Researchers help inspire Scotland’s new laws to ban smacking

The decision by the Scottish government to ban smacking has been welcomed by UCL researchers whose report into the damage caused to children by physical punishment played a key part in framing the proposed new legislation. The research in 2015 by Anja Heilmann, Yvonne Kelly and Richard Watt from the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care showed that there was ample evidence that physical punishment can damage children and escalate into physical abuse. Together with the children's charities that commissioned the report, entitled "Equally protected - A review of the evidence on the physical punishment of children", with a foreword by Professor Sir Michael Marmot, they called for urgent action to provide children with the same legal protection against violence that British adults enjoy. The UCL report was at the heart of a bill proposed in May 2017 by Scottish MSP John Finnie and entitled the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) Bill. The bill would remove the existing common-law position in Scotland that physical punishment by parents can be defended as reasonable chastisement and therefore be lawful. England, Wales and Northern Ireland have very similar provisions for the defence of 'reasonable punishment'. Yesterday the Scottish Government indicated that it will ensure the proposals become law, which would make Scotland the first UK country to give children equal protection and prohibit all forms of physical punishment.