my memory. 

We talked more generally about the evidential and public interest tests, and obviously considering the best interest of the child being pragmatic and proportionate. But, obviously, until and unless the law changes, those more detailed conversations, as the Minister's already intimated, will take place during the implementation group period.

Okay. That's helpful to know, the timing of conversations like that. You mentioned the Ministry of Justice. Presumably there's not going to be a challenge to any of this further down the line, once they've realised that we're in this territory. 

They've been kept very aware of it right from the very beginning, and we've had discussions with them. In fact, I think that we're obliged to have discussions with them if we do make any change like this. 

Of course. We have got this boundary on this particular one, which might be problematic at some point. 

We have been, if I could just add, specifically given competence under the Wales Act 2017, when it amended the Government of Wales Act 2006. 

It's useful to have that on the record early on, so that we don't get caught up in a cul-de-sac on that one. So, just talking about awareness raising now, you mentioned, Deputy Minister, early on that the primary purpose of this legislation was to, I think it was to protect children's rights. I did write it down.

Yes, that's right. I have it here: promoting children's rights. In which case, why are you so resistant to having a duty on the Bill in order to do that?

We don't think the duty is necessary because there is an absolute commitment, and there's a commitment in the explanatory memorandum. But a lot of people are very keen that this should be a very simple Bill, that it should just specifically say what we want to do. And if we do put a duty on, there could be added complications. It could mean how long is the duty for; there could be unintended consequences. So, we don't think it's necessary to have a duty to have awareness raising. But I'm absolutely prepared, if that would help, to go on the record and give you an undertaking to raise awareness in relation to the change in the law, which obviously would be on the record here now. 

But not enforceable in a court, unfortunately. One of the things that's likely to happen in the course of this is that we're going to find an individual parent who will say, 'I didn't know this was the law.' And they're going to say, 'Well, I don't care if the Government wanted to raise awareness; they didn't raise it with me, and now I look at the law, there was no duty on them to make sure that I knew about this.' So, if I could just encourage you to reconsider this at an early stage, in pretty much the same way as we had with the organ donation Bill, where a duty for awareness raising was included in order to protect both, in this case it would be parents, but also the state, if you like. I would urge you to do that. 

Obviously, I will continue to think about that. My preference at the moment is to have a very simple Bill. I think that is the best way to go ahead. But I will certainly look at it. 

I admire your ambition for a simple Bill, but I don't think it's a particularly simple issue. 

And, certainly, we have looked at the organ donation Bill. 

Okay. Thank you very much for that; I'm grateful that you'll consider this a bit further, particularly as you said that you hope that awareness of the law will be pretty prevalent. I know we have the powers to do it, but we'd like the opportunity to hold you to account for it actually happening, so doing that through the law is probably the best way. 

You mentioned earlier that you wanted a pretty long lead-in time for this, and I can understand why because of the awareness raising campaign. Have you got a time frame in mind for that, because, again, we'd be in a period of uncertainty if it were to be passed here, but we hadn't had the main provisions commenced?

Well, if the Bill is passed, at the moment I'm looking at about a two-year period.

09:55

We'll see how it goes as it goes along. But I just think it's absolutely vital that—. The legislation I don't think will serve its purpose unless it goes along with an awareness-raising campaign, and the research that has been done has shown that, in countries where the defence has been removed and there has been an awareness campaign, behaviour does change, but you really need to have the two things together. The law by itself—  

The law by itself won't achieve what we want to achieve, but the law, with an awareness-raising campaign as well—information is so important. So, that's why I think it's important to give a good chunk of time, really, for the lead-in, so that as many people as possible are made aware, so there's much less likelihood of there being instances of the law being broken.

That's also helpful to know. Just a last question from me, really, on awareness—at this stage anyway. Obviously, we have a very porous border with England and visitors from abroad. This isn't new—the same applied for the organ donation Bill, in that sense. But you know what UK media is like—it rarely covers issues in Wales, or, if it does, it's covered once and then it's forgotten. How are we going to—? I suspect we'll be able to raise awareness within Wales relatively straightforwardly, but we're not an enclosed island in that sense. How can we be sure that people from outside Wales will know this? 

Well, we have had quite a lot of national publicity on this already; by 'national', I mean UK-wide publicity. So, I think we have to try and get as much UK-wide publicity as we can. And, really, we hope that people from other parts of the UK will be aware of what is happening, and we'll do our utmost to make them know. But I suppose, really, if you do go into another country, you do usually make yourself aware of any particular issues. If we do travel outside Wales, we are perhaps aware of what happens there.   

I think that's stretching it within the UK now at the moment. 

I think it's clear if you leave the UK, obviously, that you would be expected to find out what the cultural norms of that country were. And, of course, when there is a divergence now—and this is one of the first major divergences—we will certainly do all we can to raise awareness. But, obviously, I think it does depend on people actually knowing what the law is and how it's changed in Wales. 

But, of course, the other issue is that there's a parallel process taking place in Scotland at the same time. That is a via private Member's Bill, but I understand it has got the backing of the Government, so there's a possibility that will become law, and that is at exactly the same time as we're doing this. So, in fact, it may be that in 12 months' time it will be England that won't have this law in place. So, I think that's quite important to remember as well. 

I think we can put money on Scotland perhaps getting more publicity than us, but that's a—

Yes. Basically, we've had a similar issue, haven't we, when the carrier bag charge came in here, and I know, from a constituency that's very highly retail, shopkeepers were having stand-offs with tourists who were coming into Wales—you know, the carrier bag charge. And it caused quite a lot of frustration for tourists. Clearly, I'm from a constituency where we rely—it's our main industry—so, clearly, for me, I have concerns (a) about the raising awareness. It has to be done, and I'd like to have seen it, really, as part of this going forward, because, clearly, I don't want people to be thinking, 'We're not going to Wales because I'm unclear about the law as to how I can reasonably parent my children', because we don't want reports of people coming on holiday to Llandudno and suddenly going back where they've had a knock on the door or even at their hotel, where someone's accused them of smacking their child and they're completely oblivious to this. I know that it's easier now with the carrier bag charge, because that was a good lead. So, there are merits to what you're trying to achieve. But, clearly, I would have liked to have seen it more incorporated within this Bill, about building that awareness.    

Well, the awareness raising is absolutely essential—absolutely accept that—and, as we develop the campaign, as we develop the awareness campaign, we'll certainly bear in mind the points that you are making about the cross-border issues, because—

10:00

—I think they are important and we'll—you know, we'll certainly follow that up.

Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now on the resource implications of the Bill, and the first ones are from Hefin David. 

Deputy Minister, how concerned are you by the degree of unquantifiable costs associated with this Bill?

Well, we're doing our best to cost the Bill, but I'm sure you're aware from the discussion that we've had already today that it's very difficult to actually make the estimates to estimate how many people will be involved. In answer to the questions to Dawn, we clearly said how difficult it is to make those estimates. But I believe it can be worked out and I believe it will be manageable, so I'm not worried about that. I think we can work it out.

Have you asked officials about the potential for diverting finite resources from existing health and social services provision for children?

This is a manifesto commitment so we will have to provide the money that is needed to effectively deliver this legislation. So, I think that's the answer to that.

But you're not concerned that it would be diverted from elsewhere—that, therefore, it would be counterproductive.

Absolutely not. I think this will be very productive for Wales and very productive for the other services. 

Okay. I'd like to refer to some of the unknown costs in the explanatory memorandum and just ask why those can't be quantified. So, some of them would be—there's a list in the explanatory memorandum—social services, as a result of a potential increase in referrals that could increase costs; family courts and Cafcass Cymru, as a result of the potential to increase allegations against parents involved in family court cases; the CPS could see increased costs, as a result of referrals from the police; and the review and training guidance offered by organisations involved in safeguarding children, to ensure they're up to date, could also see an increase in costs. Why can't those be quantified? Because they're very specific examples. Can't they be modelled?

Well, as we've said before, there is no precedent in the UK for removing the defence, so the data has not been collected, so we haven't got the baselines in order to estimate what these costings would be. So, it is very difficult to do, but we have made our best estimates. I don't know if you, Karen, have got anything—.

I think, as we said earlier on, this is much more of an art than a science and—

This is much more an art rather than a science at the moment, because there is no requirement on any of those services to capture the data and the information that we would find useful in this period of time. So, we've given everything that we can, and in the explanatory memorandum we've also said that we will work with those different services and organisations to develop a data and monitoring process so that we can establish a baseline. But of course we didn't want to get into a situation where we were requiring those services to do something ahead of the change in the law. Also, we want to ensure that the information that we've provided is the best that we can. So, there are probably all sorts of models and ideas that we could come up with, but what would they be founded on, I think, is a really important question and one of the things that we've been grappling with.

As the Minister said earlier on, and as we've talked about, New Zealand is the only comparable nation where a change in the law has already taken place. However, they haven't collected the data and the information except in relation to the police. So, the police collected data three months before they implemented the Bill, and then for a period of five years afterwards. I think we've shared that information with the committee. So, the amount of information available is less than would be ideal when we're trying to take forward and understand the impacts of the change in the law. But I think this change, as the Minister has also suggested, is a really important one and we will work with and through the implementation group. We will work with services to develop that, and we will continue to keep information and evaluation and monitoring under review.

10:05

So, can you give us some assurance, then, that there won't be runaway costs with this Bill, given those issues? Could you say categorically, 'There won't be runaway costs. They'll be within reasonable expectation'?

I think, in terms of the information that we've provided on the police, that would appear to answer the question that it wouldn't necessarily be a runaway cost and, as we develop the information and evidence and database with social services and others, then we can make sure that we can provide that information as well.

Yes. This is the last one, really, is it? Yes. The EM says it is complex to—. I think, really, you've asked them. I think we've been there.

We've got some—. There are specific questions on out-of-hours social services.

[Inaudible.] Oh, yes. I think this has been—. I think Dawn has referred to this. Welsh police forces estimate 274 offences annually relating to common assault—. I think we've actually touched on this, really.

It was specifically, really, about the demand on out-of-hours. 

Sorry, yes. To create extra demand on out-of-hours social service teams because, I think—from my questions yesterday as spokesperson—we've got massive pressures on social care and it's the additional costs and resources that are going to be needed for the out-of-hours social care teams. Would you like to comment on that?

Well, we are working with a small number of local authorities—

—to try to establish the baseline of the numbers that are likely to—. To establish a baseline so that we can see how the legislation works and, obviously, the out-of-hours has been taken as part of the overall social services figures.

One of the important points, I think, about the social services data, is that this is universally welcomed by the social services, very strongly supported by the British Association of Social Workers and by the leads in childcare in social services. So, this is something that social services are very keen to see happen, and so although it's difficult to estimate the increased demand on their time, it is nevertheless something that they feel very strongly that we should do. 

Thank you, Deputy Minister. You mentioned you've liaised with a small number of local authorities, yet a large number of local authorities, of which there are 22 across Wales, are facing heavy deficits in their social care budgets. My own authority's gone over now by about £4 million, and on an annual basis that is increasing. They can't actually afford to resource current requirements and expectations on their departments. So, for me, I'm really struggling to get my head around how these out-of-hours teams, and, indeed, our social department—. You know, they have problems with staff recruitment because they haven't got the sufficient funding and the planning ability to plan ahead, not knowing the financial pressures until very late in the day. So, how do you actually—? When we talk about bigger numbers of local authorities rather than—. How many authorities have you dealt with?

Well, we're not able to work with 22 to establish the baseline—

—we're trying to get a small number so that we can get this baseline. 

We have been in discussions with the ADSS fully. So, all 22 through the ADSS are—

So, through them rather than directly with local authorities? 

But also we are working directly with—. There are four at the moment who are looking at whether they can help establish a baseline with us in a similar way to the way the police have.

Okay. And are they in north Wales? For me, as a north Wales Member, are you liaising with anyone in north Wales?

We have contacted a local authority in north Wales and asked them to work with us, yes.

Have we had a response from that particular one? Yes, we have had a response from them, and we are waiting now to have further discussions with that particular authority. There are a small number of others that we have made contact with to see if they can work with us at this moment in time.

10:10

Again, will there be somebody in north Wales? I'm trying to make sure that it's pan-Wales. 

Of course. This is about just trying to develop an initial baseline. I think, when we get into the work with the implementation group, that, of course, will be pan-Wales. The Minister has written to the Association of Directors of Social Services asking them to consider and nominate representatives to be on the group and to be on the task and finish groups that will be part of that so that they're ensuring that they get the right people to work with us across a whole range of issues to ensure that the views of all 22 local authorities are taken into account. So, we're working on a number of levels. This initial work with social services is about, 'Can we identify the numbers?' More broadly through the implementation group, we will, obviously, be working—

I'm trying to get my question answered. Basically, this is going to involve a lot of out-of-hours time for social care departments. Have you had any responses back from any one, or two, or maybe more, of the 22 local authorities to say that they can manage with this out-of-hours—the extra pressures that are going to be expected of them? And also, where in the regulatory impact assessment are these additional costs reflected, based on the evidence back from departments?

So, we've looked at this in the round. We haven't specifically segmented out-of-hours because it's part of what the police and what social services do now. So, we're not asking them to do anything different or new. They have established out-of-hours services. The police and social services have established ways of working, and we will consider as we go forward what impact or implications this will have, but working collectively with them so that we're actually having those discussions. 

And my final question: the EM says it is complex to accurately predict the impact on resources of the justice system and that increased reporting and prosecution will depend upon several factors, including crown prosecution and justice policy in relation to the new legislation. What exactly is this referring to?

Sorry, I think I went a bit too quickly. The explanatory memorandum says it is complex to accurately predict the impact on resources of the justice system and that increased reporting and prosecution will depend upon several factors, including crown prosecution and justice policy in relation to the new legislation. What exactly is this referring to?

Well, obviously, the CPS will change its procedures and will change the advice that is given, and that is something that will be worked out in the implementation group, because a lot of these issues that are raised will be worked out there, where all the different bodies are represented. So, I think that's what that's referring to—the policy that will be changed. But, of course, this does go back, I think, to what Suzy was saying about the awareness campaign as well, because obviously this would be very influenced by how much awareness there is of this legislation. So, the awareness is absolutely crucial as to whether there is any increase in the work of the out-of-hours.

Yes, and it's on this point of resource implication. Because I'm listening to this and, obviously, social services at the moment will already be under significant pressure from cases, which could include smacking but absolutely not exclusively. I genuinely wonder how many cases solely relating to smacking are likely to come to social services, even with an awareness campaign. Therefore, is there a risk—? I'm thinking of public interest tests as well—there's a whole load of reasons why I've said that. But is there a risk that, actually, we could be putting an awful lot of resources into creating structures and changes and training and all kinds of things for a demand that's just not going to materialise? 

I think many of these issues may not come to social services because they won't reach that level. That's why I think the awareness campaign and all these different ways of addressing it are so important. And we'll also be looking at ways of diverting parents out of the system in any case with diversionary schemes, some of which already exist, that we may be able to direct parents to, and those are some of the things again that we're discussing with the police, so that it's not necessary for the—[Inaudible.]—but they may not get as far as social services, no. 

10:15

Okay, so that was my question. Are we worrying too much about putting lots of money into this end of things when actually that's probably not where it's going to be needed?

Well, I think it is needed here, because that will mean that we'd be able to have no physical punishment for children in Wales. That is the ultimate aim—that children in Wales are not physically punished and that health visitors will be able to give the clear messages, including for those who may eventually need the help of social services. So, it's got a wider impact. 

All right. Because I wasn't talking about the law itself then. It's about the level of resource that might be guided towards a particular part of the implementation of it, which is namely putting loads of money into out-of-hours social care, for example, just for this. I think it's unlikely to be needed. 

I just think again that's part of the reason why we are going to be working with the professions to be clear about the types of information, guidance, support—the things that you've mentioned—and what will actually be needed. And, as the Minister said, thinking about that early intervention work, the prevention through raising awareness—those sorts of things—again, making sure that attention has been given to those. 

Just from me then, you mentioned diversion of parents and diversion schemes. There is reference to that in the EM, but not a great deal of detail. Can you tell the committee what your thinking is and what you think the potential is of such schemes? 

Yes, I think they could be very important. We've had some discussion with the police about diversion schemes, because the police do have diversion schemes. Rather than a family, a parent, being prosecuted, they could be sent on a diversion scheme, which may mean that they could join an existing parenting scheme, something that already exists. But it may be that we will need to make a specific diversion scheme for this particular issue, and so that is something that we are discussing with the police and that's what we hope will be discussed at the implementation group, as one of the key things that we wanted to bring in.   

So, rather than maybe parents having a caution or anything like that, they'd go on one of these courses. Would you anticipate them operating like the speeding courses then? Would parents have to pay to go on that kind of thing? Have you given any consideration to how that would work?  

We haven't got into that amount of detail. We haven't discussed that. I would be very surprised if parents had to pay to go on a course. I wouldn't see that as being very helpful. 

Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Members? No? Okay. Well, can I thank the Minister and officials for your attendance this morning? It's been a very informative session. Thank you for answering our questions. As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy following the meeting. But thank you very much. The committee will now break until 10:30. 

Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 10:18 a 10:31. 

The meeting adjourned between 10:18 and 10:31.

10:30
3. Bil Plant (Diddymu Amddiffyniad Cosb Resymol) (Cymru): Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 2
3. Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session 2

Welcome back, everyone, to our second evidence session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. I'm very pleased to welcome Be Reasonable Wales, in particular Jamie Gillies, who is spokesman for Be Reasonable, and Sally Gobbett who is a parent campaigner for Be Reasonable. Thank you both for attending. We're very much looking forward to hearing what you've got to say. We'll go straight into questions, if that's okay, and the first questions are from Siân Gwenllian.

May I just qualify that I'm not actually part of the Be Reasonable campaign? I'm obviously in liaison with them, but I'm speaking as an independent parent.

