Consultation on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill
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Tystiolaeth i’r Pwyllgor Plant, Pobl Ifanc ac Addysg ar gyfer craffu Cyfnod 1 Bil Plant (Diddymu Amddiffyniad Cosb Resymol) (Cymru) |
Evidence submitted to the Children, Young People and Education Committee for Stage 1 scrutiny of the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill |
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CADRP-484 |
CADRP-484 |
About you
Individual
— No
(we would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 1000 words)
The State should not interfere with parenting at this level.
If passed, this Bill will lead to the criminalisation of excellent parents.
The principles underpinning the Bill are deeply flawed. Although all individuals are to be valued equally, children are not adults. They do not have the reasoning ability of adults. They are in need of adult guidance. The law acknowledges the difference in many other areas (as evidenced) by laws that apply only to children. To introduce this law would be to deny reality.
(we would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 1000 words)
Not at all. We already have extensive safeguarding law which can be used to protect children from all kinds of abuse.
The intentions of the Bill appear to be about protecting children, but the impact will be the opposite. Parents will be afraid of parenting their children, family life will be disrupted and the State will end up taken on more responsibility for children (when it can't cope with the responsibility it already has).
(we would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 1000 words)
The State is currently unable to implement effectively existing law to protect children. There is widespread child abuse as evidenced by child protection registers and court convictions. The idea that this Bill is going to be implemented and of help is unrealistic.
Social workers are already at full capacity and services are collapsing. Services cannot afford to spend time investigating what amounts to nothing more than good parenting.
(we would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 1000 words)
No. The Bill is driven in the main by an ideological viewpoint that has not evidence base. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the barriers to implementation have received little consideration.
(we would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 1000 words)
Yes.
Excellent parents who currently act within the law will fear criminalisation.
Children will endure alternative psychologically damaging and longer lasting punishments because the State will have removed the scope for a gentle, harmless warning.
Children will find it harder to develop self-control, become more disobedient and this will lead many into problems later in life.
Those who have driven this agenda for ideological reasons will seek to go the next step and remove other law that recognises children's vulnerability and protects their identity as children.
The privacy of family life will be further compromised.
Families will receive the message that the State owns their children. More families will look, therefore, to the State to provide for them when the going gets tough. It will encourage State dependency. The State can't cope with the dependency it is promoting and the very foundations of society will be weakened.
(we would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 1000 words)
Yes.
Given all the unmet needs that currently exist in society it is ridiculous that the Welsh Government is prioritising this unnecessary legislation. Common sense should prevail and this Bill should be stopped.
(we would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 1000 words)
This is a very dangerous Bill. It confuses childhood with adulthood, undermines good parents, invades family privacy, sends the wrong message about the role of the State, will cost much despite there being few recourses available, appears to be largely driven by ideological views that lack realism, will be completely unworkable, is out of alignment with criminal law in other parts of the UK, is not wanted by the general public …..the list of problems is endless. The Welsh Government would do well to reflect on what is actually needed, support aimed at strengthening families and work to that end.