Yes.
We have a range of offences created by the criminal law, going back to the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 in the middle of the century before last, which provide for offences of assault against a variety of people, including, in particular, Acts such as the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, which provides for offences that are specific to children. But the more general criminal legislation, such as the Offences Against the Person Act, does provide specifically for adults and children alike not to be subject to physical assault. In respect of children in particular, you'll be aware that we have section 58 of the Children Act 2004, which does make it a defence for a person accused of assaulting a child to argue that it was a case where they were acting only so as to impose reasonable punishment upon the child. That is a defence that is available for assault upon a child. By way of contrast, it is not available for an offence involving an adult. In that regard, it could be argued that children have fewer rights than adults.
Well, a review was undertaken by the Government back in 2007 that stated that retaining the law in its current form—that that would be the best thing to do because there's no evidence that it's not working satisfactorily. You are suggesting perhaps towards the end of your answer that there could be some change that's happened since 2007.
I think the law should reflect contemporary society and the law is evolutionary in nature, and should be evolutionary in nature. And just as if we go back 50 years there are types of behaviour that we might all have contemplated back then as being socially acceptable, many of those types of behaviour are not now, and the law has changed to reflect that. We don't need to go back a very long way to find, for example, that there was no such offence as raping one's married wife, and the law has changed to reflect the fact that that is simply not acceptable. And from what I've seen of the research, and I think back to the 2007 review, to which you've just referred, there is evidence within that review already that opinions are changing. And I've seen research more current than that that suggests that young people find it less acceptable to use reasonable punishment in chastising a child than do people of an older generation. Of course, as we move forward in time, the people who are young now are going to be the older adults of the future. So one would hope that the law will change to reflect the way in which people behave within society.