Bore da. Dŷch chi'n disgrifio'ch hun fel ymgyrch sy'n gwrthwynebu cynlluniau Llywodraeth Cymru. Pam eich bod chi'n teimlo felly?

Good morning. You describe yourself as a campaign that opposes the Welsh Government's plans. Why do you feel that way?

I suppose the main reasons we feel that way are that we think this change in the law is disproportionate. We think the law as it stands already provides very strong protections to children, and the type of behaviour that will be made criminal by the removal of the defence is the type of behaviour that is considered 'reasonable', which is very light, very mild, very moderate discipline, which many, many parents across Wales use, and which there's no academic evidence to show is harmful to children. That's something that the Welsh Government has said already. In its consultation document last year, it says there's unlikely to be any research evidence to specifically show the effect of a light and infrequent smack as being harmful to a child. So, if there's no evidence to specifically show that light, reasonable chastisement is harmful, then we don't think the Government has any right to proceed with a law that would criminalise parents for using that discipline.

Yes, I think—. I have a science background—a natural sciences degree from Cambridge—and I went to the research, really, to look with an open mind at the evidence, and primarily at the Government's own consultation document, and found, six times over, the Government acknowledging that there is no evidence to show that light, infrequent physical discipline, in the context of a loving parenting dynamic is linked to harmful outcomes in children, and that there is a lot of question around the data that links smacking and harmful outcomes, in respect to uncontrolled variables, data sizes and suchlike. We really need to discriminate what we're talking about in terms of degree of force, context, family dynamics et cetera, rather than just making sweeping statements about smacking and outcomes.

Dwi'n derbyn yn llwyr fod rhaid i benderfyniadau cael eu gwneud ar sail tystiolaeth. Mae ymchwil Canolfan Polisi Cyhoeddus Cymru yn dangos nad oes yna unrhyw dystiolaeth ddibynadwy i ddangos bod yna fanteision hirdymor yn gysylltiedig â chosbi corfforol rhesymol neu ei fod o'n fwy effeithiol o ran newid ymddygiad o gymharu efo dulliau eraill sydd ddim yn gorfforol. Hynny yw, maen nhw'n dadlau nad ydy'r manteision o ddefnyddio cosb gorfforol ddim yn glir o gymharu efo dulliau eraill o geisio rheoli ymddygiad plant neu ddysgu plant sut i ymddwyn yn briodol. Beth ydy'ch ymateb chi i hynny? 

I accept entirely that decisions have to be evidence based. Research by the Welsh Centre for Public Policy shows that there is no reliable evidence demonstrating that there are long-term benefits related to reasonable physical punishment or that it's more effective in terms of changing short-term behaviours compared to other non-physical means. So, they argue that the benefits of using physical punishment aren't clear as compared with the other means of trying to manage behaviour or teaching children how to behave appropriately. What's your opinion on that?

10:35

I wonder if Sally wants to come in on this. 

Yes. As I've looked at the evidence, I've seen that there are studies out there showing a positive impact of light, infrequent physical discipline. A reliable meta-analysis of 26 studies shows that conditional physical discipline that is used in appropriately chosen circumstances, without anger or excessive force, was more effective than 10 other non-physical methods of discipline and comparable with the others in terms of reducing non-compliance and anti-social behaviour.

I also have evidence here that other methods of discipline, whether they're positive or negative, if you can make that distinction, are also linked to harmful outcomes if they're used disproportionately or in the wrong way. So, for example, there is evidence that the processing of emotional pain in the brain is actually in the same area as physical pain, so when a child is isolated in their bedroom or excluded by an angry parent, they are experiencing, actually, the same sort of pain as physical pain. I have copies of these if you wish to take them away.

Similarly, even with respect to positive parenting strategies, which in proportion I'm all in favour of, there is evidence that inflated praise, if it's used excessively or in a non-genuine way, has an adverse effect on children with low self-esteem and can make them feel that there are standards they can't attain to, and it has a negative impact. There are also studies showing that extrinsic rewards have a negative impact on the motivation of children intrinsically to perform tasks or behaviours that they shouldn't need to be rewarded for. So, things that are just a part of everyday life, if you offer a child a reward for it, they have less motivation to do it without the reward, and that's reliably documented.

So, I think the point is that we can't single out one method of discipline or exclude one method of discipline. What we need to offer parents is a range of options to use in the correct proportions in the correct circumstances without any anger or aggression. Every child is different; what is painful to one child might be emotional and what is painful to another child might be physical and such like. And we need to trust parents and respect parents who love and know their children best to be able to apply the right sanctions in the right proportions. Where that's not done, we have the law already there to charge and prosecute parents who are acting aggressively or violently towards their children. 

And is that Be Reasonable's view as well? Because obviously you said you were speaking in a different capacity. 

Yes. We would agree. 

Y gwir amdani ydy, wrth gwrs, fod 274 o droseddau yn cael eu cyflawni'n flynyddol yn ymwneud ag ymosodiad cyffredin a chreulondeb i blant, a wedyn bod y gosb gyfreithiol ar hyn o bryd o'r amddiffyniad yma yn golygu nad oes yna ddim erlyniadau wedi digwydd. Hynny yw, mae yna nifer sylweddol o blant, efallai, yn dal i ddioddef yn sgil ymosodiadau, ond byddai'r ddeddfwriaeth newydd yn newid y sefyllfa yna, wrth gwrs. Mae lot o hyn ynglŷn â sut dŷch chi'n diffinio 'rhesymol', dwi'n credu. Beth ydy'ch ymateb chi i hynny?

So, the truth is, of course, that 274 offences are committed annually relating to common assault and cruelty to children and that the criminal penalty with regard to this defence of lawful chastisement means that there were no prosecutions. A significant number of children, perhaps, are still suffering as a result of these kinds of cases but the new legislation would change that situation, of course. So, much of this is about how you define lawful chastisement or reasonable chastisement, isn't it? What's your response to that? 

I believe that data is taken from the explanatory memorandum that the Government published, in annex 7, which is research carried out by the police liaison unit. It's important to state that these numbers that they've come up with are based on the best available data—they don't record everything. The reasonable chastisement defence is very clear, so it would be wrong to say that children are suffering at the moment. What we see is the defence very, very rarely being cited in court. It's only been raised about three times in the last nine years, I think, and none of those cases emanated from Wales—they were all in England.

So, it is clear that the defence is well understood. The CPS charging standard is very specific on what behaviour is acceptable and what is not. So, really, as Sally said before, the law does protect children very strongly. Only the very lightest, mildest physical discipline is allowed, and the police know that. Anecdotally, we hear officers are able to distinguish when they've had a report and a family has committed an assault or violence against a child and when it has just been very light, normal parenting. So, why change the law when it's so clear as it stands?

Just if I could add: that data from the police liaison unit infers that there would be around 1,300 investigations into smacking as an assault after the law changes in the first five years of implementation. So, how many parents are we going to see criminalised for actions that we'd now call smacking or reasonable chastisement in the first years of implementation? How many parents are going to have police cautions, which would appear in Disclosure and Barring Service checks and affect, potentially, their employment? The ramifications of this Bill are massive for the Welsh public, and the Government is playing with fire if it thinks it can make this change in the law and not affect the lives of parents and, by extension, children.

10:40

I think I would just add that, as I understand it, the reasonable chastisement defence hasn't been used to acquit anybody of assault in the last 10 years in Wales, so it wouldn't make any difference in those cases. Also, we need to look not only at the potential suffering that exists now, but at what potential suffering will result when we remove this defence. I think far more potential suffering and unintended consequences will result, not least, obviously, a disruption of secure, loving family situations and children being removed from custody.

I think, also, we forget that a child who is not lovingly disciplined and who grows up to have anti-social behaviours et cetera will be far more severely punished by society and nature as they go into adulthood than the light, infrequent discipline that might be received in childhood from a loving parent. So, I think we need to look at the unintended consequences as well.

Jest un peth arall. A allwch chi weld y ddadl yma, te: oni fyddai'n haws bod y continwwm yma o beth ydych chi'n ei alw yn ddefnydd ysgafn i ymosodiad—? Mae yna gontinwwm yn y fan yma, rŵan, onid oes, ac yn rhywle yn y canol dŷch chi'n gwahaniaethu rhwng un math o ddefnydd corfforol a math eithafol o ddefnydd corfforol. Oni fyddai'n haws jest tynnu hynny i gyd oddi yna?

Dyna fyddai'r ddeddfwriaeth yma'n ei wneud. Mi fyddai'n golygu ei bod hi gymaint yn haws, wedyn, inni yng Nghymru fedru dweud, 'Dŷn ni ddim yn credu bod unrhyw fath o gosb gorfforol yn llesol i blant neu yn dderbyniol i oedolyn wneud hynny i blentyn'—jest o ran ei wneud o'n fwy syml. Achos mae yna, yn y man canol yma, siŵr o fod, enghreifftiau lle, efallai, dŷch chi'n meddwl mai cosbi ysgafn ydy rhywbeth ac efallai y byddwn i'n ei ddiffinio fo'n wahanol. Mae'r diffiniad yn gallu bod yn wahanol ar hyd y continwwm. Mae cael gwared â'r continwwm yn dod â ni i sefyllfa lot cliriach. Beth ydy'ch ymateb chi i hynny?

Just one final question from me. Can you see this argument, then: would it not be easier for this continuum of what you call light use to assault—? There is a continuum here, isn't there, and somewhere in the middle is where you see the difference between one kind of physical chastisement and an extreme use of physical chastisement. Wouldn't it just be easier to get rid of that entirely?

That is what this legislation would do. It would mean that it would be so much easier, then, for us, in Wales, to be able to say, 'Well, we don't believe that any kind of physical chastisement is beneficial to children or that it's acceptable for an adult to do that to a child'—just in terms of making it simpler. Because it's in that middle point, isn't it, that there are examples, perhaps, where you think that that's a light punishment and we would define it, or I would define it, differently. The definition can be different along the continuum. So, getting rid of the continuum would bring us to a much clearer situation. How do you respond to that?

I don't deny that it would be simpler from your perspective, and that it's a quick and easy solution, but that doesn't mean it's the right solution when it leads to injustice for many families and there isn't an evidence base to support it. We can't just make easy laws, you know—we have to do what is right and what is supported by the evidence. It might be easy for you, but it won't be easy for the hundreds, potentially thousands, of families whose rights are going to be infringed in terms of how they raise their children in the home, potentially custody of their children, whose employment, futures are going to be jeopardised because of being tainted with this in terms of DBS if the legislation is passed. We don't want quick and easy solutions; we want just solutions.

10:45

I'm not talking about quick and easy; I'm talking about clarity, but anyway—

But I think there is clarity, from what I understand, within advice for the Crown Prosecution Service and various things that they can consider. And, actually, the work that's been done gives us an evidence base to say, 'Okay, this degree of force has been shown to have harmful outcomes; this degree of force has not been shown to have harmful outcomes. This context, this parenting dynamic, has been shown to have negative outcomes, this hasn't'. And, actually, that information is available to those services and should be used well in deciding on prosecutions.

I would just iterate again that the law is clear—we have good law on this already, this debate has been had. The law has been amended as recently as 2004. So, we've had this debate, and the law as it's framed just now strikes the correct balance, which strongly protects children from violence, from abuse but also accepts that very mild, light discipline is appropriate. If we remove the defence altogether, that creates mass uncertainty for the police, for social workers; that line is not there any more to be drawn.

I recently gave evidence in Scotland. The committee that is considering a Bill there, which would be a similar proposal, had evidence from the police and from child protection specialists that said, actually, the law as it's framed now is very useful; we can use our discretion, the police understand it, the courts understand it. So, removing it confuses everything and leaves parents who are normal, loving, good parents open to prosecution, potentially conviction by the police and the courts. That's not something we'd like to see and that's not something the majority of Welsh adults would like to see either. Polling consistently shows 70 per cent of the public do not want to see this change in the law, and it's kind of common sense to them. They know what's mild, what's light. Parents love their children and they want to bring them up well and they know what's appropriate and what's not in the vast majority of cases. So, if the status quo is good, let's stick with the law as it is. You don't chuck out the law when it's working well.

I think also if you remove, effectively, a parenting option, you limit the options that are available, which means that that they can't be used in good proportion, and you fall into traps of having an excess of one thing, which can be detrimental, even with praise and reward. But you also force parents to use disciplinary approaches that they are not comfortable with in their own situations. I have never, and would never, ever, send a child in my family to their room as a discipline. For me, disciplining is something that's relational, it's done in the context of a close, warm environment. It's done quickly, it's not delayed, it's not dragged out, it's not meant for them to feel shame or resentment as they stew in their room. So, I would not be comfortable ever sending my child to their room as a punishment. And I've heard other parenting experts saying, 'Dock their pocket money'. Well, my two-year-old doesn't get pocket money, and nor will he until he's nine. So, you're just limiting the options available to people and they know their children best, they know their family dynamic best. They need to be respected to make those choices.

Thank you, Chair. I just have a very quick question on the statistic you gave us about the defence being invoked just three times in nine years in England. Do you happen to know in those cases whether there were actually more charges being brought at the time in those individual cases, or were they all stand-alone, where this was the only offence that was being prosecuted and for which there was a defence? Was it part of a bigger picture, basically?

Sure. I don't know off the top of my head but I'd be happy to provide you with information afterwards.

If you can find that out, that'd be really helpful because I'm trying to just establish how often this happens as a stand-alone situation. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. The next questions, then, are from Dawn Bowden.

Thank you, Chair. Morning. I just want to ask you a couple of questions about whether physical punishment is acceptable. You've talked a lot about the light, infrequent punishment, but my questions are really driven by the principle of whether any form of physical punishment of a child is acceptable. So, that's the context. But how specifically do you respond to the view that children learn by imitating adult behaviours, so that whatever they learn as a child, they will repeat that themselves as an adult? And we've seen that in all sorts of different contexts. And whether a child can differentiate between a light smack, or it's just a hit, and that's what we do, and so it's okay for us to do it. I'd just welcome your views on that, really.

10:50

From what I've read, I would say that there isn't a strong body of evidence at all to suggest a link between smacking and smacking begetting violence, which is what is often said. I've not seen evidence for that. I'm sure that Sally would also speak about her own experience as a mother and in the parenting context in her home how smacking would look. I would say that it's probably very clear to every parent what's violence and what's not.

I think my question is really whether it's clear to the child, not whether it's clear to the parent.

Clear to the child? Yes, I believe so, but Sally would—

I think children understand the authority relationship that's necessary for their protection and care. If a parent stays within the realms of administering just their controlled discipline and is not using a smack in anger or to shame a child or to intimidate or to get them off their case or whatever it might be, if they're actually using that approach and explaining it to their child appropriately, then a child will understand that it's part of their loving authority and it's not a parent venting their own emotions or frustration. I don't think we can draw legal lines on this, but from my personal place, I feel that if a parent is using any form of discipline in anger, that's not discipline, that's just—

Venting your frustration, yes. And so, I would leave that—

So, how would we stop that? Because my sense of—. I'm a parent as well and my children now are grown up, but I vividly recall those senses of frustration as a parent, and actually wanting to grab them and shake them. I do wonder how much of that actually happens as opposed to the kind of controlled discipline that you're talking about. How do we stop that?

You're absolutely right, and in speaking out, that has actually been my greatest personal struggle, because I in no way want to appear to be defending angry venting of a parent's emotion on a child, and so I really want to make that distinction. I am in no way supporting that. But I believe that the law is already there to prosecute parents who are disciplining in anger or with uncontrolled physical force, and I would wholeheartedly support that, and I think also that we don't change those sorts of cultures by legal threat. I think we change those cultures within communities that support one another, where you learn, generationally, good parenting from those who pass it on.

Already, I've noticed this air of intimidation and suspicion, even amongst my friends and neighbours; people are scared to admit what they actually do because of the stigma that's now associated, because of the legal threat. I know that there are people in professional capacities, in healthcare, in police and social services who would agree with my position, but are scared to say so because of the implications for them professionally, and such like. We're already creating a culture of suspicion, of judgment, of intimidation, which in no way is in parents' and families' best interests. What we need to do is have open, reasonable debate, freedom of speech and for neighbours and communities to support one another, to learn from the experience of those who are older and wiser.

This is one of the things that makes me so sad in this, that some of the Government's cherry-picking of polling data has focused on young parents. Well, there used to be a time when wisdom came with age and experience. I feel that we're targeting young parents because we know that they have been re-educated by some of the Government's media campaign—you could call it propaganda—and actually, they're most likely to say what we want them to hear. Well, that's just not right; that's not appropriate in a liberal society.

10:55

But there has been, hasn't there—and I think you probably would accept this—there has been a change, say, over the last 50 years in what good parenting looks like. That's been an evolutionary change in any event, and I think there is polling evidence out there to suggest that parents are actually less likely to physically punish their children now than perhaps they were 50 years ago. You accept that that is a parenting change that's evolved.

I accept there's a trend, but just because there's a trend doesn't mean it's right. There's also a trend away from families eating round a meal table together, but we don't criminalise them for doing so. Trends don't really show us anything, okay, about the rights or wrongs of that thing. If you want to correlate and make links to causation, then, in parallel with that trend, there has been a trend of increasing poor discipline in schools, increasing child-on-child violence, knife crime and violent crime. So, if we're going to talk about trends and not unpick what's really underneath them, then we can correlate all sorts of things.

Okay, I understand that point. Just one more question from me, Chair, if I can. I just wanted your views on the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. They've repeatedly called for this defence to be repealed from law across the whole of the UK, not just in Wales. What are your thoughts and views on that? Either of you? Both of you?

I would go to the declaration on the rights of the child itself and the relevant articles in there. So, I've got in front of me here article 19, which states that children should be protected from 'all forms of...violence', and we absolutely agree with that. But what we'd say is that reasonable chastisement is not violence, in our view. Also, the convention does not specify what forms of punishment parents should use, but says that discipline involving violence is unacceptable. So, again, Wales already prohibits violence against children—the law's clear on that—and it all depends on your definition of violence. Some campaigners would say that a light smack is violence against a child, but we'd say that it's absolutely not and the evidence base isn't there to demonstrate that that is harmful in any way. So, we can't proceed with a law change to amend criminal law without strong evidence for doing that.

