Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:25 pm on 9 January 2018.
Caroline, thank you very much. I think this illustrates why in the 12-week consultation we do want to get all views into this, but without being under any misapprehension that the intention here is to remove the defence of reasonable chastisement. Now, again, in referring to the document, which we've put a lot of time into—in the consultation document, it does refer to what has happened in other countries and it has not led to queues of parents and guardians outside courts waiting to be prosecuted; it hasn't led to baskets of prosecutions. It has led, by the way, to things such as a spike within the first couple of years of more reporting, but that hasn't led to endless prosecutions. It's been assessed that that has as much to do with the awareness within society of the effect of legislation like this that, suddenly, it is not actually the best way to discipline a child, to use physical punishment.
But there will be a wide variety of views that are fed in on this. I would draw, Caroline, your attention to page 21 of the document, where it looks at some of the studies around attitudes towards punishing children. Back in 1998, the Department of Health did a study of 2,000 British adults—88 per cent of parents then at that point said, 'It is sometimes necessary to smack naughty children.' November 2015, Welsh Government survey: 24 per cent of parents agreed it's sometimes necessary to smack a naughty child. Things are moving: I speak to people who tell me this. If you've seen the vox pops over the last couple of days of parents, they say that, 'What my parents felt was normal is not the same as what their grandparents felt' and so on. That's not to say, by the way, that they were bad parents; they weren't, at all. But society moves, we move with it, and sometimes our legislation needs to catch up with exactly what's happening and make it clear, as well, I have to say, for somebody in a court of law, exactly what's acceptable and what isn't.
You mentioned the issue of costs. I'm sure there will be lots of submissions during the course of this consultation on that wider package of support. There won't be any additional cost here that we foresee in terms of courts or prosecutions or so on, because the evidence doesn't show that that happens, but there might be suggestions put forward in terms of where the resources are deployed in terms of parental support or social care et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and we'll look forward to receiving those.
And, finally, you made the point, as others did, about getting this to as wide an audience as possible. I forgot to mention, Angela, and others, in response, that, as we're speaking, the consultation has gone live on the website and it is a good and easy consultation to respond to, and I would encourage Members to advertise this to their constituents within their regular newsletters and so on to make sure that people do put their views in. Whether they are a parent or not, they will have a view on this. So, put their views in. Thank you.