Reports over hitting and smacking of children triple in a year, NSPCC says
Concerns raised to the NSPCC about children being hit, smacked and shaken have more than tripled in a year, the charity said, prompting a renewed call for a change in the law.
While there were 447 child welfare contacts to the helpline where physical punishment was mentioned in the year to March 2023, this jumped to 1,451 in the 12 months to March this year.
The NSPCC said more than half of the total contacts to its helpline regarding physical punishment were from members of the public who were concerned about a parent’s behaviour.
NSPCC chief executive Sir Peter Wanless described the rise as “hugely concerning”.
He said: “Mounting evidence shows that physically disciplining children can be damaging and counter-productive.
"A long overdue change in the law to prevent physical punishment of children must be delivered by our political leaders," he added.
Wales made any type of corporal punishment - including smacking, hitting, slapping and shaking - illegal in March 2022, while Scotland introduced a similar ban in November 2020.
Earlier this year, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) called for a UK-wide ban on smacking, saying the current law in England and Northern Ireland has created “grey areas” which mean there is sometimes a defence to physical punishment.
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RCPCH officer for child protection and consultant paediatrician Professor Andrew Rowland said the NSPCC data “must be a further wake-up call of the need for change”.
He added: “As a UK-based paediatrician, I think it is wholly wrong that children in England and Northern Ireland have less protection and less protection of their rights than their Scottish and Welsh counterparts.
“It is time to outlaw physical punishment across the whole of the UK and finally put an end to this outdated practice.”
In 2022, then-opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer called on other areas of the UK to follow Wales in banning the smacking of children.
Speaking at the time, he said: “What it (the ban) does is give children the protection that adults already have, and that is the right thing.”
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