MPs push for smacking ban

MPs will make a fresh push today for a ban on parents smacking their children.

A cross-party group has tabled an amendment to legislation being debated in the Commons that would give youngsters the same protection against assault as adults.

But the Government is opposed to the change and rebel Labour MPs are angry that they have been refused a free vote on the issue unlike colleagues in other parties.

The move is being led by Kevin Barron, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons health select committee, who said the UK was out of step with other European countries.

He said: "We must act now to end the legal approval of hitting children. It is the responsibility of Parliament to ensure that the physical integrity and human dignity of every person is respected.

"The current law allowing so-called 'reasonable punishment' of children is unjust, unsafe and unclear, and must be abolished once and for all."

The issue was last voted on by the Commons in 2004 when 47 Labour MPs rebelled and voted unsuccessfully for a ban.

Bruise

A compromise deal made it illegal for a parent to smack a child if it leaves a bruise but permitted a lighter smack or "reasonable chastisement".

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman said the Government was clear of the need to safeguard the interests of children but did not support an all-out ban on smacking.

That is in defiance of a call from the UK Children's Commissioners who earlier this year called for a total ban and attacked the Government for ignoring the views of children and professionals in refusing to outlaw such "violence".

It said the most recent study, a decade ago, found 91% of children had been hit, almost half on a weekly basis and more than a third "severely".

Labour backbencher Natascha Engel complained that the lack of a free vote, offered by both the Tories and Liberal Democrats to their MPs, had put her in an "impossible position".

"We don't want to talk about rebellions at a time when we should be showing a united front. But many of us are being put in an impossible position of choosing between party loyalty and a reform that we believe in passionately," she said.

"A free conscience vote is such a simple and potentially popular way forward."

The first hurdle for the ban bid will be getting the amendment selected for debate.

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