Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 7:10 pm on 21 January 2020.
If I can continue, Members have referred to public opinion, and I think it's very important to say that 58 per cent already think it's not lawful to hit a child. So, a majority actually think that this law is in place already and, on the whole, public opinion is changing. More and more people in Wales are thinking that physical punishment is not acceptable and we are tracking that, and we will continue to track it after this legislation is passed. And what is particularly significant, I think, is that it is the parents who are actually bringing up children—parents with young children—who are more and more in a majority believing that it's not physically acceptable to harm their child.
And so, I really feel that this legislation is in the mood of the times. It is going with public opinion. And I know that in the past there were different standards and people operated in a different way, but now we've moved on and we have much more information; we've got much more research that shows us the potential harm. And so, I feel that we are doing exactly the right thing in bringing forward this legislation today, and I therefore urge you not to support amendment 10, which would cause great difficulties for bringing this legislation into force.