Parents must be banned from smacking children because it leads to violence and mental health problems in later life, leading children’s doctors have said.
A loophole in the law lets parents in England and Northern Ireland use physical force against children if it can be justified as a “reasonable punishment”.
Ministers are under pressure to reform the law so that smacking or hitting children is always illegal, as is the case in Scotland and Wales.
A landmark report by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has detailed the scale of long-term health damage due to smacking, finding that it can lead to a “cycle of violence”.
Research found that children who had experienced physical punishment were nearly three times as likely to