Two things: one, that distinction between violence and hurt or pain. If we're going to clump those two together, then we get ourselves into very tricky situations, because there are all sorts of things that we routinely do to children that cause them to experience pain, namely, immunisations, dentists' drills, exercise, not being allowed to eat Haribo when they want, or removing their iPad and suchlike. As I've said, the evidence is that children experiencing emotional pain, that's processed in the same parts of the brain as physical pain when they perceive they're being rejected or isolated. So, if we are going to eradicate any painful experience for a child, then we have to eradicate all of those other things as well, in which case, we can't live any more and—. Sorry, bear with me, I just want to get my thoughts.

The second point was—or maybe I clumped the two together. Oh yes, pain is protective; we know that in nature. Even from an evolutionary perspective, pain protects us from harmful stimuli in a conditioning way, which is why a leper loses their limbs, because they—. So, actually, in training a young child who's not yet able to verbally reason or experience delayed or unrelated consequences, something that is an immediate painful stimuli, which is not intended to hurt them, but is intended to protect them, is actually the best way of enabling their young brain to learn to avoid those harmful stimuli, like a socket or—

So, at what age would you say that should start? Because at what age would you say a child is responsive and reasoning in terms of—

So, I don't think we can say an age because every child is different, and obviously there's a huge spectrum and we get into areas of learning disability, et cetera, and I don't want to say an age. The only thing I would say is considerations in relation to my own parenting experience of my children, factors that I would consider in terms of appropriateness for physical discipline, would be that they understand 'no', they understand an instruction, they have to be old enough to understand or able enough to understand that, but not yet old enough to be able to verbally reason as to why that's wrong or dangerous, what the consequences or the motivation might be—they just need to know they need to stay away from that harmful stimulus.

Other things I would take into consideration are the age of personal care, so, changing nappies, bathing and suchlike. There is an age up to which children don't associate exposure or physical touch as something that's shameful in that way; that's just part of personal care of a child. When we get to an age or stage where a child is beginning to feel that this is shameful or intrusive in some way, I as a parent would instinctively know that that's no longer appropriate, and actually long before then, I would have moved on to verbal reasoning methods of discipline.

Later, I think, the goal is towards natural consequences as being the dominant form. Your authority as a parent declines and the child is allowed to experience the natural consequences of their own actions, whether that's being cold because you don't take a coat out, or something like that. That's our trajectory. So I personally believe that physical discipline has a limited time period of appropriateness, and that a parent should judge when that is.

11:00

Okay, thanks for those comments. If I can just take you back to my original question, which was the—. 

No, that's fine. That was useful information, but if I can just take you back to my original question, which was about the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and what article 19 actually says, because article 19 talks about prohibiting

'as a matter of priority all corporal punishment in the family'.

How do you interpret that? So, corporal punishment is physical punishment, isn't it, however light? We're not talking about the level of the smack, and whether that is a punch or a smack or whatever it is. Corporal punishment is physical punishment, and that's what article 19 is saying we should ban. 

As I understand it, article 19 doesn't say that. That's a recommendation from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

That's coming out as a recommendation from article 19, yes.

That's a recommendation. It's not article 19. So, it's not a requirement of being a member state.

Can you clarify for the record whether you are then saying that you think that the UN committee are wrong in calling for the defence of reasonable chastisement to be repealed? Is that what you're saying?

What we're saying is that, in the declaration itself, it doesn't place any—

I know what your evidence says. Are you saying that the committee are wrong to call for that?

I'm saying they're inconsistent because there are all sorts of other things that are causing pain to children that we do, or are recommended now as disciplinary approaches, like sending a child to their room. If they're going to be consistent in application of article 19, then if they're calling pain violence, we need to eradicate anything that could potentially have a negative outcome for a child if used wrongly, in which case we're on very, very tricky territory.

Okay. Briefly, Janet, because we've got a load of questions to get through and we've spent—.

And if we could have more succinct answers as well, because we've got a lot of ground to cover. Briefly, Janet.

Do you think this legislation is weak in the fact that it concentrates purely on physical defence rather than emotional and coercive behaviour—you know, emotional abuse?

I don't know if 'weak' is the word I would choose. I think again 'inconsistent'. Personally, if we want to be consistent, I wouldn't say that then means we need to criminalise more and more things. I think there are other ways to change culture than criminalisation, and much better ways in a liberal, tolerant society. I would love parents not to be using emotionally painful, emotionally harmful methods of discipline, and I would love parents not to be smacking in anger, but I don't think that criminalisation is the way that our society should be tackling those problems. I think open public debate and supportive communities and families is the best way of doing that in a liberal society. 

And Be Reasonable would agree wholeheartedly with that. It's the mechanism that's being used in changing the criminal law that is the big issue.

We want the same ends as I imagine all of you here—

Everyone in this room. 

—but by a different means, that's just and liberal. 

Thank you, Chair. Good morning. Just to go back to something you touched on in response to Dawn's question around the time frame you see this being used in. You're saying really that it would be instinct rather than evidence for when somebody could decide to use light, mild, infrequent—

11:05

I think both/and. I think good evidence often supports a parent's natural instinct. 

Because there are quite a few differences—. There are some differences in opinion around the world, aren't there, with the time frame. So, just from what you'd said to Dawn, you think it would be more an instinct, rather than based on evidence. 

Well, I've not given a time frame. I was quite clear not to specify an age. I think one can't do that, because every child develops differently and every family situation is different. But we have to allow ordinary citizens to have freedom, and we have prosecution to catch situations where that's stepping into the territory of abuse. 

And just—. So, as I said, you've mentioned the light, mild, infrequent and calm way of using smacking as an effective way with non-compliance and things like that for young children; would you also argue in favour of its reintroduction in a school setting, where it's used in loco parentis?

No. Be Reasonable wouldn't argue that, no. We'd say that's the place of parents, and we argue for the status quo of the current law as it stands. We wouldn't advocate schools using it again. 

And I'm speaking personally here, not to represent any group, but I personally would agree the same. I think it's a parental duty, not that of a third party. 

I think the change in the law previously was positive. There was real evidence of corporal punishment being used in a very violent way in schools, and that's something that had to end. But that's very different to the loving parent who is using that very mild, light discipline. That's something that should remain to be allowed. 

Okay. Just before we move on, can I just ask—? Recent oral evidence in the Scottish Parliament included views put forward from different religious organisations, both in favour and against the Bill. Do you have a view on whether religious text should inform Welsh law, and whether that should particularly be the case in the case of this legislation?

Well, Be Reasonable is a non-religious campaign, so we wouldn't really like to comment on specific religious things. Sally?

Yes, my arguments wouldn't be based on religious texts or otherwise, they'd be based on the evidence that's out there and common sense and, really, civil liberties. 

Okay. Thank you. We've got some questions now from Suzy Davies. 

Thank you. These are quite brief, actually, as you've covered quite a lot of what I wanted to ask. Public opinion has shifted but, as you said, the majority is still, or seems to be, in favour of keeping the status quo. In your view, do you think that this piece of legislation is responding to a change in opinion, or is it sort of long narrative lead-in? You'd have, obviously, equivalents in Scotland at the moment. Is that driving the change in opinion? What do you think is causing this trend? Whether you think it's good or bad isn't what I'm asking.

I think it's probably a trend that's been happening for—. I just know anecdotally, from my own experience as a kid, my mum, when I was very young, was being told in classes that you shouldn't be using smacking, and there's been a trend for 20, 30 years. The Swedish attitude to parenting is something that was quite popular, the Nordic model, and that's probably come across. But we do think that's out of step with people on the ground, and the key thing is that question—when people are asked should it be criminal for people to use a light smack, the vast majority of people say 'no'. And so, in that sense, the legislation is massively out of step with the public. 

So, it's not, in and of itself, changing public opinion at this stage.

No, and, as Sally said, there are various ways to affect public opinion, and I suppose the most similar change to this before was something like the smoking ban that was carried out here. That was a change that introduced criminal sanctions for smoking in a public place, and there's massive evidence to show the harms of smoking, leading to terrible diseases and cancer, and so it's clear the Government had a mandate to change the law. But, with smacking, there's no evidence to show that it is harmful to children.

It does show that the law can change behaviour, though, so—

Yes, so my point, I suppose, is the mechanism is the same as used before, but it's not the appropriate mechanism for this specific thing. Something that's educational, we would argue, would be a better method to use. You're already—. The 'talk parenting' campaign and various things are going on already that are seeking to inform parents and help them. What is the message we're sending to parents? Because we want to be, as a Government, sending the message that we trust parents, we're supporting parents, we're helping them to bring up their children in the way that they're already doing—in the great way they're already doing—and we don't want to be creating a culture of suspicion and fear, with parents thinking they're going to get a rap on the door from the cops if they've been reported to have tapped their child on the hand, and that's ultimately what could happen. It's what's happened in New Zealand; there are reports all the time. So, yes, educational approach—preferred option, definitely. 

11:10

Okay. In fact, I might come back to the Scandinavian examples in later questions. 

Can I just say, on the trends, I think both/and? I think there's a natural trend. Some of that I would celebrate, because it's moved us away from mainstream, quite excessive and forceful physical discipline, so I'd celebrate that trend. But I do think there's also a very conscious re-education in public attitudes, which is in the consultation document. What I think is very interesting and ironic is that it says that public awareness campaigns alone are not considered to be sufficiently effective, and that there's evidence that, where legal threat is there as well, together, then there's greater change in public attitudes. I see that as coercion, and I also think it's ironic, because we have these messages in terms of parenting, positive parenting—you only need praise and reward, you don't need all these negative sanctions—and yet from a state perspective you're showing that positive messages alone are not sufficient to change public attitudes, we need negative sanctions as well. So, I don't know how we raise a child with purely positive parenting approaches to function in a society where there are negative sanctions. That's just a point of irony. But, yes, I don't really think that it's the place of the state to re-educate parents on their parenting styles.   

Well, we talked about the—[Inaudible.] And then just briefly—and I think, actually, you've covered this point—the children's commissioner makes the point that if you had an adult with severe learning difficulties, or suffering dementia, hitting them as a form of punishment would be unacceptable, whereas with a child it currently is. But I think you cover that off in your explanation about the relationship between the understanding of what the smack is for.  

Yes, and there are all sorts of things that we do to children routinely that would be criminal to do to an adult. If I was to pick up an adult and remove them from a building, that would be kidnap. If I was to take their iPad off them, that would be theft—you know, it's common sense. It's illogical to say that we have to apply the law exactly the same way to children as we do to adults, because if I force fed an adult or said they couldn't have Haribo and they had to have their broccoli, or I was going to change their nappy—you know, all of those things are criminal to do to an adult. So, we have to make a distinction between child and adult, for their own protection.     

Okay. But thank you for—. As I said, I think you've covered it anyway. Thank you, Chair. 

Thank you. We've got some questions now around enforcement and prosecutions from Hefin David. 

Sally Gobbett, you said we need an open, reasonable debate, and your evidence today has been exactly that, and to be welcomed in that sense. I'd like to say to Jamie Gillies, though, on your webpage, the front page of your webpage, the first thing we see is the sentence:

'The First Minister plans to turn good parents into criminals'.

Do you think such over-the-top language is actually conducive to an open, reasonable debate?  

Well, we'd say that that language reflects the reality of what this law will do. It's meant to be a warning to the public—removing reasonable chastisement will lead to parents being turned into criminals, and the Government admits that in their explanatory memorandum. It looks at New Zealand, where there has been almost 40 prosecutions of parents for smacking, and thousands of reports and investigations into parents. So, yes, we'd say it is appropriate to be raising that warning to the public.  

So, you say the First Minister plans to turn parents into criminals, you think—that's your view.

Well, it may not be his intention, but what we're saying is it would be the effect. 

Okay. Well, I mean, that's what you've said. You've made that case. I don't think that's open and I don't think that's reasonable. Isn't it the case, though, that no law turns people into criminals; people turn themselves into criminals by disobeying the law. Isn't that the case? 

Yes. So, currently, parents who use a light smack are not criminals, because the law is framed in a way that's sensible, and it allows for that to take place. But removing that defence would make not just parents who continue to smack knowingly, but parents who smack unknowingly, because it will take a while for the public to know about the changes in the law—. So, you will have parents who legitimately don't know—perhaps people who've just moved to Wales. Many parents who do smack their children and are reported and can be criminalised—

11:15

But you didn't say that. You said parents will ignore a ban.

I'm saying that some parents may choose to do that, some parents may say it's an interference with their article 8 or 9 rights, or—the Chair mentioned religious parents. There are parents who may ignore the law. But there are very many other parents who will just not know about the change in the law, and who could be caught under it.

Have you got any evidence to give us to suggest how many parents are planning to ignore the law?

I wouldn't know how many parents would plan to ignore it, no. But Siân mentioned at the start the police figures, which are in annex 7 of the explanatory memorandum, and that gives an estimation of how many police investigations would arise. And, as I said, that's more than 1,300 in the first five years of implementation, and that's probably a conservative estimate. So, many of those investigations will result in police cautions, in, potentially, prosecutions and convictions of parents.

I think what we need to know, though, is how many of those will be unintentional, and how many parents do you think will be ignoring the law.

Well, that's the thing—it's not really something that's knowable.

Well, I don't think many parents would admit whether they're going to ignore the law or not, would they? That's inviting—.

I suppose you could carry out polling—how many parents are going to admit that they're going to—.

Can I just add—? Just because something is criminal doesn't necessarily make it wrong if that law wasn't just in the first place. I'm sure that we could look around the world and see many societies where something is criminal that we wouldn't say is wrong within our society. So, the onus is on us to make sure that what we're criminalising is actually wrong, and the evidence base doesn't support that, because it's not shown to have harmful outcomes if used in reasonable ways.

It sounds very reasonable, but that isn't the way it's been presented by the Be Reasonable campaign.

Well, the trouble is—

The point I was trying to make—

Yes, we need to move on, because we're running out of time.

The children's commissioner says that, of the 54 countries around the world who have prohibited physical punishment, there's been no evidence of significantly increased prosecution of parents in those countries. Do you dispute that view?

What I would say is that the reporting on this is often very simplistic. So, most of the—the vast majority of these jurisdictions are civil law jurisdictions, where the change has been made. There are only three common law jurisdictions that have made the change, and they're countries like New Zealand, which we've seen many negative consequences come from, and Ireland, which has recently changed the law, and the data isn't really there for us to be able to evaluate that properly yet. So, most countries haven't made a change that involves parents being criminalised.

Can you say in New Zealand, then, that there's been a significant increase?

Yes. So, there is evidence from New Zealand to suggest that good parents have been criminalised. There was a law report released last year by a public law firm called Chen Palmer, which did an evaluation of the law and concluded that good parents and good families had been very negatively affected by the law there. And also the public in New Zealand remains opposed to the change in the law they made there. At the time before they changed the law, they polled the public—80 per cent didn't want it, but they proceeded nonetheless, and there's still more than 60 per cent of the public who don't want the law.

I think what we need to look at is the evidence you've just suggested about an increase and I think it's worth the committee examining that.

I would be happy to give that to you.

You also say the current law is clear, but the children's commissioner disputes that, and says that the defence of reasonable chastisement isn't a well-understood term, and the removal will actually give greater clarity. Again, do you dispute that?

Yes, we do dispute that. I think I've said already that the defence is well understood, because it doesn't arise very much—that's evidence of that. It's well understood by the police and the courts, who are able to navigate it successfully. And removing it would cause confusion, not just for the courts, but for the police—they would have to amend the charging standard; the Crown Prosecution Service would have to amend their own procedures. There's nothing in the memorandum the Government's produced about how exactly that would take place. And that same legal report in New Zealand, which I've mentioned, one of the points it made was that a change in the law caused confusion for the police and the courts, and they remain unable to understand and implement the law effectively today. So, there's no evidence to suggest that Wales would be able to do this any better than New Zealand.

Okay. And on your website, again, there are a number of scenarios, and also in your evidence you say that, under the new definition, parents would be subject to long-term social services involvement, and their family. There doesn't seem to be anything in the Bill that suggests that or, indeed, that suggests it would lead to any of the scenarios on your website.

11:20

Yes. You could say that's a bit remiss, because in fact if this was going to mean that parents who do smack have committed an assault under law, they could receive a police caution for that or be charged with a criminal offence for that, and in that scenario of course there would be social services intervention and that parent could lose custody of their children temporarily or permanently.

That's quite a leap of logic from the Bill though, isn't it? It's not actually to do with the Bill itself; it's your assumption as to what might happen. 

Well, it's the best analysis of what will happen if you remove this defence from law, because you're making behaviour that is currently not criminal, criminal.

Okay. Yet Police Scotland, Chief Superintendent John McKenzie said that

'the removal of the defence of justifiable assault would have no impact at all on the process and procedures that are adopted by social work, health and the police'.

Well, the consultation response by Police Scotland does talk very clearly about cost and resource implications, and it does make that point that I've just made about turning behaviour that is currently considered reasonable into criminal behaviour. There are various anonymous submissions by police officers who say, 'This is a bad idea; we don't want to go down this path. The law is well understood. It helps me to do my job and don't remove this because it could actually lead to children being missed.'

That's the other point to make: you're going to be compelling the police to pursue parents who smack their children and police budgets and time are already constrained. They're trying to identify children who are at risk of genuine abuse, so that's going to make it more of a challenge for them, if you compel them to investigate good families who just use very light physical discipline with their children. That's a very worrying scenario and that's something that police officers in Scotland have said.

It may be the same procedure, but it will be applied to far more families, in many cases where there's no evidence of harm. So, that's what's intrusive, I think. And can I just say, I'm not part of the Be Reasonable campaign? 

