My point is about the criminal law in Wales and England diverging in this particular instance, and we've been told that this is probably the first time it's happened. Can you think of any other examples where that divergence has happened and does it actually set some kind of precedent in motion?
There are other offences in Wales that don't exist in England, but they don't crop up very often. So, to give you examples, there is an offence of putting an electronic collar on your pet—let's not stretch that into children. [Laughter.] But, you know, sometimes—I'll be quiet. But putting an electronic collar on your pet that administers a shock is an offence in Wales; it's not an offence in England. There are also offences around the picking of cockles in west Wales, which is not an offence—. So, you can see there are some, but I would argue that the fact that you drive across the border into Scotland and commit an offence that you won't commit in England is possibly more significant for the general public. Of course, the topic we're discussing here is of real relevance for the general public, and you have heard evidence, I know, already, that comes from people who are quite strongly in favour and people quite strongly against it. One of the ways in which I've approached this is looking at it from the perspective of what the law is there for, which is to set out, in essence, what is acceptable, what is not acceptable. It doesn't necessarily mean we need to use the law for that, but it signifies how society views a certain behaviour. I like to look at it from the perspective of the person who is being affected by this, namely the child, and the change in the law here would afford children a degree of protection that they don't presently have, but which they do have when they attain the age of 16.FootnoteLink So, I looked at this—. If I can give you another example. I've had considerable dealings over the years with offences against residents in care homes, and you'll have seen Winterbourne View, you'll have seen recently up in Durham, where we have adults who need to be looked after because of issues with their mental capacity, and sometimes, the carers become frustrated with them and they admonish them. Sometimes they admonish them verbally and then that turns into physical admonishment. In much the same way as children are vulnerable and are looked after and can be sometimes quite annoying—but there is a level of protection for an adult striking a child lightly under the present law that is not available to the same adult for striking that child when they turn 16. That seems to me to not necessarily fit with where we ought to be as a society.
Do you think that what we're doing in Wales will be emulated in England at some point?
Well, it's certainly going through in parallel in Scotland, and there are a great many other countries around the world that already have this, including a large number of European countries. Who knows? Trying to get any legislation through Westminster at the moment—who knows? Not tomorrow, I'd say.