 Fy enw i ddim yn dweud i fynd i fynd i gynhyrchu yng Nghymru. Felly, rydw i'n gweithio eich ddweud i fynd i gyd yn gwybod y cyfleol yn ysgrifennu. Fy enw i gyd yn gweithio Gluntheu, i gyffredinol i gynhyrchu Yn Gwyrdd ym Mhyself, i gyd yn Gwyrdd ac i gyd yn Gwyrdd i fynd i'r cyffredinol i gyd, i gyd yn Gwyrdd i'r cyffredinol i gyd yn Gwyrdd a Gymhu Ecoprotection from Assault Scotland Bill, oral evidence session. This is our second evidence session this morning. I welcome our first panel, Bruce Adamson, Children and Young Peoples Commissioner Scotland, Joanna Barrett, Policy and Public Affairs Manager, representing Barnardo's Scotland, Children First and NSPCC Scotland, Treona Lennahan, Advocacy and Communications Manager, Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, and Martin Canavan, Policy and Participation Officer, Aberlawer. You're all very welcome this morning. Can I start things off by asking whether you support the aims of the bill to stop physical punishment of children in Scotland? Bruce. Yes. As Children and Young Peoples Commissioner for Scotland, my role is to promote and safeguard the rights of children and young people, and I think this is one of the most important legislative things that we can do right now to secure children's rights. Assaulting a child for the purpose of punishment should never be legal, and is at odds with the values that we hold in Scotland. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is very clear that children should grow up in a family environment of happiness and love and understanding, and that while parents have the responsibility to ensure that children grow up in that environment, the state has an obligation to put in place very clear protections. Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child says very clearly that the state needs to put in place legislative protections to ensure children are protected from all forms of violence, and also alongside that needs to put in place all of the guidance, support and education to allow parents to fulfill that role. This bill meets both of those aims in terms of ensuring that the state puts in place that guidance and support and education, but also corrects the issue that we have at the moment where the assault of children is allowable for the purpose of physical punishment. This is something, as the committee is aware, that has been a regular feature of the international community's concern about Scotland, from the United Nations, from the Council of Europe and from the European Union. I welcome John Finney's leadership and human rights leadership in this, and the role that the committee will be playing as a human rights guarantor to ensure that children in Scotland have their rights respected in relation to their physical integrity. As you said, I am here to represent three organisations, NSPCC Scotland, Barnardo Scotland and Children First. We have been working together for a long time to advocate for this change, and we too commend John Finney's leadership in bringing this bill before Parliament. It is our strong opinion that the laws that stand have no place in a society that claims to be progressive and wants to do the best for its children, so we strongly advocate the bill that is before us today. Yes, as our name would probably suggest, we strongly support the aims of the bill as well, both as a means of realising children's rights to dignity and bodily integrity, as well as their rights to health development and education, and as a means of reducing violence in families and society. Thank you. Martin. First of all, thank you very much for inviting us along to give evidence this morning. Yes, Abolair fully supports the bill and the aim of ensuring children have the same protection from assault as adults do by prohibiting physical punishment. We believe that all physical punishment of children should be prohibited by law, and that children require more, not less protection from violence in adults. There naturally exists an imbalance of power in adult child relationships, and as a result, it is critical that children are provided with as much protection in the law as possible. Abolair has a proud history of advocating against the physical punishment of children whilst promoting positive alternatives to physical punishment. Parenting support is a key focus of the work that we do with families every day, helping parents to become confident in securing their parenting. The focus of a prohibition on physical punishment, we believe, should not be to criminalise parents but to protect children not only by legislating but by promoting positive alternatives to physical punishment. We need to support parents who struggle to feel that they can deliver positive parenting and to support and help them to become confident in their parenting. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning to the panel. Thank you very much for coming to see us today. I should say it for the record, given that Abolair represented here that I did work as head of policy with Abolair for eight years until I was elected just for the record. I'd like to start by addressing the perceived tension between adult rights and children's rights. In fact, Dr Weighton, who gave us evidence at the committee last week, suggested in terms of children's rights that there was no such thing. There were protections but children were in the care of their parents and certain evidence submissions against the bill cited the right to family life as being that tension between that and article 19. Can the panel, first of all, suggest whether they agree with Dr Weighton's assertion that there are no such things as children's rights? Secondly, Bruce, you articulated the fact that article 19 is a clear international expectation around children's rights to be free from violence. Is there a conflicting right in any treaty in international law which you could interpret as giving parents the right to physically punish their children? The position that children don't have rights is completely untenable. We recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This committee had a human rights take-over day on 10 December. The first article of the Universal Declaration is that we are all born free and equal in