But, in a sense, everyone on every side of this debate, including the Government itself, have made sweeping statements, polemical statements— 

—made generalisations that smacking causes negative outcomes in children, without discriminating in detail. So, sadly, we live in a 'headline' culture—

Yes, absolutely. But we can point the finger at Be Reasonable's headlines, but I would point the finger at the Government's own media campaign, including photographs of children about to be whacked—

—and things that are already illegal being used in photographs to persuade people away from reasonable—

Perhaps Be Reasonable could change their website now.

Well, let's all change.

The whole—

Could I just say that I agree with Hefin and there should be a reasonable debate? The name of the campaign, 'Be Reasonable', originated as a message to the Government: please be reasonable because you're going too far.

And it goes both ways, but you've been very reasonable today.

And it does go both ways.

Can I just add to that? Amongst those people who are going to be in that wider network of people undergoing those procedures, remember that we have very, very vulnerable people, particularly women, who are probably going to be, in many cases, the primary carers—women in domestic violence situations; women with mental health problems who are not being provided for currently by our extremely thin mental health provision—who are already victims in our society and unsupported and who are then going to be criminalised further for something that we have not supported them in. I think that's a very sad—

Okay. It's not my job to argue the case; I'm asking questions. 

But I think we need to recognise that.

Okay. That was an unintended consequence, and we're going to move on to other unintended consequences now, which Suzy Davies is going to ask about.

Thank you, Chair. I think it's fair to say that when any legislature introduces legislation, the first point of call is to ensure that its legislation does no harm—even when it's trying to do good, it must do no harm. And that's why these unintended consequences, I think, are really interesting for us.

You've already spoken at length about the likelihood of pushing children into more limited and damaging, perhaps in some cases, discipline areas and the disproportionate effect on parents—the disproportionate effect on women, I think, is something that's new that's been brought to this. 

Vulnerable women, yes.

11:25

What I am keen to hear a little bit more about is your assertion that where physical punishment for children has been banned there is now some evidence available to suggest that that limit on boundaries has had an adverse effect on children. You've put it in your written evidence. I wonder if you want to just talk us through that so we get a better sense of how we can test your assertions.

I think it's too early to say on many of these things. We don't have time available since these bans to see the generational effects of these things. So, we're very much stepping into the unknown. 

Well, Sweden's banned it since 1979. That's 40 years—

I think that's Be Reasonable's—

Oh, yes. I'm happy to ask Mr Gillies, if that's all right.

Yes. The detail on Sweden is something that we often reference as being of concern. There are several researchers who've produced papers on this: Professor Robert Larzelere, who I believe has given evidence before to the consultation; Chris Ferguson, and Marjorie Gunnoe. Professor Larzelere states that there's been a rise in child-on-child violence in Sweden and draws a correlation between the Swedish introduction of this similar law change to—

I think it's a very interesting correlation. Obviously, no, we can't always say if correlation and causation, causes, are the same thing. But I did bring a graph with me today, if I can just hold that up, to demonstrate. That's the figures of child-on-child violence in 1981, and that's 2010. So, there's an absolutely huge rise.

The UK's figures on child-on-child violence? I don't have them with me today, no, sorry. I can provide you with them to compare them.

At the very least it, it clearly hasn't helped, in that respect.

There's another academic, Swedish again, Eberhard, who talks about the Swedish attitude to parenting being harmful. He's a psychologist. He says there's been growing truancy, drops in educational attainment and quite concerning things happening in Sweden. Again, he draws that parallel between the introduction of a smacking ban and the fear that came through that for parents, which made them feel unable to use any discipline, leading to a sort of breakdown in discipline, and that actually having negative outcomes for children. So, there are several academics—

Yes, just briefly. On the back of what you said there, would there have been similar statistics after getting rid of reasonable punishment in schools, or punishment in schools, that teachers felt they weren't able to control children in that way?

I'm not sure I can give you an answer on that. I can certainly give you the study I have from Professor Larzelere, if you'd like to look into that further. 

I was going to say, there's contrary evidence, isn't there?

The psychiatrist David Eberhard, that's only available in Swedish, isn't it? Have you actually read that or is it something that you've looked at the press coverage of?

There has been press coverage of it. He is intending to translate his work into English and release his book quite soon, I think. There's a professor called Tommy MacKay, who was the former president of the British Psychological Society, and he gave evidence to the committee in Scotland—he submitted evidence to the consultation—and he's of the same view that this is not the way to change the law. In his body of psychological research, he says there's no evidence that light, infrequent smacking is harmful. He's very concerned. So, I'd commend to you Professor MacKay as well. 

To be fair, the point was made by different academics as well, but then there are other academics who say that there's no causal link at all. I have to query myself, if there are older adults committing violence, and they're doing it at a time before the ban was brought in, I think it's—. If you've got older adults who are being violent, not necessarily to children but generally, they're being violent despite the fact that when they were children there was a defence to smacking. I'm finding it quite difficult to draw the correlation myself. In fact, that's what I'm finding about the whole evidence base at the moment. I think what we've heard from you today, Sally Gobbett, has been really helpful actually, in that a lot of this is about surmise and contradiction. I'm not finding anywhere where we can land with any certainty on this at the moment.

Can I just finish my questions—obviously I'm confused on this—about whether you can think of any other unintended consequences about which we've not spoken yet? I can't say unforeseeable, because obviously they're unforeseeable. 

11:30

I think the unintended consequence, or possibly intended consequence, of increasing state intrusion and control is a very sinister one. 

Do you see any good coming from this law then? Is it all bad? 

I think the good that comes from criminalising parents who smack is already there, because it's there for those who smack in unreasonable ways, that are venting of anger, very excessive force, not a loving parent, et cetera, and that's already covered. I think, in terms of the trend, it's not in scientific evidence, but it's common sense: if we're seeing that a generation ago the majority of people in this country were smacked and then in this generation the majority are not, but we're seeing increasing violent crime, increasing poor discipline in schools, I'm not saying there's a scientific causation there but it certainly isn't helping.

Actually, in my mind, the primary role of discipline is to help the child learn to self-regulate. You were talking about imitation and how do we teach a child not to be aggressive if we're being aggressive. Actually, I'm training my children to inhibit their own impulses. So, if they're emotional or whatever, I ask them to sit somewhere to calm down and then we talk about it in that way. Training them to instinctively avoid harmful stimuli becomes internalised such that they self-regulate naturally. So, I don't expect them to be impulsive, angry, explosive adults, which I think is where violence comes from, and actually permissive parenting styles have been shown to have more explosive bursts of violence, because the parent feels out of control and disempowered because they haven't got authoritative parenting strategies. 

And, of course, that's been the Scandinavian way as well, hasn't it? So, that's why I'm struggling to clamp these bits of assumptions to the evidence that we do have. Okay, thank you, that's all I have anyway. 

Can I just add to that? In terms of unintended consequences, something that's quite striking for us is—. So, the memorandum the Government produced has tried to give estimates of how this would affect various services, like the police and the courts. But they've been completely unable to give an idea of how it will affect social services and local authorities and the front-line professionals that are involved with identifying child abuse. So, I'd say if the evidence isn't there to show that smacking is harmful this law's unfounded in the first place, but if you're placing a burden—potentially a huge burden—on social services, when they're already under-staffed, overstretched, overworked, you're not going to make their job any easier, and you could lead to very tragic cases being missed, because the net's spread much more thinly across families who smack as well as sad cases where abuse happens. So, in terms of unintended consequences, that's something very troubling indeed.

Right, thank you. The police, CPS and social services already do investigate reports of children being physically punished and then decide whether to prosecute on a case-by-case basis. What evidence is there that this Bill would substantially increase the resources they need or would divert them from their existing work?

So, I would say, in the memorandum again there's helpful stuff in there. I've already mentioned the police liaison unit data, which talks about additional investigations. The key thing to say is the police can operate with discretion just now, and something that's smacking and deemed to be a reasonable chastisement will not be progressed to prosecution, to conviction. But if you're taking the defence away, then that behaviour does become criminal. So, smacking might be prosecuted and might be convicted. I don't think there's a cast-iron figure that I could give you for how many convictions there would be, but certainly there'd be many more investigations, there'd be much more police time taken up than currently is in this area, and it's something that's unnecessary, because, as I said, the law is understood, the CPS charging standard is very useful, it's very specific—you know, it's very reasonable, to coin a word, and the police understand it. And you're introducing massive uncertainty here by taking the defence away and it's not just—you know, it's criminalising parents but it's also confusing the police and there's perfectly good legislation that is going to be stripped away and taken away. The evidence from police in Scotland is that's going to stop them doing their job in the effective way that they're able to do it already. I can give you an anonymous submission—Sally talked about people being scared to raise their head above the parapet and it's obviously the case with the police as well. There are many anonymous submissions in Scotland and one police officer who said—he has more than 30 years' experience in the child protection unit, you know, a very high-up, decorated officer—this law is clear, this law is good, we need to keep this law as it is for the sake of the police and for the sake of children. So, yes. The law's good. The charging standard's good. Taking it away would not be the right decision. 

11:35

I'm protecting the identity of many friends and neighbours who have spoken to me who say, 'Oh, I can't speak out because my professional body has come out on this and I would be at risk', and I'm basically representing the silent majority on that. Silence is as good as an opinion on these things, because, in our culture of character assassination and jobs on the line if you take the side other than the party line, people are very scared and they're scared of the legal consequences on their own families if they acknowledge that they smack. My professional background is as a paediatric speech and language therapist. I worked in Sure Start areas and special needs schools. Just anecdotally, in my experience there, working with social services—you know, very well meaning employees—and also friends and neighbours' situations working for social services—. Even in situations where there's evidence of a child being at harm, the negative consequences to those families through the shambles of an intrusion and investigations and delays and delays and delays in court cases, et cetera—you know, the harm caused by that process is in many cases equivalent to or worse than the harm that was being investigated. And that's in situations where there is evidence of harm, I would say. Now we're going to target situations where there's not evidence of harm and intrude into those families. I just think it's very dangerous territory. 

Okay. well, we've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you for your attendance today? Sally, in your opening answer you made reference to several studies that weren't in the Be Reasonable written evidence. 

I'm very happy to leave those with you. 

If you could either leave them with us or forward the details of the references for those, that would be incredibly helpful. But thank you both for attending. We will send you a transcript to check for accuracy so that you can check that what we've written reflects what you actually said. Thank you again. We're going to take a really short adjournment just to enable us to change over witnesses.   

We're incredibly grateful for the opportunity. Thank you. 

11:40

Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 11:38 ac 11:43.

The meeting adjourned between 11:38 and 11:43.

4. Bil Plant (Diddymu Amddiffyniad Cosb Resymol) (Cymru): Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 3
4. Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session 3

Okay, welcome back, everyone to our third evidence session this morning. I'm very pleased to welcome the Equal Protection Network Cymru, in particular, Andy James, who is interim chair of Equal Protection Network Cymru; Catriona Williams, chief executive of Children in Wales; Vivienne Laing, who is policy and public affairs manager at NSPCC; Menna Thomas, who is assistant director of policy at Barnardo’s Cymru; and Dr Katherine Shelton, who is a senior lecturer in psychology at Cardiff University and a member of Academics for Equal Protection. Can I thank you all for your attendance this morning? We've got a lot of ground to cover, so we'll go straight into questions from Siân Gwenllian.

Bore da, neu—. Na, mae hi'n dal yn fore. O ran y ddeddfwriaeth ei hun, dŷch chi o blaid cael y ddeddfwriaeth yma, felly dŷch chi'n teimlo bod y gyfraith bresennol ddim yn gweithio. Gwnaf i ofyn i'r cadeirydd.

Good morning. Yes, it is still morning. Now, in terms of the legislation itself, you are in favour of this passing, so you feel that the current law is not working. Is that true? I'll ask the chair.

My apologies, I haven't got anything coming through on the headphones.

Sorry about that—that was a good start, wasn't it?

Gwnaf i ofyn y cwestiwn eto, felly. Pam ydych chi o blaid y ddeddfwriaeth sy'n cael ei chynnig, a beth dŷch chi'n ei deimlo sydd o'i le efo sut mae'r gyfraith ar hyn o bryd?

I'll repeat the question, then. Why are you in favour of this legislation that is proposed, and what do you feel is wrong with the current law?

Right, shall I start, because the NSPCC is strongly supporting the Bill and we commend Welsh Government for introducing it? Physical punishment is already prohibited in schools and other settings, so this is the next logical step. This change will bring welcome clarity for parents and professionals, and it will, more importantly, better protect children.

11:45

I think we have concerns, also, in terms of the current effectiveness of the law, and firstly we feel that it doesn't comply with the UNCRC and the obligations within that to protect children from physical punishment and also other cruel or degrading forms of punishment. Obviously, we commend the Welsh Government to come in line with the UNCRC. We think there's a need for legal clarity. The law as it stands is ambiguous and confusing, and the people here represent service providers; they can probably say a bit more about that later, in terms of the impact it has in terms of working with families. We would prefer, as this Bill promotes, that there is an unequivocal message about physical violence, that it's no longer acceptable. As it stands, also, the current law is also a confusing message to children. Children don't report something that they're told is allowed in the law or can somehow be justified. So, really, it fails to protect them fully from painful, humiliating or sometimes frequent assaults, and sends them the message that hitting people is acceptable as a means of resolving conflicts. Also, the law currently undermines the initiatives that the Assembly have promoted to reduce domestic abuse and the tolerance of violence within the home and within society in general. So, it's inconsistent with the message that it's never acceptable to try and control another person's behaviour by hitting or hurting them. So, there are a number of reasons we think that the law as it currently stands needs to be changed and to be much clearer, and I presume we'll probably go on as well now to talk about the implications of it, and also the whole notion of how it's managed. So, that's our sort of starting point on that, really.

We also—. As Andy said, we feel it completely undermines initiatives to reduce violence in society and, of course, domestic abuse, because the message is inconsistent—the message that it's never acceptable to try and control another person's behaviour by hitting or hurting them. This current law establishes a narrative that sometimes people deserve to be hit and the law allows them to be hit. So, that's why we are of the view that the current law is unclear.

Gaf i droi atoch chi, Dr Shelton? Achos, bore yma, dŷn ni wedi clywed dau fersiwn gwahanol o dystiolaeth, neu'r honiad bod yna dystiolaeth sydd—. Mae eich rhwydwaith chi yn honni bod yna dystiolaeth helaeth yn dangos bod cosbi corfforol yn gallu achosi niwed sylweddol, a'i fod o hefyd yn aneffeithiol i reoli ymddygiad plant. Dŷn ni wedi clywed yn y sesiwn flaenorol honiad bod yna dystiolaeth i'r gwrthwyneb, a dŷn ni wedi cael enghreifftiau'r bore yma, a dwi'n edrych ymlaen i edrych yn fwy manwl ar y rhain, ac efallai cael eich ymateb chi i rai o'r astudiaethau y cyfeiriwyd atyn nhw yn y sesiwn flaenorol. Ond dŷn ni hefyd yn gwybod bod memorandwm esboniadol y Bil ei hun yn dweud nad oes yna ddim tystiolaeth bendant bod cosb gorfforol resymol yn effeithio'n negyddol ar blant. Felly—maddeuwch i ni—dŷn ni fel pwyllgor angen gweld y dystiolaeth, ond dydy'r dystiolaeth ddim yn hollol gadarn, ddim yn hollol glir, felly fedrwch chi helpu ni i weithio'n ffordd drwy'r dystiolaeth a'n helpu ni i ffeindio pa un o'r rhain dŷn ni'n mynd i dderbyn? Ynteu ydych chi o'r farn nad ydy o ddim yn hollol glir naill ffordd neu'r llall, a bod yn rhaid i'r pwyllgor dderbyn hynny hefyd a pharcio hwnna i'r naill ochr, efallai, a meddwl am resymau eraill neu resymau gwahanol ynglŷn â derbyn neu wrthod y newid cyfraith sydd o dan sylw? Sori i fod yn hir, ond dwi'n meddwl fy mod i'n crynhoi beth mae'r pwyllgor wedi dechrau ei gasglu i'r pwynt yma, a gobeithio fyddwch chi, fel academydd, efallai, yn gallu ein helpu ni ynglŷn â hyn. 

May I turn to you, Dr Shelton? Because, this morning, we have heard two different versions of evidence, or claims of there being evidence—. Your network claims that there is broad evidence showing that physical punishment can cause significant harm and that it's also ineffective in managing children's behaviour. Now, we heard in the previous session a claim that there was evidence to the contrary, and we have been given examples this morning, and I look forward to looking at those in greater detail and perhaps getting your response to some of the studies that were referenced in the previous session. But we also know that the Bill's own explanatory memorandum says that there is no definitive evidence that physical punishment affects children negatively. Now—forgive us—we as a committee need to see the evidence, but the evidence is not entirely robust or entirely clear, so can you perhaps help us to work our way through the evidence and help us to find which of these we are going to accept? Or is it your view that it is not entirely clear one way or the other, and that the committee will have to accept that and park that to one side, perhaps, and think of other reasons or alternative reasons as to why we should accept or reject this legal change that we are looking at? I'm sorry to be lengthy, but I think that I am summarising what the committee has started to gather up till now, and I hope you, as an academic, could perhaps help us in this. 

11:50

You would never want to legislate without evidence and no-one would want you to do so. I can be unequivocal in saying the evidence supports and the evidence is clear that physical punishment harms children and it has lasting impacts into adolescence and adulthood. And you can look across research designs from correlation, from looking at families followed across time and from experimental designs, and the weight of evidence is complete convergence on that. When you hit, or whatever other semantics you want to employ—smack, slap, hit, punch—it's clear there are lasting consequences of that for children in terms of their mental health, in terms of what they learn about what's acceptable behaviour in their relationships with others as they go through their lives and in the messages it gives children about who is trustworthy in their lives. So, please don't be distracted by weak reports, by weak summaries and by essentially personal viewpoints. If you look to the peer-reviewed literature in the best scientific outlets in the world, the evidence is consistent and clear: it harms children to be physically punished in the home. 

