More than two-thirds of adults in England believe it is wrong for parents or carers to physically punish their child, a survey has found. In a YouGov poll of nearly 3,000 adults commissioned by the NSPCC, 68% said they felt that physically disciplining a child, for example by smacking them, was unacceptable.
On Monday, Wales abolished “reasonable chastisement” as a defence for hitting children. The poll revealed that the public in England are largely in agreement with changing the law on the issue too, with 64% stating that the law should be changed so that children have the same legal protections against assault as adults.
The polling revealed that there was a lack of clarity about the law on physical punishment, with 58% thinking it was illegal to smack your child, while 20% knew it was still legal and 22% did not know either way.