dignity and human rights. The international community has been very clear that children not only have rights but have additional rights, and those have been set out. Actually, within the preamble to the Universal Declaration, which identifies childhood as a time of special care and protection, and through successive international treaties at the UN Council of Europe and EU level, most notably the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is 30 years old, this year, which I have cited, and which recognises that because of the particular vulnerability related to the physical immaturity of children that additional rights and protections are necessary. The idea that children don't have rights is simply untenable in any country in the world. Every UN member state signed up to this right at the beginning of the basics of a human rights framework, so it's an argument that I cannot understand. In relation to any perception of difficulty in balancing rights between the human rights of parents and the human rights of children, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been signed up to by every UN member state by one and a number of other non-UN member states as well for other countries, was drafted very clearly that the family environment and the role of parents is absolutely essential, and this is about how the state can support parents and families to ensure that children can access all of their rights in relation to health and education and thriving. Article 5 of the Convention sets out very clearly that the state respects the rights and duties of the parents and sets out a number of ways in which that should be done. Article 18 again recognises the primary responsibility that parents have and goes on to say that the state has to provide additional support to parents. The relationship is that the state needs to support families in order to deliver the rights of children and young people. There is absolutely no right to use physical violence as part of respect for private and family life. Article 8 of the European Convention on the Rights of the European Convention on Human Rights is Council of Europe Convention talks about the respect for private and family life and the state can only interfere with that in certain circumstances, but the European Court has been very clear and all of the United Nations committees have been very clear that there is no right to violence in relation to respect for family life. Would any of the other panel members like to address that question? I totally agree with the commissioner that it is a pretty ludicrous argument to me, especially in front of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, that children do not have rights. Children's rights are realised through their adults. It is we who are the guardians of children's human rights. Rather than children and parents' rights being in conflict, they are complementary. I see my role as a parent in making sure that I do my best to realise my children's rights. As a Parliament, as a society, our job is to realise children's rights. Dodd Wadeon, who gave us evidence against the bill last week, suggested that the right to family life was about autonomy and that parents should have autonomy to parent their children in the way that they fit. Where are the sort of restrictions around that autonomy defined, or are they just interpreted from this notional right to family life? Defined and interpreted through a number of sources, both the Court conventions themselves in relation to, if you look to article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child makes very clear that within that parenting role that children need to be protected from all forms of physical and mental violence. Injury abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment, exploitation, sexual abuse, etc. It is very clearly set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is 30 years old. The Committee on the Rights of the Child then issues general comments, which are authoritative interpretation of that. I have expanded that quite significantly in terms of making it very clear that there is no ambiguity, it is unequivocal, children's right to protection from violence means that all forms of corporal punishment in all settings must be abolished by law, but also that those campaigns to support that must be there. The UN Committee has been very clear both on the text of the Convention, but also in the general comments relating to this. At the Council of Europe level, we have had the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe saying very much the same thing in 2008, saying that the right to respect for private family life needs to be interpreted within the context of protecting children from all forms of violence and in fact almost all countries in Europe have now done this, as well as a significant number over 50 across the world. The idea is that you have to have a comprehensive legal framework to protect children from all forms of violence in all settings and that the right to respect for family life needs to be interpreted within that. The European Court of Human Rights has been very good at this, our domestic courts can address this as well. I think it is interesting to note that all of the leading cases in relation to the physical punishment of children have all been against the UK from corporal punishment in a criminal setting to abolishing it in schools, to focusing on independent schools, to restricting the use of an implement and other things in the home, which led to the last change in Scotland. In my view, the current position in Scotland is in breach of the European standard and I think that there is a real risk that if this bill is not passed urgently we could end up with again a child having to go to seek redress through the courts. My view is that the current position is not compliant with the European Convention, as well as the broader framework. The courts are very good at interpreting this and the limits on respect for private and family life are set within the very clear guidance in relation to protecting children from violence. Before I come on to my next question, perhaps I, the tree owner and Martin want to come in on either two topics that I have just covered