I've got a couple of supplementaries on this. I've got Janet, then Suzy. 

Okay. Thank you. The Welsh Government commissioned research, 'Parental Physical Punishment: Child Outcomes and Attitudes', and they looked at the research evidence about the link between physical punishment and negative outcomes, and they said, 

'In our view the evidence does not definitively show that "reasonable" parental physical punishment causes negative outcomes.'

Are you saying, then, that that report is inaccurate?

I'm saying you need to look at the peer-reviewed evidence in the field, where the work has undergone robust scrutiny, where there are good checks and balances on the way in which the work has been done and completed, and where it's wide-ranging in its search for evidence. So, where you look at the meta-analytic work, where people have been very careful in looking at studies where children have been physically punished using, say, a slap or a smack, and they've looked at those separately from where you've got cases of abuse and physical assault, the pattern of effects is the same. It is associated with increased aggression, increased problems for the child in terms of their mental health, such as their anxiety, their depressive symptoms and their levels of self-esteem. Can I point to a specific study that I'd really—

—like to be taken as part of your evidence? If you look at Elizabeth Gershoff's work with Andrew Grogan-Kaylor—I can send this on to your clerk—from 2016, that meta-analytic review is very carefully done. So, they've looked at issues around publication bias, they've looked at the strength of the research design and they've adjusted for that accordingly, and, in doing so, are able to give you a more nuanced sense of the pattern of results. So, that's a really important study for you to look at and read, and it's really clearly written. 

Well, that's the key one because it's so wide-ranging in its scope. Do you want to come in there, Andy?

Yes, I can comment that you should have had reference to this in our submission, which is 'Equally Protected? A review of the evidence on the physical punishment of children', undertaken by University College London. That was a review of 74 longitudinal studies. The foreword by Professor Sir Michael Marmot of UCL says,

'The international evidence could not be any clearer—physical punishment has the potential to damage children and carries the risk of escalation into physical abuse.'

Further on in the report it says,

'Over the past decade, a vast body of research has accumulated on the consequences of physical punishment for children’s health and development, as well as their later-life health and wellbeing...There is strong and consistent evidence from good-quality research that physical punishment is associated with increased childhood aggression and antisocial behaviour',

and that,

'Physical punishment also affects children’s emotional and mental health',

and that it is,

'related to depressive symptoms and anxiety among children.'

So, obviously, that report we would recommend the committee takes a closer look at.

11:55

Yes, we will certainly do that, and I look forward to reading the report you refer to, Dr Shelton. I did notice, though, Mr James, that there was quite a lot of 'could', 'will be associated with', 'risk of'. Those are not the strongest words, I would have thought.

It's the potential. There will be some cases, probably, where it wouldn't happen, but in many cases it does.

What I was coming to is, could you just give us an idea of how many children and young people have been involved in those studies, so that we can get a sense of scale?

Yes. So, in the meta-analysis that I've just referred to, I think it's nearly 130,000 children across those studies. This is one of the most well-studied areas in psychology, actually, which is why we can be more confident than we can often be about human behaviour and making causal statements. We can be bit more confident with this because it's received so much attention over the past 60 years, since the second world war.

So, given that, then, what you've just said—you've been really clear—why would the Welsh Government's own study, which they're using as the basis for this legislation, seemingly be so cautious and saying, 'Well, no, we can't say that there's a link', because that's very confusing for us as a committee. Why do you think that is?

We found that very confusing too, if we're honest, and couldn't quite understand it, given the breadth of information that's already out there on this issue. I don't know whether this was an attempt to appear really balanced, because there are opposing groups and they need to have their say on the issue as well. But we found it very frustrating, that report, and it just didn't tie in with what we knew.

Ie. Wel, mae yna agweddau eraill, yn treiddio mwy i mewn i’ch tystiolaeth chi. Fedrwch chi egluro wrthon ni pam rydych chi’n credu bod yna dystiolaeth i ddangos bod defnyddio lefel mympwyol o drais yn gallu arwain at gam-drin corfforol neu rywiol mwy difrifol—hynny yw, bod un yn arwain at rywbeth mwy difrifol?  Mae yna dystiolaeth i hynny hefyd, yn amlwg.

Yes. Well, there are other aspects, delving more deeply into your evidence. Can you explain to us why you believe that there is evidence to show that using variable levels of violence can lead to physical abuse or to more serious sexual or physical abuse—that is, saying that one leads to something more serious? There is evidence for that, obviously.

So, you mean why does it potentially lead to an escalation?

It doesn't always and inevitably lead to an escalation. However, if you think about the fact that it is ineffective to smack or hit a child, and that some people may think, 'Right, well, if I hit a bit harder then, then that might work', perhaps you get into patterns of behaviour where you can't see alternative ways of parenting or disciplining. Or, what you're actually doing when you're starting down a route of physical violence and physical punishment is that you're creating a climate in which those behaviours become more likely, because violence begets violence. So, ultimately, you're setting in motion coercive cycles within a family that escalate over time. So, it doesn't inevitably happen that way, but what evidence shows us, over time, is that, for some families they do get into these patterns of behaviour that are coercive, violent and overly punitive.

And this report here—the 'Equally Protected?' report, the review of international evidence—one of the findings was that physical punishment is related to an increased risk of child maltreatment. And in all the reviewed literature, there's a link between physical punishment and child maltreatment. And there's a worrying risk, because it doesn't work, of escalation.

Actually, yes, and in that report, actually, also, one of the other findings was that physical punishment—. A lot of people say physical punishment isn't harmful in a loving, warm family, but this report also said that,

'the majority of studies that tested this hypothesis found that the harmful effects of physical punishment were the same even when levels of maternal warmth were high'

And the actual level of contact was infrequent and mild?

This is reviewing a whole lot of literature, so I've only got the conclusion.

Can I add also that, in the main child abuse cases that have caused public outrage in recent years, and we've referenced this in our submission—cases such as Victoria Climbié, baby Peter Connelly and Daniel Pelka in England, and Yaseen Ali Ege in Cardiff—all of those have had physical punishment as a factor in those cases. In many, neighbours, members of the public or the wider family, in some cases even professionals, didn't feel they had—. They had concerns but they didn't have enough information to act on those concerns, and part of that was because, up to a point, parents are allowed to discipline their children in a physical way. Okay, in those particular cases they're extreme and they went well beyond that, but there's a starting point, and it's where the child is first hit, and it progresses on from there. So, in terms of information and evidence about how it can lead to more extreme cases, those child abuse cases and child abuse studies are pretty clear on that.

12:00

Just finally from me, are we barking up the wrong tree here? Are we going after the wrong area? Shouldn't we be concentrating on the effect of coercive emotional abuse and that, really, light smacking, in the big picture, isn't what we should be trying to change?

No, you're doing the right thing. You're absolutely doing the right thing. This is about closing a loophole to give children equal protection in law. As part of this, it's encompassing clear messages to parents about what is appropriate in their raising of their children. So, I think you're absolutely right to be legislating in this way and giving clear, unequivocal messages about what is appropriate in relation to raising our children in Wales and being clear about that in relation to physical force. That's a brilliant start point.

Suzy, you've got a brief supplementary before I bring Jayne in.

Yes. I don't think you've quite covered off what Siân was getting at here, which is that, if you disagree with physical punishment of this nature, then the emotional punishment that Siân was speaking about—should that not be included in this Bill or a similar Bill? Are you content that it's just dealing with one area of adverse behaviour?

I think that the UNCRC definition of physical punishment covers some of those areas—

That's physical punishment. What Siân was talking about is equally assault. Why distinguish?

It says here,

'In addition, there are other non-physical forms of punishment that are also cruel and degrading and thus incompatible with the Convention.'  

There has to be a starting point for how we address this, I think, and, obviously, physical punishment is the most obvious one to make a move on.

Thank you, Chair. Some of the responses to the committee have said that the state should only get involved in family life in the most serious of circumstances. Why do you think this is a priority?

Well, we know that parents have a right to respect for their private and family life, but that is a qualified right, and it must not interfere with the protection and rights of others, because children have rights too. They have the right, through article 19, to be protected from violence, and we think that all children should have more rights and protection, rather than less, because they're vulnerable. But what this proposal will do is give them the same protection as adults.

I think also, if I can just add, that the Welsh Government says that the purpose of the Bill is to comply with our obligations under the UNCRC, but also to bring about a further reduction in the use and tolerance of the physical punishment of children. And that's what we need to hold on to: it's a protective and preventative measure. It's not designed as an unnecessary intrusion into family life or to lock loads of parents up. It's a signal regarding the inherent risks of physical punishment and the need to protect the welfare of children, which I assume everybody around this table would agree should be paramount. So, as there is strong research evidence in our view to show that physical punishment has no benefits and that it has the potential to cause long-term harm, Welsh Government can't ignore that, and it should act on it. And, on that basis, this Bill is the right step.

There have been quite a few online polls, perhaps suggesting that public opinion is not in favour of this. What would you say to that?

12:05

I think, from the polls I've seen, they are in favour of it. There is growing support and it's been growing over time. This is about legislation keeping pace with current approaches to parenting, when most parents are not using physical force and don't see a need to; there are much better ways of raising our children. So, I think the surveys are showing a positive shift that way, actually.

The Welsh Government's own study of the views of parents in 2018 showed that 81 per cent now disagreed with the need to smack children if they're naughty, and that's up from 71 per cent two years ago. The same study also showed that 11 per cent of parents still use physical punishment, but that only 5 per cent of them were happy doing so. 

As regards the views of children, who are the most affected group in all of this, of course, then Unicef did some work with 1,100 school-aged children across Wales, which showed consistently that there were majorities in favour of legal reform, particularly in the primary school-age group, which invariably would be the group most likely to be on the receiving end, in terms of their age, of physical punishment. Seventy-six per cent of them were in favour of removing the reasonable punishment defence. So, children are quite clear on it. We don't deny that there'll be polls out there that can give contradictory messages. And a lot of that can depend on what question you ask. If you ask the question, 'Should parents be criminalised for smacking their children?', you're going to get a completely different answer to the question, 'Should children have equal protection under the law from assault?' It's the same outcome, it's the same thing, in some respects, but if you ask the question in a different way, you get a different outcome.

Despite this, though, it does appear as if there are societal shifts in Wales as well towards more positive parenting techniques and methods. And studies have shown that there is a significant drop in the use of physical punishment across parenting. So, okay, the Welsh Assembly Government may be a little ahead of the curve in this, but that's not an unsurprising place to be, because in all the other 54 countries that have done this, the Governments were ahead of public opinion on it too. But what's interesting is that after the law was brought in, not one of those 54 countries have decided to repeal it in any way. 

Just to agree that it depends how the question is asked. We've just recently done some consultation with some of the children and young people who use NSPCC services. We obviously phrased it about giving children the same protection as adults have under assault law, and they basically said that hitting them and physical punishment is unfair and that it shouldn't be allowed. So, they support that they should have equal protection. And when we said this is happening in Wales, they also expressed concern about children in England who won't have the same protection as children in Wales.

I think also—if I can just add one more thing, sorry—it's absolutely right for the Government to take the approach that it is. What's clear, though, I think, is that from all the evidence in other countries, it's not enough to just have the legislative change on its own and it's not enough to just have a public awareness campaign on its own. The most effective means is to combine the two and to have the legislative change alongside a well thought through public awareness campaign, which, presumably, is what Welsh Government has in mind through its implementation group and this agency I think they're looking to commission to undertake that public awareness work for the next three years. So, if we do that, then there's a much greater chance of that being effective.

From examples elsewhere, certainly within our own laws, once there is legal change, people's behaviour falls in line to comply with the law. We've found that with seatbelt use, with smoking in public places and smoking in cars with little children. Once the law is changed, people respect that and their behaviour changes and comes into line with that. So, studies elsewhere show that people's perceptions of the law change after it's happened, say, 10 years further down the line, and that's a good thing and we wouldn't want to change it back again and go back to where we were before that.

Briefly, because we've got a lot of stuff to cover.

I've been quiet in this corner. I would just like to really support the fact that a legislature can lead, and it's really important, because, as Andy said, what's happened in other countries is that the public opinion has been really positive moving in the direction of where the legislature has felt it should go.

And this is, really, a public health issue, as well as an individual issue, because if we look at the way in which children receive the violence, they are—. In fact, if you talk to adults, they remember being hit or smacked or whatever as a child quite vividly, and the whole of the direction of travel of Welsh Government policy is respecting each other's rights within schools, within the community. Bullying is a big issue; bullying is about a dominant person or being dominated—that's a message that is not helpful. And as you've just said about children's views—children are coming through, thankfully, in Wales knowing a lot more about respecting each other's rights. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is embedded within Wales, and that was a leadership initiative, really, from Welsh Government.

So, we're very supportive, because we actually think it's contradictory. These are parents of the future as well: how are they going to think, 'Well, actually, I'm small, an adult is big, they're allowed to use violence against me'? You wouldn't, for instance, if there was an elderly relative who was confused running into the road, hit them because they were running into the road. There are many, many methods of helping to put boundaries around children's behaviour—proven.

I think I sound a touch frustrated. We've been talking about this for 25 years in Wales, and it started around the north Wales tribunal where, suddenly, the Welsh public was ahead of the curve, thinking, 'Actually, this is wrong. Children have to be protected.' So, within families, it's not talking about abuse; we're just talking about a cultural change. It's difficult being a parent. A lot of us, as grandparents, know how difficult it is, and the public now—the current parents are with us.

12:10

Okay, thank you. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so I'm going to have to appeal for brief answers as well. Jayne.

Catriona, you just mentioned the equal protection in terms of not hitting an older person, but we heard from the last witnesses as well that, technically, the Bill doesn't give children what is referred to as equal protection to adults, as it still allows parents and carers to use physical force in certain situations, such as picking a child up from one area to another area, perhaps to take them to a time-out area or picking them up to brush their teeth. What would you say to that?

I think I might hand over to Menna to respond to that.

I think, actually, the explanatory memorandum is extremely clear on this issue. So, in terms of equal protection, they describe very clearly how assault and battery are understood under the criminal law in relation to adults, and how they're understood under the civil law in relation to adults. Under the criminal law, intentional or reckless force to the body of another person is how battery and assault are interpreted, and under the civil law, they refer to more minor incidents, like trespass, so it's like you can touch somebody or maybe do something to them. The context is different under the civil law. So, in fact, adults are very comprehensively covered.

Now, what it describes in this situation with regard to children and young people is that the defence will be removed against common assault. So, it's about actually punishing in a physical way, so that assault is interpreted as an attack that is intended to cause harm, that is intended to hurt. However, it doesn't include all of the other really important physical interaction that parenting involves. So, when you're a parent, there's a huge range of different physical interactions that you need to have with your child in order to rear them safely and well into healthy adults, and that is outlined in a number of different areas. So, in terms of keeping them safe—the example is given of holding a child back from running across the road, maybe holding on to a toddler who's having a tantrum, having an emotional explosion and being very unpredictable—you need to keep them safe in those circumstances. 

And the second issue we highlight is care and well-being. We need to make sure that our children are kept clean and are healthy, that they are fed well. And, you know, parenting is about instilling those things and teaching them, and bringing them up to understand those things from when they're very tiny, which does involved physical interaction with that child. You know, things such as physical play are really important for children.

So, all of those areas are really clearly described and can be separated out from the issue of using a physical attack or a physical strike to intentionally hurt or humiliate or degrade a child. And what we know—I mean, in Wales and elsewhere, we have an evidence-based approach to addressing children's well-being. So, we have internationally a body of research around child development, which is psychological, it comes from neuroscience, and particularly with young children and babies, it's really clear that creating a safe, nurturing environment is extremely important for bringing up children. That environment—there's no indication that physical attack or physical force in relation to a small child is anything other than unhelpful, to say the least. So, with that understanding, you can then—. When you look at the policy and legislative context that's been developed in Wales over the past five and 10 years, this is just an anomaly, really, because there's an understanding of what is needed to bring up children well, and this just doesn't seem to fit with it.    

12:15

Okay, thank you. Before we move on to talk about implementation, can I just ask about recent oral evidence to the Scottish Parliament on a similar Bill that included views put forward by religious organisations both in favour and against the very similar legislation? Do you think religious text has a role to play in Welsh law and, in particular, in relation to this legislation? 

You must be guided by the evidence, and the evidence is clear that physically punishing children harms them in the short term and in the long term, and it gives rise to a continuation of those behaviours across generations. So—

—please be guided by the evidence. Yes.

Okay, thank you. The next questions are from Hefin David. 

I'll try and keep them as succinct as I can. If the Bill becomes law, what would you say a member of the public should do if they witness a child being smacked? 

This is a really difficult one. Basically, that's an unlawful activity once this law has been passed. So, what they should do—I mean, we've always thought that that's when a parent is under stress, so I think they should go up and talk to them and try and support them. Then consider after that. 

I think there's—. If it's at the point where the law has been passed, then they should also report that and that it should be investigated in some way, because that's how it works now, and if it happened now that may very well happen now. And I can go on to discuss—if you have a further question about the criminalisation of parents and the whole idea of investigations, I can respond to that if need be.   

Okay. Let's listen to some more views. Any other views? 

The situation at the moment is that many people might feel a little bit uncomfortable about reporting, and that's not necessarily a positive thing, really. 

Okay. So, the argument is: it should be reported, although, Vivienne, you don't necessarily say that that should be the first reaction to the parent. 

No. I mean, obviously, it should be reported, but, obviously, criminalisation isn't the aim of this Bill. But, yes, it should be reported and investigated, and then early intervention can be put in place then to support the families, as well as the investigation.  

Okay, that's a reasonable response. Andy James, you mentioned criminalisation—do you want to just respond to that and then I'll move on? 

