Can I thank the Minister for outlining some of the rationale behind this Bill? As the Minister will know, we've crossed swords on many occasions in this Chamber on this particular issue, and I think everybody is informed by their own experiences as both a mum or dad and in terms of their own upbringing when it comes to this particular issue. But I have to say I will not be voting to allow this particular piece of legislation to proceed through the Assembly today, because, as others have already said, we're being asked to give permission for a Bill to proceed to its next stage, to become law, which will result in the criminalisation, potentially, of tens of thousands of loving parents across Wales who use the occasional smack to discipline their children.

Now, as has already been said, parenting is hard enough as it is, and we do need to extend our support to parents and encourage them and equip them to be able to use alternative forms of discipline. I've got no problem with that. You've said that you will want to encourage that through parenting programmes, but I want to see, as the committee does, a universal offer of those programmes, in the same way that there's a universal offer of things like antenatal classes before babies are going to be born. So, instead of punishing parents, I think that we need to be offering these alternatives to them and making sure that there is access to those courses universally.

There isn't public support for this particular piece of legislation. I know that you'll say, 'It was included in our manifesto, and that's why we've got a mandate to do it', but the reality is, as we all know, that most of our manifestos, whether we like it or not, are not read in detail. This was not something that was highlighted in every single leaflet that went through people's doors. Whenever public opinion has been tested on this, the response has been very, very clear, and that is: the overwhelming majority, between two thirds and three quarters of people, do not believe that a smacking ban should be introduced. They recognise, you see, as many of us opposing this Bill today do, that we've already got comprehensive legislation in place that the police, social services and others do use to prosecute cases against people who abuse their children, and quite rightly they should do that because, of course, those people should feel the full weight of the law and face the consequences if they are abusing their children. But most parents who use the occasional smack do so within the confines of a loving relationship with the child who they want to raise to be a responsible adult and someone who can contribute to society usefully in the future. So, I don't think it's appropriate that we are penalising parents who have that heart and motive behind their discipline in a way that, perhaps, other parents who abuse their children will not.

We've talked about some of the potential consequences—other Members have—in terms of the time that social services and the police will be using in order to investigate these sorts of cases when the real abuse cases might be going and slipping through the net. But, in terms of the consequences in other nations—and the Minister referred to New Zealand earlier on—we know that, in New Zealand, there are hundreds of cases a year that are taken through the courts. There have been 55 prosecutions, for example, just in the first five years. Parents lost their jobs as a result of smacking their children. We saw parents separated from their children, causing the sort of damage that we've heard can happen in those sorts of situations. I think when we look at those examples and the fact that people are still smacking their children in New Zealand—around a third of parents, according to surveys, in spite of the ban are still smacking their children—we can see that this doesn't really work. So, instead of changing the law unnecessarily, I would urge the Government instead to use its resources, to use the talent that is within the Government department, to provide some positive incentives to assist parents with raising their children in a way where they don't have to smack or smack less frequently.

The costs of this, of course, could be runaway costs. We've no idea what they are; there's not been an estimate in the financial parts of the explanatory memorandum. It would be irresponsible, frankly, for us to sit here at a time when budgets are tight to allow this piece of legislation to proceed when there's no price tag attached to it. And I think we need to reflect on that and reflect on the views of our constituents, the overwhelming majority of whom will oppose this Bill, before we vote on it today.