I'd like to thank her for her commitment—her long-standing commitment—to getting rid of the defence of reasonable punishment. I note in her annual report that this is her top recommendation to the Government, and she says that this legislation should take place as soon as possible. I know that she has actually campaigned on this for many years. In fact, this has been a recommendation of all children's commissioners since the office was created: Peter Clarke, Keith Towler and now Sally Holland.

So, I think that their persistence and commitment to getting rid of the defence of reasonable punishment is finally reaching a conclusion and I'm very pleased that the Minister has concluded and has confirmed that we will be having legislation next year. More and more research is actually reinforcing the importance of the Welsh Government taking this action, because a report published in BMJ Open in October, looking at 88 countries, found that in countries that had outlawed smacking or hitting children there was much less likelihood of violence and fighting between young people. Fighting was less common among 13-year-old boys and girls in countries with a total ban on corporal punishment compared with those without, with 31 per cent less fighting for boys and 58 per cent less for girls.

There's also been a lot of research recently from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which provides guidance for doctors and child healthcare providers. It has published a new policy statement that recommends that adults caring for children use healthy forms of discipline, such as positive reinforcement of appropriate behaviours, setting limits and setting expectations, and not using spanking, hitting, slapping, threatening, insulting, humiliating or shaming. So, the research is certainly reinforcing the decision that the Welsh Government has taken to go ahead with this legislation. And Sally Holland, in her annual report, actually quotes children and young people's views about this legislation, and I think it shows really what children do think. It says,   

'Children should be protected not smacked'.

'Smacking can always go too far, where do you draw the line?'

'Some people think you have to smack children for them to learn how to behave. I disagree, it is completely unnecessary'.

'You should talk and explain so that they don’t do the same thing again.'

'Instead of smacking you can ban TV or the iPad; anything is better than smacking'.

So, Sally Holland has been taking direct evidence from children about their views on smacking. So, it's absolutely great that the Welsh Government is taking this action and will be soon joining the many countries around the world who have already done this. 

Finally, I would just like to refer to an issue that the children's commissioner raised last week when she drew attention to inequalities in school sport. I'm sure many of you did see the stuff on the television about the frustration that young women feel about not having equal access to sport. It can't be right that more and more girls, for example, are wanting to play football, but a 13-year-old girl says she's been criticised and called a man or a lesbian for playing a boy's sport. She was told by her teachers that she can't play football in school as hockey and netball are the sports for girls.

Sally Holland quite rightly says that it's depressing to hear about gender stereotyping in schools in this day and age, and she described the sex segregation of school sport as 'surprising' in 2018. So, I think this is a very important point that has been brought up by Sally Holland, because we want our young people—girls and boys—to stay as active as possible and school sport is obviously one of the key ways to do that. So, I'd like to ask the Cabinet Secretary to comment on that when he does respond, because I think we really do have to find out the number of schools, especially secondary schools, that still offer only segregated sport for boys and girls, and whether there is any guidance for schools on this.