Of course. We understand the concern over this issue and the use of the term 'criminalisation'. Personally, and I think collectively, we think that that's a deliberate attempt to inflame the debate, really, and alarm people, because it hasn't materialised in other countries in any concerning way. 

If you look at the justice impact assessment of the Welsh Government, as part of the background papers to this, they've tried to calculate in detail the anticipated numbers of prosecutions likely to arise from a change in the law, and they've done that as best they can in comparing it with New Zealand's figures. New Zealand changed the law on this in 2007. There are differences and similarities in terms of our legal structures and demography, but, in New Zealand, they found that, over the five-year period after the law had been passed, there were eight prosecutions for smacking, and 55 for what they called 'minor acts of physical discipline.' So, over five years in New Zealand, there were 63 prosecutions. 

The Welsh Government in this paper then goes on to try and calculate, 'Well, given the population size, and trying to be as similar and like-for-like as possible, what's the best figures we can come up with to try and say how many prosecutions there are likely to be in Wales?' And they concluded that there would be 37 to 38 cases over a five-year period. So, that's less than eight cases a year. And the Welsh Government are saying that they would also expect that figure to decrease as the law beds in and they continue with their awareness-raising. 

So, not thousands of parents being prosecuted and taken to court. The Welsh Government, as it currently stands, predicts that will be about eight a year. Now, we know there's still lots of work to be done in terms of reassuring parents on this, because it's one of the most contentious points put across about people's fears about ending up in court and an over-intrusive justice system in all of that process. But I think that's where the Government's implementation group has a real role to play, in making sure that there is accurate and consistent messaging put out across Wales before the law comes into force, and that parents and professionals alike are absolutely clear about it. 

Again, we should remind ourselves that the purpose of the Bill is not to prosecute parents and to haul them before courts. The purpose is to reduce and prevent the physical punishment of children across the country. Now, if, after all that awareness raising we've done, we still find that there are going to be eight to 10 cases a year that end up in court, well, you might think that that's justifiable, because it may be that those eight to 10 cases are the most serious ones, where people are willfully not complying with the law. They may think it's their right to hit children, and they may continue to do so on that basis. So, you may think, well, the prosecutions are legitimate on those grounds. It would be the same if I walked out of here and started smoking in a public place, or decided it was my right not to wear a seatbelt. So, there would be some justification for some prosecutions. But the Government is saying that the vast majority of cases that would be investigated would be dealt with below that threshold of prosecution. 

12:20

Would you acknowledge, though, that the Government doesn't have control over that? Once the law is in place, it's the police and the Crown Prosecution Service—

Yes, of course, but both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service are saying that they see the impact on them, and the number of cases coming through, as quite negligible.

So, you have to take into account what their experience and views are. There are three tests that have to be proven before they get to the point of prosecution. It's whether the case has a good chance of being found guilty in court, whether it's in the public interest, and whether it's in the child's interests. So, they're three quite tough tests, and they do those tests every day now. So, it's not going to be overly burdensome for those agencies; they're used to doing them and dealing with those kinds of cases. 

And the police and social services are already investigating assaults on children every day. But what will change is that that defence will not be available; if they go forward to prosecute, it won't be available to deploy by parents. 

If you look at the work of the Government as well, in looking at investigations in New Zealand, there were 3,602 in the five-year period after the Act came through, but 2,674 of those were cases that, in our country, under our current law, would have been investigated anyway. So, if you take those out, you're talking about 578 cases over five years—about 116 a year. If you hypothesise that in terms of our population size, you're probably looking at between 60 and 80 cases being investigated a year, on the Government's calculations based on the crossover between us and the New Zealand systems. So, it seems to suggest that it wouldn't be overburdensome.

12:25

It's a very quick comment. I spoke to Senator Jillian van Turnhout from Ireland earlier this week, and there was one case, really, that came as a result of this, because, as colleagues have said, cases currently are being investigated about violence against children, but the only new one in Ireland—and I've got details of the press report—actually turned out to be a child abuse case. So, we've focused on criminalising parents, but the safeguarding of children is also important and we don't know how many children have been protected because of the change, because it was actually somebody who reported this case. I've got the press coverage. So, I think, really, we think there's a lot of fearmongering about what's going to happen that won't happen. We can't guarantee it—

You don't think the First Minister wants to criminalise parents then. 

On those figures, I'm just trying to get some clarity about whether you think there'll be any increase in cases that are just about smacking and don't have the wider implications that you were just talking about there, Catriona.

The estimates from the Government's figures and their background information suggests that there will be an increase of about 60 to 80 investigations—

Well, the two categories here are smacking and a minor act of physical discipline—a slap with an open hand or whatever—

All right. I just wanted to clarify the difference.

Those are the definitions that New Zealand use, but they're the figures that have been extrapolated by Welsh Government for Wales. 

The last one then: in annex 7 of the explanatory memorandum, it identifies that malicious reporting by ex-partners was prevalent in assault on children cases, where one parent would make a malicious accusation against another parent. Do you think that this opens up another avenue for parents to make those kinds of malicious accusations?

We're obviously not statutory service providers, but we imagine that there is already lots of malicious reporting to social services and police. But we don't see any reason why there'd be an increase of this sort of malicious reporting on the introduction of this legislation. Any malicious reports would be investigated by police and social services, as they would investigate any other report. I would imagine that if it's malicious, there will be insufficient evidence.

Okay. I wouldn't want to go further into detail on that one anyway.

Okay, thank you. I've got some questions now on raising public awareness from Dawn.

It's just to pick up, Andy James, the point that you made earlier on about the public awareness campaign. You talked about the implementation group and the three-year campaign and so on, and that's all great, but in Scotland, they've put that on the face of the Bill—that that should be a legal duty to have that campaign—which is not proposed here in Wales. Do you have any views on that? Would you prefer to see it on the face of the Bill or are you quite happy with the way that it's being proposed here?

I think we're not hard and fast on it, but we think there's probably enough in the explanatory information that we're pretty confident that Welsh Government are going to follow through on the public awareness element of it, because it needs to and it knows and understands that to be as effective as possible, it needs to be coinciding with the legislative change itself. So, we're confident that Welsh Government have covered their bases on that and it's going to happen anyway. So, either way, it's not a huge issue for us, I don't think.

The research is very clear from other countries—that you've got to have legislation and the public awareness campaign to really make that cultural shift. So, as Andy says, we're not hard and fast about it being on the face of the Bill, as long as it's in the explanatory memorandum.

My view is that we really have to make it very clear that the whole of this initiative is to support parents—it's for social services to be working alongside parents and for teachers to be working alongside parents. So, it's a very big job. So, a campaign on the face of the Bill feels a little bit more limited than being able—. We're quite, as Andy said, easy about whether it's on the face of the Bill or not, because it's a very big cultural shift to change everybody's—every GP, every teacher's—view about what sort of information they're giving to parents.

12:30

It may have to change as time goes on as it develops and changes.

That's right, yes. Hopefully, it's parent advocates themselves—a whole range. The implementation group, we would say, has got to be really effective. A lot of work has got to be mainstreamed into all the people who are working with children. That's a big job. But we do feel that parents are probably some of the biggest advocates for this change themselves.

To be fair to Welsh Government, they understand that. It's clear from the information that they're on the case with that, I think.

Okay, thank you. The next questions are on unintended consequences, from Suzy.

Thank you very much indeed. All of you have obviously made the argument that this is about protecting children's rights and protecting children from being hurt as well. These are very powerful arguments and I think they're difficult to challenge. But when we're talking about legislation, we also have to take into account that legislation must do no harm.

You may have heard from previous witnesses who've given just a few examples of the harms they think could flow from the legislation as currently drafted. That included parents being pushed into more damaging ways of disciplining their children and the disproportionate effect on women. We've talked about the effect that parents could suffer through their workplace if they have a DBS check, which I appreciate is at the extreme. It's potentially a burden on resources, although I don't think that's the strongest of cases. Also, there's the position that professionals find themselves in, possibly compromising their own workplace, being scared to speak out if they have a contrary view. I'm just wondering if you could tell me how you feel those harms could themselves be balanced in this Bill.

It's because it's legislation I'm asking these questions.

Our position is that we strongly believe that this change will protect children from harm and that any of the initial costs will actually be offset by savings in late intervention costs in future years. The legal change we see is part of and consistent with the prevention and early intervention approach that's right the way through the social services and well-being Act and the well-being of future generations Act. We believe that as fewer and fewer parents use physical punishment there'll be fewer negative outcomes for children and it will stop cases of physical punishment escalating into physical abuse. 

That partly answers it. I'm happy for others to come in on this as well. But I go back to the point that this is legislation and we have to guard against unintended harms, not just to children, which I think could occur, going back to the question Siân Gwenllian asked originally about different types of discipline, but also those parents who are trying to prevent their children being harmed as well.

I just wanted you to comment perhaps in answering that question on the evidence we've had from other sources that, since the defence was removed in Sweden, the number of cases of child-on-child violence has gone up. I've struggled to necessarily draw a correlation there but it is a piece of evidence that we have been presented with. 

It's not founded in evidence. Again, I can refer the clerk to Joan Durrant's defence and strong rebuttal of those spurious claims and the spurious use of the Swedish data. The Swedish data is clear going back to the 1970s, when a sequence of reforms were made—not one but a sequence of reforms, just as you're making a sequence of reforms. The public attitude changes with it and you see change over time in the ways in which parenting takes place and the context in which parenting occurs with positive outcomes for children and family life. Again, it's not true and—

It's not proven, I think it would be fair to say. 

It's not proven. On the contrary; there appears to be a good association, a positive association, between making legal reforms and outcomes for families that are positive.

Okay. Sorry, Catriona; I just want to go back to that more general question, if you could all—

I just wanted to say that we have brought over paediatricians from Sweden. In fact, there's an offer from the emeritus professor who's dealt with a longitudinal study in Sweden on this very issue. He's coming over in the middle of May if people are interested to meet him and other paediatricians. It's a spurious sort of connection made, which we don't accept at all.

12:35

Okay, but to go back to that wider question of how we protect against these unintended harms, which are not just for children but for adults as well, how could the Bill be improved to ensure that those don't happen, or do we take Vivienne's view that, actually, these will just come out of the system over time anyway?

That would be my view on that, and I think the implementation group, again, has a key role to play as it develops over the next 12, possibly 24, months to try to identify where those potential things may arise and to build in ways of addressing them. I don't think they need to be on the face of the Bill in any way, because it's difficult to predict what some of those might be. But I think the implementation group has that role to try to iron out those things, or to think in advance of what they might be and to have mitigating circumstances for that then. 

Can I also say that, obviously, removing the defence of reasonable punishment and removing or prohibiting physical punishment will actually mean that parents deploy a range of other techniques to discipline their children?

Sorry? But not—. That's where the advice and guidance come from—from the health visitors and the Healthy Child Wales programme. Health visitors visit families about eight times—you'd have to check on that, but I think they visit—.

The new programme actually puts in a number of routine visits that we didn't ever have before. There's also Families First and Flying Start, which already promote positive parenting. This is where there's a contrast and a conflict, because the law says that it's currently acceptable to hit your child, whereas all of the support from all our professionals to families is to use positive parenting and non-violent techniques.

I know what you're asking, because, sometimes, legislation does create a chain of events. With this one, I can't really see the negatives, because, provided that the ethos is that the services are there to support parents, which is the whole purpose of this—to support them with methods that work, as opposed to methods that don't work and may escalate, and recognition that, perhaps—. A lot of the age, I think I'm right in saying, is around about—between three and five is where a lot of the smacking, or hitting, occurs.

Support with child development—. What is normal in what behaviours a little child exhibits? Some of the families may have more difficulties with that. Perhaps their child might have some learning difficulties, but those are all mainstream service support initiatives. Menna is probably—.

I think it's important the way that the change is communicated, because, as people have said, the way that the change is communicated—. It's not an alarming change. What we can see from the surveys in relation to parenting is that parenting is changing—the whole culture of parenting is changing. Parents are feeling much less comfortable with smacking and really want to parent using more positive techniques.

Positive parenting isn't about not putting boundaries down very clearly; it's about establishing very clear boundaries in a particular way. I think if we can communicate, and we do, I think, communicate, those messages very clearly through our work with parents and families—. One of the sticking points, certainly for practitioners in my organisation—. We did, actually, survey all of them ahead of the consultation on the proposal, back in March 2018 and had 60 responses, and 97 per cent of service managers and practitioners were absolutely clear that this was necessary, because a clear message basically drives forward and fits with the change that's happening already, and we'll see a developing surge, from the evidence that we have, in improved parenting techniques.Most parents who strike children do not feel comfortable doing so. They do so in the heat of the moment, under stress and under difficult circumstances. They have to deal with some pretty unpleasant emotions on the back of that. Some of them don't know any other way, because of their family culture or because of their community culture. What we're trying to do in Wales is change that, and this is quite an important marker, really, which enables all of us to deliver this more effectively in the longer term. And we're on the road—we're dynamically moving forward. This is what parents' voices are telling us. We need to make sure we're keeping pace with them and being consistent.

12:40

We did hear previously that one of the unintended consequences of not using physical means of disciplining your child—sending the child to their room, isolating the child, or other methods that were talked about—could actually be more harmful to the child. So, you would dispute that.

There's nothing more harmful than physically hurting a child. I'd much rather take 60 seconds on my own to get my breathing back down and calm myself down and think, 'Is this an important thing to be arguing with my child about?', while they sit in their room and play with their toys.

I think there are issues around how long you leave the child by themselves, whether you leave the child in a space where they have access to do other things. You can't lock up a child for hours in a bare room, for example. That would be completely unthinkable.

It's how you use that, and that's what positive parenting is about.

And parents are creative in thinking about ways to help their child understand the difference between right and wrong. And the vast majority of them don't need to resort, and don't even think to resort, to physical harm to do that.

But part of the problem is that parenting skills come instinctively to a lot of people, but they don't to others, and, maybe, where our culture hasn't moved quickly enough to those positive parenting skills, people go on to the physical side, but then they won't know what to use in positive ways of disciplining. 

But this Bill enables professionals to support those families going forward. That's what it enables them to do. You don't need to legislate about every aspect of parenting. You're putting the pegs in the ground around the boundaries around that, and it's for the professionals and the education campaign going forward, and public health campaigning going forward, to give that nuance for families.

We were both going to talk at the same time.

You will have to be brief as we are out of time. Suzy.

With that injunction in mind, I just wondered, when we talk about the implementation group—if you have any input there—if you will ask them to consider the effect on a loving family of the actual intrusive nature of an investigation that would arise if there had been an accusation of smacking, and the proportionality of that to the allegation. If you could just feed that in, that would be great.

How can you guarantee that this Bill won’t divert finite resources for health, social services and the police away from serious child abuse and neglect, given that the explanatory memorandum states,

‘It has not been possible to quantify all of the potential costs arising from the bill, due to:...Limited or lack of evidence on which to base the likely, realistic scale of the impact’?

As I said earlier, we think that this will protect children from harm—

NSPCC has over 100 years of experience of working with vulnerable families, and it is our considered view that the initial costs will actually be more than offset by savings from late intervention earlier on. We think it will enable—. So, these reports that will go to social services, to police, will enable earlier intervention, and earlier intervention and support for families to help them parent positively will, actually, in some cases, stop any escalation into physical abuse. And you've got to remember that physical abuse is not a small problem in Wales. If you look at the Public Health Wales research, 17 per cent of adults experienced physical abuse as a child. So, if the next generation, as a result of this legislation, has less physical abuse while children are growing up, we will have saved a lot of money all across the board.

I think, also, we have to listen to what the police and the CPS are saying in particular about what the number of cases may be, and they don't seem to be unduly alarmed about what—

We are taking evidence from the police and the CPS.

And I think the children's commissioner, after this, has also had contact with them over that issue. 

12:45

Okay. Well, we've come to the end of our time. So, can I thank you all for attending? It's been a really useful and informative session. As usual, you will receive a transcript to check, following the meeting. Thank you all for your attendance, and the committee will break until 1.15 p.m. sharp, please. Thank you. 

Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 12:45 ac 13:17.

The meeting adjourned between 12:45 and 13:17.

13:15
5. Bil Plant (Diddymu Amddiffyniad Cosb Resymol) (Cymru): Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 4
5. Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session 4

Welcome back, everybody, to this afternoon's session of the Children, Young People and Education Committee and our final evidence session of the day on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment (Wales) Bill. I'm very pleased to welcome Sally Holland, Children's Commissioner for Wales, and Rachel Thomas, who is head of policy and public affairs in the children's commissioner's office. We've got lots of ground to cover, so we'll go straight into questions, if that's okay, and the first ones are from Siân Gwenllian. 

Prynhawn da. Dwi'n gwybod eich bod chi o blaid y ddeddfwriaeth newydd yma. Fedrwch chi egluro pam, a pham rydych chi'n meddwl nad ydy'r gyfraith bresennol yn effeithiol? A hefyd, fedrwch chi esbonio—? Dwi'n credu eich bod chi'n credu bod angen i'r ddeddfwriaeth fod yn syml hefyd?

Good afternoon. I know that you are in favour of this new legislation. So, could you explain why, and why you feel that the current law is not effective? And could you also explain—? I think you also believe that the legislation needs to be simpler as well?

I do believe that the current law is not effective, and the main, primary reason that it's not effective is because it doesn't protect the human rights of our children in Wales. In fact, it breaches the Wales and the UK's commitment to children's human rights. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which examines, as this committee knows, the UK and, within it, Wales, on a periodical basis, has stated this repeatedly since 1996, which was the first time it examined the UK. On four occasions, it's produced really strong, concluding observations, saying that the four nations of the UK are not fulfilling their duties as signatories of the UNCRC by having this anomaly in our law. 