there. Just in relation to children's rights more generally, as an organisation that has children's rights at the heart of the work that we do with children, young people and families every day that is committed to supporting, promoting and protecting children's rights, the notion that children don't have rights is an instance, is ludicrous and we reject any evidence that the committee has heard thus far that suggests so. I would strongly agree with everything that's been said here today. I would like to add that I don't feel there's a tension or a conflict between, we've talked a lot about promoting children's rights and protecting children, but this change would actually have a positive impact on families as a whole. I think the positive changes it can bring about in terms of behavioural and social norms change can benefit both parents and children in the family and we've seen feedback and anecdotal evidence from parents that have participated in positive parenting courses and things like that where they say the knock-on effect that it has on the whole family is of great benefit. Okay, thank you. If I may, I'd like to move on to the sort of arguments that are deployed by those who oppose this bill in respect to the fact that there's an empirical evidence to show things like back-ups, macking can be an effective tool of parental control in terms of discipline. The only anxiety that I have about this is that that presupposes everybody who uses smacking, does so in a proportionate and controlled manner. The last time that this Parliament legislated on this issue was in 2003 and the restrictions that it put on smacking were no headshots, no shaking and no use of implements. That's it. Do you think that those parameters have sort of set in train a landscape where parents understand that they have to retain control when using smacking or that it's led to more confusion? I think that it's led to a lot of confusion. I think that if you asked a parent on the street whether smacking is banned, they would probably say that yes, it already has been banned. I don't think that there's a lot of clarity and that's one of the things that we think legal change will bring is absolute clarity for parents, for professionals seeking to support parents and ultimately for children about how they can expect to be treated. I find it very uncomfortable to talk about back-up smacking. I will say that I am not an expert in the empirical evidence, but the evidence that Dr Hillman cited in the report that we, children version of the NSPCC and Bernardus commission, was really clear that there is no evidence that physical punishment is a useful discipline tool. There is no evidence that this does children any good. When we talk about back-up smacking, what's the impact on the child? Does the child think, okay, that's okay because I know it was a back-up smack, it was a last resort? I don't think that's how a child would receive any form of physical punishment. They know that they have been hit and I don't think that they would go into the academic labelling of that. When we start to talk about back-up smacking, the threat of the smack, we're drawing an invisible line in our mind about what's acceptable and what's not acceptable and the problem with that is and the problem that the law allows us to draw that invisible line is that everybody around this table will have a different invisible line of what's okay and what's not okay for a child to receive and that will change, circumstances change and it sometimes will be completely blurred. Our problem with that is that the fact that our law allows that is totally unjustifiable in our mind. It should be absolutely clear to parents, to professionals and ultimately to children about how they should be treated, their physical dignity and then that opens up a different conversation about how do we manage children's behaviour. All of the evidence from the grown-up in Scotland study shows that physical punishment, there's a peak between the ages of three and five so we're not talking about children with whom we can rationalise who have an understanding maybe of how to regulate emotions. We're talking about very young children here who don't have the cerebral capacity to emotionally regulate. We as parents need to teach them how to emotionally regulate. We ostensibly have the capacity to do that. We will not model that in our children if our response to getting frustrated is to lash out. Some reasonable people in this debate are suggesting that physical punishment is sometimes in the best interests of the child. For example, if your child is about to put its hand in a fire or run into traffic. In the 54 countries in the world where this has already been abolished, have we seen a decline in children's welfare in terms of people not being able to restrain their children in that way? There's absolutely not been any evidence of increased prosecutions. I can't attest to there being an increased incidence of children being knocked down or electrocuted or anything like that. However, I would like to say that the running in front of a car or going to touch the iron or going to touch the plug is often used in terms of this legislation won't let you do that. It's incumbent upon us to be absolutely clear about what this legislation is seeking to do. It is my understanding that those acts are not assault and we're here to talk about removing a defence for assault. Those acts are to stop a child coming into immediate harm. I don't think, as the law currently, that if we didn't mess with the law at all, I don't think that the defence that we have would even come into play because the defence speaks specifically about physical punishment. Me pulling my child out of the way of a car is not an act of physical punishment, it's an act of protection. I think that it's a red herring to focus on that as an example of what this legislation will seek to do. We have a responsibility here. We might talk about public opinion not being with this piece of legislation. We need to be really clear about what this act will do and what it will not do to help to garner that public opinion. I open up to the rest of the panel on any of those topics. I'd just like to go back to the original point that