Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Children, Young People and Education Committee this morning. I have received apologies for absence from Jack Sargeant, and I'm very pleased to welcome Vikki Howells, who is substituting for Jack this morning. Can I ask whether there are any declarations of interest from Members, please? No. Okay. Thank you. Item 2 this morning is our last evidence session on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Bill, and I'm really pleased to welcome back Julie Morgan AM, Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services; Karen Cornish, who is deputy director of the children and families division; and Emma Gammon, who is the lawyer working on the Bill. So, thank you all for coming. If you're happy, we'll go straight into questions because we've got lots of ground that we want to cover, and the first questions are from Janet Finch-Saunders.
Good morning. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Deputy Minister. Of those individuals who responded to our written consultation in a personal capacity, nearly 70 per cent do not support this Bill. We also heard a clear message from the parents we met last week who oppose this Bill that, as parents, they understand clearly the difference between child abuse and a light smack from a loving parent. How would you like to respond to that?
Thank you very much, Janet, for that question. I think I'd like to start by saying that child abuse is not the issue that the Bill is trying to address. What the Bill is trying to do is prohibit all forms of physical punishment, and that is in order to protect children's rights and to ensure that children have the same protection from physical punishment as adults. But I do understand that people have different views, and that's why this process has been so important—for us to hear what your views are and what parents' views are. I know that, often, people use different euphemisms really to make light of physical punishment. I've heard expressions used such as a 'light smack' or a 'loving smack' or a 'tap', and really there can be different interpretations of what is a 'light smack', what is a 'loving smack', and that doesn't really cover the issue of the frequency of such actions being taken. But I would say that, however mild it seems to be, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recognises that any physical punishment of children, however minor, is incompatible with their human rights, and why should a big person hit a little person? That's been the sort of mantra, really, that has taken me through supporting this legislation—that it just seems wrong to me that there is something in the law that could mean that there could be an excuse for that happening. I believe we shouldn't have anything in the law that defends the physical punishment of children, and I don't think we should be defining acceptable ways of hitting or punishing children, because I think it does send a confused message to children. It says, 'It's okay for me to hit you, but don't you hit anybody else.' I think it causes confusion. So, I'm confident that updating the law will make it much clearer for parents and people working with children—and, of course, I'm sure, as you'll have heard from the evidence you've taken, that people who work with children are overwhelmingly in support of this legislation, and the representative surveys that we've carried out show support for the Bill's principles.