So, it's ineffective in protecting our children's rights, particularly the rights under article 19 of the UNCRC, which is the right to safety, but also their right, under article 37, to dignity and protection from cruel and unusual punishment. So, it's particularly ineffective because of children's rights, but it's also ineffective because it's not clear; it doesn't give a clear message to those who have care of children, particularly parents. It actually makes us, as a society, enter into debates—and this session has been all about debates today—about how hard we can hit our children, which I think is an unacceptable position in a modern Welsh society with its commitment to children's rights. We don't have that debate with adults. We don't debate how hard it is acceptable to hit another adult within our family, for example. And a third reason it's not acceptable is it doesn't fit with the values of our modern Welsh society: it doesn't fit with modern parenting in Wales, where we've seen a rapid decline in support for smacking; and our values as underpinned by law, including our violence against women and domestic abuse law. It really doesn't fit with the messages: we're saying that the use of physical force to respond to someone else within your family is not acceptable in Wales. It's a really bad message that's not effective in having coherence with the rest of our laws in Wales.

We mustn't forget the aspect that it doesn't protect children in other settings outside of the home as well. So, it doesn't currently protect children in all settings and this Bill proposes to do that. So, in settings like Sunday schools and madrasas and that kind of setting, it will also provide that protection.

So, there are many ways in which I feel the law is not adequate, but it's an anomaly in our overall commitment to children's rights, it's an anomaly in Welsh society and Welsh modern parenting, and it's an anomaly in the difference of how we allow ourselves to respond to children and to adults in terms of protecting them from physical force. 

13:20

Beth fyddai rhai pobl yn dweud, wrth gwrs, ydy, 'Beth am hawliau rhieni o gymharu efo hawliau plant?' Beth ydy'ch ateb chi i hynny?

What some people would say, of course, is, 'What about parents' rights as compared to children's rights?' What is your response to that?

Well, we have a duty in the UK under the European convention on human rights, of course, to protect family life, and within that, I would support us having a broad view of what good parenting is, but the rights under the European convention are what's known as qualified rights and they cannot be maintained in all circumstances if they breach other important international principles and conventions. The rights in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child are unqualified rights and we have a duty as a signatory to uphold them in all circumstances. So, in my view, it is a reasonable curtailment of parents' decision making to say that this is a child's right to the dignity of their physical integrity, the dignity of punishment, and beyond that there's a whole range of ways that will be right for your family to parent. 

Yn ogystal â'r agwedd hawliau dŷch chi'n pwysleisio arno fo, ydych chi'n credu bod cosb gorfforol rhesymol yn effeithio'n wael ar blant? 

As well as the rights aspects of this that you emphasise, do you believe that reasonable physical chastisement has a negative impact on children?

Yes, I do. I mean, as well as being primarily important around protecting children's rights, I think the second important reason that we would pass this legislation is as a public health initiative because we pass public health legislation when there's overwhelming evidence to suggest that by a change of behaviour we will have a positive effect on our population. And I know you've looked into this a lot today already, but the reasoning behind this law, I believe, and I believe as an academic as well as a children's commissioner, has a very strong and well-evidenced basis. As a public health initiative, it would be expected to reduce smacking. We know that from all the countries where it has done so already and, therefore, it'd be predicted to have a whole-population effect, which is what we'd want from a public health initiative, and we know that because hundreds of studies have shown negative associations with smacking, and—

Felly, gaf i jest dorri ar draws? Felly, dŷch chi ddim yn derbyn dehongliad Llywodraeth Cymru sydd yn y memorandwm esboniadol yn mynd efo'r Bil yma, lle maen nhw'n dweud,

'nad oes tystiolaeth bendant bod cosb gorfforol "resymol" yn effeithio'n negyddol ar blant'.

Dyna mae'r Llywodraeth yn ei ddweud. Dŷch chi'n herio hynny. Dŷch chi ddim yn cytuno efo'r gosodiad yna.

May I just interrupt? So, you don't accept the Welsh Government interpretation in the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Bill, where they state that there is,

'no definitive evidence that "reasonable" physical punishment causes negative outcomes for children'.

That's what the Government is saying. You challenge that. You don't agree with that statement. 

13:25

I think the crucial word there was that it 'causes', and I think that's what the Government means by that statement. To have fundamentally unchallengeable causal evidence, one needs to carry out experimental studies, of course. None of us are going to be proposing carrying out experimental studies where we smack some children and not smack others. That was done in the past, but we certainly wouldn't be doing it now.

The evidence is unusually strong in terms of associations, and different methodologies have been used to show this. We've had prospective studies, so not just retrospective studies where people will look back and say whether they were smacked or not in the past, but prospective studies. That means looking at a cohort of children. I can think of one where parents were asked when the children were one years old, in the States this was, whether their children were being smacked, and then they were followed up again at age five. The negative associations were associated with that. That also showed a 30 per cent increase in the likelihood of being involved in child protection studies. We also have those retrospective studies, rather like the ACEs research we're all familiar with, which have shown, when people have been asked about their experiences of being smacked, increased mental health problems, including suicidal thoughts and attempts. We've had meta-analyses that provide powerful—

There's a whole unusual richness of evidence to show that smacking is less effective than other techniques and has strong associations with harmful outcomes for children. In fact, over time, researchers have tried to respond to some of the criticisms that you will have heard today, I'm sure, about the strength of this research. So, for example, one argument regularly used is that children who are more difficult to manage, who are naughtier, you might say, are more likely to be smacked. Therefore, it is no surprise that they've also still got these more difficult behaviours in the future. We've now seen studies that have allowed for that in the analysis, so they've also looked at how much the parents reported their behaviour was difficult as well as whether they were smacked or not, and they've shown there's still a negative association with smacking, even allowing for how the child was at baseline level. So, there's this huge richness of evidence and we just cannot ignore that. I cannot ignore that. I've got 20 years' experience as a social sciences academic and as a professor, and it's unusual in family life to have this level of evidence. Because it's been such a disputed area, people have researched it more and more.

Ac eto, mae'r Llywodraeth yn dweud yn wahanol. Mae'r Llywodraeth yn dweud:

'nad yw'n debyg bod unrhyw dystiolaeth ymchwil sy'n dangos yn benodol bod effeithiau smacio ysgafn ac anaml yn niweidiol' 

i blant. Pam fod y Llywodraeth wedi dod i'r casgliad yna a dŷch chi'n dod i gasgliad cwbl, cwbl wahanol?

Yet again, the Welsh Government says to the contrary. It says:

'there is unlikely to be any research evidence which specifically shows the effects of a light infrequent smack as being harmful to children'.

So, why does the Government come to that conclusion and you come to an entirely different conclusion?

I think that the Government, of course, have relied on the evidence from the PPIW. I think the conclusions of that research, when they looked at all of the studies, were cautious, I would say, compared to the strength of the evidence that is there. The Government, of course, have relied on those conclusions as they commissioned them. But, my view is that it is strong. The overwhelming majority, about 99 per cent of studies, find this association of negative outcomes. 

Ydy cymryd agwedd cautious yn briodol yn yr achos yma? Ydy o'n helpu ni? Neu ydy 'cautious' yn golygu ei fod o'n mynd i'r cyfeirid anghywir mewn ffordd o ran y dystiolaeth? Fyddech chi'n dadlau yn ôl efo'r Llywodraeth nad ydy ei esboniad nhw'n gywir, neu ei dehongliad nhw ddim yn gywir? Dŷch chi'n dweud ei fod o'n cautious, ond cautious oherwydd—felly, dyw o ddim yn gywir. 

So, is adopting a cautious approach appropriate in this particular case? Does it help us? Or does being cautious mean that it's going in the wrong direction in a way in terms of the evidence? Would you argue with the Government that its explanation isn't correct here, or its interpretation rather, that that isn't correct? You say that it's cautious, but it is cautious because of—is it incorrect, therefore?

No, I wouldn't say it's incorrect; I would say it's cautious. 

Right, okay.

Symud ymlaen felly i gwpwl o faterion eraill. Y busnes yma o'r nanny state. Beth ydy eich ymateb chi i hynny? Mae yna rai pobl yn dadlau bod hwn yn enghraifft eto o Lywodraeth yn ymyrryd yn ormodol ym mywydau pobl.

Moving on, therefore, to a few other issues. This idea of the nanny state. What's your response to that? Some people argue that this is an example yet again of the Government intervening too much in people's lives. 

Well, as I've already said, I don't think there is one right way to parent, and I completely acknowledge that parenting is a really hard job. I say that as a parent of three, I say that as a former social work practitioner who used to try and support parents who were struggling with parenting, and I say that as someone whose main and primary research was about how professionals assess parenting, especially around child protection. So, there's no one right way to parent, but the state does, beyond that, have a role, and the state has a role in protecting the rights of individuals, their individual citizens, including within families. They have a duty—not just a role; they have a duty—under the UNCRC to set baselines and say what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. And beyond what is not acceptable, then I think, in a modern liberal society, we would expect a flourishing of different forms of family life. And they should of course be supporting families towards optimum parenting; they shouldn't be dictating how it should be, but they should be setting a clear baseline. And, of course, the state intervenes in family life in many ways. I mean, some people may call it a nanny state, but there are real human rights and evidence-based reasons for doing that. It's already intervened to protect adults from common assault by not providing a defence in the law to say that there are circumstances in which it's reasonable to smack an adult in your family. So, they've already intervened to say that there is no defence. Instead, it should go through the normal process of law, as would happen in these cases if this law is passed.

We need to remember, of course, that, when we think about the implications of this law—there's been lots of anxiety, of course, about potential impact on parents and the criminalisation of parents, but we have to keep saying over and over again that this is not a new criminal offence that is being proposed here and, as now, it would be subject to the same de minimis principles that the police and prosecutors would use, including the need to think about whether there's enough evidence here, whether it would be in the public interest to prosecute in this circumstance, whether it be in the child's best interest to prosecute. So, the same principles again would apply. It's just taking away, as you're aware, that specific defence.

So, I do think it's an important debate that we have, of course, in any society, as to how we protect individuals, whilst also protecting people's freedoms within society to have families as they wish, but this is not new territory for us as a society to make laws or to change laws that place some duties on parents or on other family members. So, I don't think it's out of step with how we've intervened with or legislated for family life in the past.

13:30

No, it may not be out of step, but it may be another example. And it could be that it is, actually, an ideological argument that we're talking about here anyway. So, it depends, ideologically, where you're coming from—

Can I just—? I don't think—. Human rights are universally accepted. We had the universal declaration of human rights in 1948 after the atrocities of the second world war. They're universally accepted, so I wouldn't like to say that the human rights of children are ideological.

Okay. Some people would. I mean, I wouldn't, but—.

O ran barn y cyhoedd, ydych chi allan o sync efo beth mae pobl yn meddwl?

In terms of public opinion, are you out of step with what people think?

I don't think so at all. Obviously, it always depends how you ask the question, when you ask the public what they think about this issue. If you ask people whether they agree with thousands of parents being criminalised for a gentle smack, then I think most people's natural instinct would be to say 'no', but if you ask people much more about their own practices of parenting, especially, it has to be said, younger parents or parents of younger children, or if you ask them about where they think it's acceptable to physically punish a child, then you will find that, actually, more and more and, indeed, increasingly the majority of the population is in support of this law as it really is, not as it's portrayed.

You're obviously well versed in this committee already, I'm sure, on the Welsh Government research, which has asked parents of younger children. So, this is a different cohort than asking perhaps people who are trying to remember back to their own parenting experiences or their own childhood experiences, indeed, from a real distance. When you ask people who are currently engaged in parenting of young children, then the support for smacking has absolutely plummeted in the last few years. They have to look at experiences of other countries, where they have actually, in most cases, legislated where a majority of the population has still supported smacking in principle, or whatever they call it in that nation. But, in every case, after the passing of the law, there's been a decline in support for physical punishment after the passing of the law. Sometimes, the law has to lead public opinion too, but I think, actually, in Wales we wouldn't just be leading it—we would also be guided by both changes in actual parenting practices, as well as changes in people's opinions. 

13:35

So, following from that, some people would argue that, if attitudes are changing anyway and that smacking is occurring less and less, why on earth do we need to bother bringing in some legislation when there's so much other legislative work that this Senedd could be doing at this precise moment in time? 

Okay. So, in terms of it being a priority for legislation, I can't think of anything almost more important at the moment for us to be—I can think of lots of important things, by the way, for the Senedd to be passing laws on, but this has got to be one of those really important ones that has to be a priority. We're not fulfilling our duties under the United Nations convention as a nation unless we pass this law. We're out of step with the rest of Europe. We're out of step with parenting practices. It needs to be done. 

Ocê. Yr hyn sydd wedi digwydd yn Seland Newydd—mae o'n ymddangos bod o wedi creu hollt yn y farn, sydd eto'n rheswm dros beidio â gwneud dim byd. Mae o wedi creu rhyw ffraeo mawr, ac wedi creu tensiynau. Ydych chi'n cytuno? 

Okay. In terms of what has happened in New Zealand, it appears that it has polarised public opinion, which is another reason for doing nothing. It's created a great deal of debate and tension there. Do you agree with that?  

Well, yes. New Zealand stands out, really, amongst the other countries that have legislated in having this continued high-level debate many years after the legislation, and I think there are lessons for us to learn from what happened in New Zealand. One lesson for us to learn is that the law wasn't passed in what I would call a clean way. In an attempt to placate, actually, the different parties, the law actually became less a law about children's rights—it became much more a law about parenting practices, and it tried to codify parenting practices and say it's okay to smack in this circumstance, and not in others. So, I think it left a lack of clarity, which left some confusion, and it also left perhaps a feeling amongst those who were against the change in law that the Government isn't wholeheartedly in support of this, so we can probably get this reversed. That's my hunch.

I think we can take some—those of us who are in support of the change, though, or who are not in support of smacking, which perhaps involves a bigger group of people, can take some heart, though, from the experience in New Zealand, for two reasons. One is that all the debate there has led to very high public awareness of the law, and that in itself appears to have led, again, to a real plummeting of actual practice of smacking in New Zealand; they've really reduced it over the years. And the second thing is that, despite the huge concern in New Zealand about what would happen to parents and levels of prosecution, in fact, prosecution has been very low there, and their official figures say that there were eight prosecutions about smacking alone in the first five years after passing the law.

So, there's a lot for us to be encouraged by what happened in New Zealand, despite the fact that, actually, I think it was not the right way to do it, the way they passed the law.       

Felly, y wers i'w dysgu dŷch chi'n teimlo ydy i ni beidio â thrio gwneud gormod efo'r ddeddfwriaeth newydd yma—peidio â rhoi gormod i mewn yna, peidio ag ychwanegu materion eraill yn ymwneud â disgyblaeth a rhianta; cadw fo'n syml i ddileu'r gosb. 

So, the lesson to learn in your view is that we shouldn't try to do too much with this new legislation—we shouldn't include too much in it, we shouldn't add other issues with regard to chastisement and parenting; we should keep it simple, to abolish the defence. 

Absolutely. Although I'm disappointed we've been so behind other countries, we do have the advantage of being able to learn from their experiences, and where it has been a very simple and easy-to-understand piece of legislation, it appears to have been accepted more readily by populations. I think that the principles of lawmaking—and you are our lawmakers; I don't want to try and teach you about this—but the principles of lawmaking is to do the minimum necessary, and here I think there's a very clear anomaly in the law that needs to be removed.

There's a lot more beyond that for Government to do and for public services to do around education and around clear guidance. There is a lot more to be done, but my advice would be to keep the law as straightforward, as simple, as possible and we absolutely cannot get into a situation where we're trying to legislate for the circumstances in which it is all right to smack children or not. Nobody would accept that for adults and I certainly would not, as children's commissioner, think that that was at all acceptable to do to children—we would get ourselves into even more of a muddle than we're in now.

13:40

A jest i gloi, dŷch chi wedi pwysleisio'r hawliau ar ochr yna o'r pwnc—yn eich barn chi, byddai methu â deddfu i ddileu'r amddiffyniad o gosb resymol yn gadael Llywodraeth Cymru yn agored i her gyfreithiol. Dwi ddim yn meddwl a wnaethoch chi fynd mor bell a dweud hynny yn eich sylwadau agoriadol. A ydych chi'n credu byddai hynna'n gallu digwydd o dan Ddeddf Hawliau Dynol 1998?

And just to conclude, you've emphasised the rights and that side of this particular issue—in your opinion would failing to legislate to abolish the defence of reasonable chastisement leave the Welsh Government open to legal challenge? I don't think you went as far as to say that in your opening remarks, but do you believe that that could possibly happen under the 2011 Measure?

I think that would be a difficult—. That might not be the route to get a change because, of course, the Government will have brought—. I think it's a strong way in which it is fulfilling its duties—I think it should have done it much earlier than it's done it, but it is now a strong way in which it is fulfilling its duties under the Measure and, if it's democratically not passed, then it would be difficult for us to lay the blame, therefore, on Government for not bringing it, but there would be other legal routes, perhaps through the European Court of Human Rights or through a different administration or a public vote. But I think that route of the Measure would be a difficult one to argue, because the Government is wholeheartedly trying to pass this using a children's rights frame. That would be my immediate response to that, but I've not really thought it through.

Suzy, you've got some brief questions on unintended consequences.

Oh, yes. Yes, thank you. I think you might have heard the evidence or the questions in the previous session, but, bearing in mind your remarks on keeping this Bill as simple as possible and that we are talking about legislation, I want to park the issue of defining what's acceptable and what's not, because I think that's—[Inaudible.] I just want you to think about those other unintended consequences—a few that I named—which would include the limiting of options for parents who might choose a route with which they or an individual child might be more uncomfortable, the potential burden on resources, the disproportionate effect on women, potentially, from this, the situation of people who might be working in professions where expressing a contrary view might prevent their career progression, and, then, the proportionality or proportionateness of the investigative process for an accusation, shall we say, which probably won't actually get anywhere near as far as prosecution from what you've said. I think the chances of prosecution are pretty slim on this—it's only in more serious cases—but the investigation process will still occur and that, in itself, in, shall we say, an untroubled family, or a family that's not used to this—they're going to find that pretty disruptive. In terms of harm and balance and all that sort of thing, bearing in mind that this is legislation, is there anything we can do with the legislation to minimise these other incidental harms?