Joanna made about clarity. I think that we find with the parents that we work with every day and I think also your general public parents and what have you out in the street. The fact of the matter is that the law is not currently clear about what the law does and does not allow around physical punishment. One consequence of this bill will ensure that there is absolute clarity that all physical punishment of any description will be prohibited by law. I think that clarity will be really important, not only ensuring that we can provide the appropriate support to the parents that require it but also that parents who otherwise might not seek out advice or help or assistance to help with issues around their parenting or concerns that they might have around their parenting that they can be encouraged to go and seek that out. I'm just falling on from the point that Joanna brought up there. I've heard often, similarly, the example cited of a child running out into the traffic, for example, or putting themselves in harm's way. I would absolutely echo what she said around preventing a child from doing so is not the same as physically punishing a child. It's also important to recognise that quite often you may have to do the same or to prevent an adult with an impairment, for example, an adult who maybe has dementia, from running out into or walking out into harm's way into the traffic. In order to do so, you would prevent them from doing so but you wouldn't then physically punish them afterwards to either reprimand them or to show them that what they had done was something that they shouldn't be doing. I think that the same applies to children as it does to adults. Children learn from the example that we set, our behaviour as parents in terms of modelling is where children learn how to behave as they grow up. Even the slightest smack indicates to a child or shows a child that hitting somebody is okay. By prohibiting physical punishment, I think that we will aim to prevent that and stop that, so that children grow up learning that hitting people, hitting others, simply is not acceptable. Thank you. I'm going to move on now. Thank you very much and good morning. Just following on from the last question, if we know from opinion polls, from the individual submissions that we got to the committee that the public opinion isn't with the bill, so in your opinion, how do we bring the public along on this journey with us and is there more about information education rather than legislation involved? Just your views on that, please. I think that that's a really important point. I suppose what's really important is that we make clear exactly the point that we were just making, that what we're talking about here is assault. That's a deliberate attack on another person for the purpose of, with an evil intent, which is so the intention is to cause physical injury or fear of personal injury. And so that's something that is described by law unless you're the parental carer of a child and you're doing it for the purpose of punishment and within those restrictions. So actually, that's all we're talking about. We're not talking about using physical contact with the child to keep them safe. That is not an assault and it wouldn't meet the test in terms of it being for the purpose of punishment. So we have to make that really clear. The international evidence is interesting in that in most countries that have taken this, in fact I think in all countries that have taken this step as required by law and as strongly evidenced by all of the international evidence, that public opinion wasn't with them because generally the opinion polls have said should we criminalise good parents, should we criminalise parents for smacking children, which isn't actually the test that we're seeking to make the change here. But what we have shown internationally and there's some great evidence from New Zealand which is part of the bill kind of tracked this through showing that over time those opinions change when people saw that it worked. And so generally what this has required is human rights leadership. So using the legislation to actually deliver the culture change and actually that culture change takes quite a long time. In New Zealand they went so far as to have a citizens initiated referendum to try and reverse that change. And again the majority of people in that referendum said that they thought that the law should go back and the government at the time said no this is a human rights principle and that's been proven to be right as public opinion has changed over quite a long time and fairly slowly but without the legislation you don't get the culture change that's what we know to be true. You need the legislation to deliver the culture change and in that way it could be seen as the same as things like seat belts and cars or our attitudes towards drink driving or smoking in pubs and kind of things like that where you need to lead with the legislation in order to deliver the cultural change because it sets a very clear indication. It's not the prosecutions that change the culture but it's the very clear indication in the law as to what is expected. And so what we've seen internationally is that you don't see a massive increase in prosecutions. Prosecutions are very very rare. You don't see an instant change in public opinion but what you do see is a gradual change in public opinion and a culture change in relation to violence. It's your supplementary specifically for the Bruce Adamson. I set out there the test for the common law offence of assault. Do you think parents who smack their children show an evil intent? I think that so the evil intent has been interpreted by the courts to be an intention to cause physical injury and fear of injury and so that's how it's interpreted. Do you think that that's the intention of parents when they smack their children? That would be the way in which the criminal law would approach it. So if that isn't the intention then it wouldn't be a matter for the criminal law as what we're saying. So the criminal law is only concerned with this. They have to want to injure their child or cause them an injury. So their intention needs to be that and it needs to be set in the context of physical