Right.
So, I think that the challenge is about—we've all probably, sadly, witnessed incidents in the doctor's reception, or in a supermarket, and we've failed to do something about it. And I think we then walk away and feel pretty guilty about that, realistically, when you see something happening to a child in a particular circumstance. I think we can't ignore the fact that a child is being assaulted in those circumstances.
Okay. Thank you. A campaign opposing this Bill, Be Reasonable Wales, have said that 'If the law is changed, the consequences for parents will be considerable.' It also says, 'Anyone accused or convicted of assaulting a child—under the new definition—' so, I suppose you could argue, a minor tap— 'will be subject to long-term social services involvement in their family and social stigma.' To what extent is this accurate, and, also, will thresholds for social services intervention change if the Bill is enacted?
There are a number of parts to that. Firstly, in terms of long-term social services intervention in a family's life, I think, for people to be fully aware of the very few numbers of families where we have long-term intervention currently, even where there is what would be perceived as very significant abuse. What we do is we go in for short periods in families' lives, to support them to work with their strengths, to work with them and their family members. It's not about us going into families, whatever some of the public perception may be. Our aim is to get in and get out. So, in terms of long-term intervention, what we want is for families to find their own solutions. We want families to be able to work with each other, and together, and local community support, and preventative services, to be able to address issues. This is not about punitive approaches from social services. So, that's the first element. In terms of thresholds for children's services, we would not be anticipating a huge number of referrals to us. There may be a small number of referrals that come through. What we know from other nations is that it will peak and then settle. We recognise that's likely to happen. Because we also know that this is actually quite a rare occurrence currently; this is not a defence that's being used with great frequency, this is not something that is happening. And if we look at the data, we know that the incidents of children, and the number of parents who now recognise this as an acceptable form of punishment, has steadily declined over the last 15 to 20 years. So it's diminishing as it is.