I wrote down about six individual questions there, but I'll try not to answer them all individually, because the Chair will tell me off—

Yes, I've tried to squash it all in, because of the time I've got.

Yes, I'm aware of time. Yes, I think, as previous people have said, the implementation group will be really important here to make sure that we get this right as a nation. Passing the legislation is only one aspect of what we're going to do next. We will all want to see a proportionate investigative process where it happens, and we will need clarity for both parents and for professionals on what the law means and what it means that they should do. 

I've had conversations with many people who would be charged with implementing this and what they want is clear guidance on what they should do if this situation arises—'What should I do next?' I think the implementation group in that case will have a very strong role and, of course, I and this committee, I know, will be scrutinising that heavily to make sure that it is following all these ifs and buts that might arise.

In terms of burden on resource, I would concur again with the previous evidence givers that we can't keep—. We know this has a long-term impact on children and, indeed, into adulthood. As a nation, we have decided that we're actually going to stop just trying to stop the gaps and deal with things after things have become a crisis—we're trying to become, through the future generations legislation, a more preventative nation. We know that this will be a preventative measure—I'm really confident about that—and it will lead to whole conversations about positive parenting and good practice in responding to children beyond its specific legislative intention. In the long term, I strongly believe that will lead to a reduction in burden on resources. But that is a long term, and, as with anything when we're thinking about prevention, that needs initial investment to reap the long-term benefits, which is very hard for Governments and local authorities and services to do, but I do think it is essential and we should all keep pushing for it. 

I wasn't quite sure what you meant by the first part, on limiting of options for parents. 

13:45

Oh, right. We heard evidence from an individual who was in an earlier session who said that by limiting the options to parents—options for punishment or instruction of children—that they might be tempted to employ more emotionally coercive actions, which—you know, it's going to depend on the child in every case in this, but they actually might find that more damaging, if that's the right word, than the smack that we've been discussing. 

I just don't feel, for me, that's a very positive argument, to say that, 'If I'm not allowed to do this negative thing, I'll do another negative thing'. We've got very clear evidence on what is involved in positive parenting. I know we keep using that term, but it is actually very well evidenced and set out and we have, already, lots of rolling out of it in Wales through classes et cetera, and not just classes, information. So, I don't really like the use of that argument, but I fully accept that there are other forms of parenting that also can cause harm to children, but they're not currently supported in the legislation. We're not currently—you know, there's not a loophole—

So, that's why this and not make a broad legislation, for example, about emotional harm, et cetera. It doesn't mean to say that I think therefore all other forms of correction are okay. It's just saying that this in itself is an anomaly. I think we need to do much more in supporting parents to understand and find the best ways to parent.

I remember meeting parents, for example, who'd been supported through Flying Start, who talked about how transforming it had been to their relationships with their children to learn about different ways of responding to them. Because they'd been brought up with a lot of negativity, a lot of telling off, and part of that was also smacking, and how different it was just to be helped to learn new ways of responding to their children, because they had felt out of options. So, to just be helped to find new options—and that's not just a class-based thing, it's not people from one particular cultural group or anything. I think for everybody, we need help and support in thinking about different ways of doing things.

Sitting on the floor with one of my own toddlers, I've had to pause and think, 'Right, this is—I know how I need to respond here'. I've had to sort of tell myself the things I've told other parents they should do, because it's hard, because we do have emotional responses and our children wind us up, as our partners wind us up, as family life is. But, once you've actually learned those techniques, you can take a breath and pause and respond to them positively, and I think we could do a lot more in support, in a non-patronising way. And I'm not saying, 'There's only one way to do it and the state says this is how you should do it', but saying, 'There are lots of options and these are some ones that work'. Actually, some of the best things I've seen have been when peers, when perhaps parents who have been helped through a Flying Start project, have helped other parents, they've become trainers, because they can really say, 'Look, I've been there and I can support it'. 

You also asked about a disproportionate impact on women. Do you mean because women do more of the day-to-day parenting? 

Yes. I think the earlier evidence we had was more in the context of families where there's been domestic violence and things, but I just wanted to extrapolate a little into areas where perhaps there wasn't domestic violence, but it tends to be the woman who's looking after a small child for prolonged periods during the day. So, just on the sums, they'd be more likely to be somebody who smacked, but not necessarily, obviously. 

No, and I'd say, in my experience, when mothers and fathers have been supported in—. But you're right, the people who attend parenting classes are overwhelmingly women. I don't think that's right, but they are. They've said, 'It's been great to be helped to find other ways,' so, I think there are more positive things that we can do than say, 'Well, carry on smacking because we know it's hard.' We actually also know it's harmful to children. So, I do think an awful lot of the focus of the debates around this have been about the impact on parents. We have to keep remembering, and, of course, it's my job to remind everyone, about the impact on children.

13:50

Which is why it's been very useful for us to know about the evidence base that's behind the assertion that it is harmful. So, this has been helpful. Thank you.

Can I just clarify—? You said this isn't about creating a criminal offence, it's about removing a defence. That's clearly your belief, yes. So, with that in mind, imagine that the law is passed and a member of the public witnesses a child being smacked. Would you expect that member of the public to behave differently the day after the law is passed compared to the day before?

We expect there to be a lot of public information about it. At the moment, the thresholds for social services and police intervention won't change; what will change will be the defence. So, at the moment, anyway, if someone witnesses somebody smacking or hitting a child, they have to make a judgment about the best thing to do, and it might be to jump in and try and support parent and child at that moment, and say, 'You seem to be under a lot of stress. Can I help?' That might actually be my first reaction if I saw someone hitting a child—

Okay, so the scenario might not necessarily change—

I think, at the moment, it's a judgment call that everyone has to make. It would be the same if you saw an adult behaving badly or even violently towards another adult. You have to make a judgment call about the best thing to do at that point, and, as I say, the thresholds for intervention in terms of social services—their thresholds for taking formal intervention, I mean—will not change.

And I don't want to get too far into the long grass of hypothetical situations, but it's an interesting question.

It is an interesting question, and, of course, the same applies to any aspect of life where we've passed laws, especially laws that we've been less familiar with and need to come to terms with. The same would happen if you saw people smoking cannabis on the street or something like that, do you know what I mean? People do make judgment calls as to how to treat people dropping litter. I don't want to trivialise the issue of smacking compared to those things, but they are—

There won't be a positive duty on members of the public to suddenly start reporting everything. So, it would be similar to—. You might see someone driving on the motorway on their mobile phone. I would probably think, 'That's stupid,' but I wouldn't ring the police.

We do know, though, however, that, from the experience in Ireland, the one prosecution that did go ahead was from a member of public who reported a child being hit in a car park, but, actually, when that was investigated, it turned out that the child had been suffering significant and prolonged abuse. So, the confidence to be able to report and the clarity of knowing what is and isn't okay helped that scenario, but it doesn't mean that everyone will suddenly be under a duty or will be reporting every single thing that they observe.

I think that's a really important point, because that's been the experience in other countries as well—that people have become more confident to report cases that have turned out to be above the threshold that now would be counted as common assault but would actually be a more serious form of assault because they leave an injury or whatever. That was the experience in New Zealand, and Sweden before it—that those reports went up as well.

Okay. And you've talked about us as lawmakers and particularly, then, this committee as a forum for exploring the consequences, and you as a stakeholder giving advice on the draft Bill, but once the Bill is enacted, it's out of the hands of lawmakers and it's in the hands of police and prosecutors. Could there be an extent to which the police and Crown Prosecution Service act in ways that, perhaps, we didn't intend them to?

I think that's where the guidance will be important and the implementation will be important, but what I've heard from the police has been that they wish to have clear guidance and they will follow it. They wish to know exactly how they should respond and they will follow it. The chief prosecutor for Wales said in evidence to another forum—sorry, the name's gone out of my head—

The Thomas commission.

—the Thomas commission recently, in the last couple of months, that he expected the prosecutions to be in single figures. So, that's the message coming back from them.

There's also the element that these are scenarios, on a whole range of scale, that these professionals are used to dealing with already.

13:55

Yes, and I think that's important when we think about people worrying about malicious allegations and also floods of allegations, but these agencies are used to dealing with both of those scenarios. I think it will stop the sort of anxiety of people about—. I don't know how many times I've had conversations with people who say that they're a bit worried about a child in their street and that they don't know what to do, and I think that that lack of clarity has been difficult for people in general and especially for professionals.

I can see the direction you're going towards—that removal of defence all the time. One other concern that was raised in the explanatory memorandum was the fact that malicious reporting of abuse by ex-partners was the case. Do you feel that this gives an extra dimension for separated parents who may feel that they may wish to act maliciously against each other—that this gives them a further dimension to do that, and that we may see the law being abused in that way?

Well, we have discussed this with the head of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and he doesn't think that it will increase the volume of cases but he does think that it could be another element that will add to the complexity, but they already deal with very complex allegations and counter-allegations by parents. So, I have to say that I think they will take it in their stride, and I don't mean to trivialise it, but it is very much in the territory of what they're used to dealing with, and that would include currently allegations of smacking.

Yes, and this is probably happening at the point of the family law court submission and CAFCASS would then be responsible for taking on litigation.

Yes. The cases that CAFCASS have are already the disputed cases, so they're already dealing with those tricky issues of accusations and counter-accusations.

And I just want to be clear that's the point at which these things are commonly happening—that the accusations might be happening. It's not reported to the police; it's reported to the family courts, is what we're talking about.

There are all sorts of different scenarios, I suppose, but where it's about parents disputing with each other, it would usually be because they're going through a period of divorce or a dispute over a contact order or something like that, and that would therefore be in the family courts and not the public courts.

And you think CAFCASS is equipped to deal with that.

Yes, I think they're absolutely used to dealing with these kind of situations and families, and much messier allegations actually.

And conversely, if someone were to report that to the police, and if they were to use that as a weapon, if you like, against a separated partner, again, the police are very experienced in this, and how often do you hear the police saying, 'This is a domestic issue; this isn't for us'?

Okay, thank you. The next questions are from Dawn Bowden.

Yes, thank you, Chair. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions about awareness raising and the difference with the cross-border stuff. So, in written evidence you said that, 

'in order to achieve change, it is recognised in the Explanatory Memorandum that it will be important to undertake...significant awareness’.

In Scotland, they've put a duty on the face of the Bill. In Wales, we're proposing to have an implementation group that will have an awareness-raising obligation over the next couple of years or so. What's your view on the different approaches, and do you think that it would be better for that duty to be on the face of the Bill?

I do actually think that the Government is heavily invested in this as a process and I do actually have confidence, and I don't always have confidence, as you know, in everything that they intend to do, but I do have confidence that they do intend to run a very extensive public education campaign here. Whether, as legislators, you feel that that's not strong enough for you, I think that is a matter up for debate. My main concern about additions to the legislation, as I was saying earlier, are around definitions of assault, et cetera, and defences. So, I think that you, as a committee, will scrutinise the Government on this, as I will as children's commissioner, but I think you may just want to discuss, as a committee, whether you think that will be necessary or not. I don't have a strong view on it.

Okay, and would you see your office having a role in that awareness raising as well?

Absolutely. I'm sure we already receive a lot of correspondence about this issue, and I think, on an individual level but also in our public messaging, we could have a role in this, but I think the primary role would be for the Government and public service agencies.

Sure, okay. So, could you then give us some examples of the practical steps that you would want to see Welsh Government taking in terms of that awareness-raising programme? What would you want to see?

I think they need to raise awareness of parents and professionals, including front-line professionals, like assistants in school and people like that, so not just at the top level of professions. So, they'll need to make sure that they do both of those things. They will have to do that, I think, in some ways in just a normal public campaign, using the media and advertisements and that kind of thing, but there will also be lots of other routes through which they can do it, which I think the implementation group will look at the detail of, but things like health visitors and the universal services information, midwives, because we'll want expectant parents to know about this, GPs—anywhere where we know we will reach the majority of people. Nurseries and schools as well.

14:00

Okay. And there is, of course, the added dimension of cross-border—

Absolutely, yes.

—and Wales is a big holiday destination, with people coming across from England. So, what would your views be on how we publicise what the law is in Wales when people are coming here?

With all my fingers crossed, I think this law will pass in Scotland and Wales, and so I think there will be a lot of UK awareness of the law. Of course, Welsh families currently holiday in countries every year where this law has already passed, and it's our duty as citizens to follow the laws of a country that we visit, and it would be the same for tourists coming into Wales. But, I think we expect proportionate responses to someone who was perhaps a visitor and, probably, most people's initial reaction would be to say, 'You know you're not allowed to do that here', and if they thought that the child was at risk of immediate harm or injury, then of course they would step in more forcefully than that.

There's been a lot of debate in the UK over the last few months about the Irish border. You may have noticed. We've all become very aware that it's a very pervious border itself and that people travel on a daily basis across that border and we have currently that change there, and I'm not aware of it having caused difficulty across the Irish border.

Okay. All right. That's fine. We did hear in evidence from Be Reasonable Wales about the study from Sweden, which you might be familiar with, which appears to show that child-on-child violence increased by 1,791 per cent between 1984 and 2010, and the correlation that they've made is that that coincided with the removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Yes, I do—[Laughter.]

I spent some time at the beginning of the session talking about the quality of the evidence, and that study would not, in my view, pass that quality threshold whatsoever. I think that, when we are thinking about the well-being of children in Sweden, we only need to look at the Unicef league tables of well-being to see that Sweden, and indeed all the other countries that are in the top five of children's well-being internationally—. Britain is some way below and even farther below there are countries where there's a lot of smacking, like Canada and the US. Sweden is consistently in the top five of children's well-being scores, and all the others in the top five also have passed this law. I'm not making that correlation, but I'm just saying that I think it's unfair to say that Swedish children are doomed because, I think it's been said, that they were never taught by their mothers to say 'no' to their mothers, or something like that. Anyway, it is a really spurious claim. I would personally not want to stick my neck out and say that Swedish children have been harmed by this. The evidence is much more to the contrary that, on the whole—and it's not just because of this law; I think it's for all sorts of other reasons—Swedish children have good well-being. But I find it an absolutely extraordinary claim, and we know that reports of child abuse, for example, have gone up hugely right across the western world, but this didn't do that international comparison, and that's because of awareness mainly.

The last point I want to make is that those child well-being scores aren't just about their happiness, although that's an important part of children's well-being. It's also about things like bullying. So, Sweden, after the Netherlands, has got the lowest level of child-on-child bullying amongst the richest nations in the world, and also child risky behaviours as well—it's got one of the lowest levels in the western world.

Sorry, I do feel strongly about people using poor evidence to make arguments.

And that's what we were trying to get out. That's absolutely fine. Thank you.

14:05

Thank you, Chair. You've been really clear about why this should be a priority and you've talked about initial investment as well. What would your response be to those who say that this Bill would divert finite resources for health, social services and the police away from serious child abuse and neglect, given that the explanatory memorandum states it's not been possible to quantify all the potential costs arising from the Bill?

I think the work that the Government has done in the explanatory memorandum actually shows us that there's quite a lot we don't know about how money is spent on services, which is perhaps something for the committee to explore another day. But I've already made the point that it's difficult to invest preventatively in terms of when money is short, but it's a vital thing to do. I also think we need to think about—. I mean, I absolutely don't accept that agencies would not prioritise the more serious concerning issues to disproportionately respond to these kinds of issues. I hope that the implementation group will look at cost-effective means of both educating and doing first responses to parents, which could include education leaflets and, where people persist, moving on to things like parenting classes and then, of course, prosecution where there really is no alternative.

And finally, in written evidence, you've said that if additional funding would be required to facilitate awareness raising and the continuation of universal services, it's within the control of the Government to allocate, and then you say, 

'The budgets for future years when the plans are likely to come into effect will not yet have been set.'

In the current financial climate, how realistic is it to suggest that more money would be allocated in that way?

I think that allocating money to both the protection and welfare of our children and fulfilling their basic human rights has got to be a priority for Government. I do accept that money is tight, but I think that making sure that our children have the same human rights as adults has got to be a priority.

Thank you. Well, we've come to the end of our time, so can I thank you both for attending and for answering our very varied questions? As usual, you'll be sent a transcript to check for accuracy. Thank you, again, for your attendance.

6. Papurau i'w Nodi
6. Papers to Note

Item 6, then, is papers to note. Paper to note 1 is a letter from the Minister for Education providing an update on 2018 key stage 4 attainment data. Paper to note 2 is a letter from the Minister for Education on the draft additional learning needs code. Paper to note 3 is a letter to the Minister for Health and Social Services from us regarding in-patient child and adolescent mental health services provision. Paper to note 4 is a letter from the committee to the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill. Paper to note 5 is a letter from the Deputy Minister replying to that letter on the Bill. Paper to note 6 is a letter from the Minister for Education on the ALN transformation programme. Paper to note 7 is a letter from the Chair of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee regarding research and innovation in Wales. Paper to note 8 is a letter from the First Minister on improving outcomes for children in care. Paper to note 9 is a letter from the Chair of the Petitions Committee regarding petition 'Protect school funding or admit to the weakening of service provision'. And paper to note 10 is a letter from the British Heart Foundation regarding the new curriculum. Are Members happy to note those? Thank you.

7. Cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42(ix) i Benderfynu Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o Weddill y Cyfarfod
7. Motion under Standing Order 17.42(ix) to Resolve to Exclude the Public for the Remainder of the Meeting

Cynnig:

bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y cyfarfod yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 17.42(ix).

Motion:

that the committee resolves to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 17.42(ix).

Cynigiwyd y cynnig.

Motion moved.

Item 7, then: can I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42, that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting? Are Members content?

Derbyniwyd y cynnig.

Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am 14:09.

Motion agreed.

The public part of the meeting ended at 14:09.