punishment as well. So something that's not for the purpose of punishment so that kind of grabbing and kind of restraining wouldn't concern the criminal law is what we're saying. What we know is that there's an obligation to provide education and guidance and all of the evidence shows that that kind of positive parenting is much much more more effective. This just comes down to definitions and the reason we use definitions is as Bruce said to differentiate between what is a punitive action so an assault or a physical punishment and what is a protective action. So it's the same in the definition used by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child where physical or corporal punishment is defined as a physical action that has the intent to cause some level of pain or discomfort however light. So it's not that the parent is being malicious and that their motivation for that is negative. It's just that the actual action that they're taking has that. I fully accept that definitions are very important but we have to recognise that in Scotland assault is a common law offence and it's about how the courts in Scotland interpret that and interpret the intention and I just wonder whether if you were looking at the ordinary or the reasonable person whether or not they would think that parents set out with an intention to cause injury to their child. I think that that's a question of interpretation. Do you think that would you be confident that the court would see that action as intending to cause an injury? I think that the courts are very good at interpreting this and we have the law of assault in relation to adults at the moment and then these things generally don't get to court. I can't really foresee a matter ending up in courts for the type of small physical intervention that you're talking about. This wouldn't get to the courts. What this is about is setting a very clear standard that any form of physical violence for the purpose of punishment using pain as a tool of punishment is wrong but for the criminal law to get engaged with it, the standard would be in relation to assaults and that would require this intention. Do you recognise that the vagaries of the law and definitions could create a grey area if not more carefully defined? That's certainly not the experience anywhere else and it's not the experience at the moment within Scotland I think in terms of we've got a long history of the police and the procurator fiscal and the courts being able to interpret our laws. This isn't a new type of offence, this is something that the courts are already very aware of. Right, thank you. I'm conscious Oliver, that was a short supplementary. Can we cut in on Annie Wells? Annie, apologies. So if anyone else has got anything else to sort of add to my question, how do we bring the public on this journey? I think we should accept, we need to accept, this is a really emotive issue, it speaks to how we were parented, it speaks to how we parent so there are, there's not universal consensus about this, I think it's fair to say. As the commissioners said, most examples elsewhere in the world have brought this piece of legislation in in the face of some public opposition because it was the right thing to do. I think some of the polls that are cited actually if you interrogate them, so the comres poll that's often cited about over a thousand people and whatever the result was, actually if you disaggregate that in terms of age, there's a huge disparity, so older people are more likely not to support this bill and younger people overwhelmingly are. We also need to look at the views of children and young people and the Scottish Youth Parliament have put before us in terms of their work, overwhelming statements from tens of thousands of young people in Scotland who say that this is absolutely something that we should do, so actually I think that there, as we see in terms of the decline in the use of physical punishment anyway, younger people are more likely to support this legislation and actually they are the parents of now and they are the parents of the future, so I think while we know that there is not universal support for this, there is increasing support from younger generations and I think it's just important to acknowledge that. In terms of your question should it be public education or should it be legislation, absolutely it has to be both and all of the evidence says it's both. This law change in itself will not achieve the behaviour change and the cultural change you want to see. It has to be both. We can't change the law without telling people about it and sustained public information and awareness campaigns, not just a one-off, but equally those public education campaigns won't do it either. I just, first of all, largely agree with everything that Bruce and Joanna have already said. I think as we see it that the legislating is just one part of a much wider approach and that includes a public information campaign, awareness raising, information available to parents, families, children and young people through multiple channels and formats. A third element I would say would be ensuring the provision of accessible support, information advice and help for all parents that might require it in order to ensure that parents who may feel that they need help or support with their parenting, particularly in light of the legislation, can go out there constantly and know that they can find that help, support and advice that they need. I would say that there are three elements to it, but legislating is absolutely key. I would say that your role, committee members and your colleagues in Parliament as legislators and policy makers, is to legislate in the best interests of your constituents and of society more widely, and that should be from an informed, evidence-based point of view. While it is important to be aware of and to take note of public opinion, public opinion shouldn't outweigh the evidence base where there is a strong, robust evidence base. I think that, in relation to this particular issue and this particular bill, there is a very strong and robust evidence base in favour of preventing physical punishment of children. Joanne, I was wanting to come in. I just wanted to add that there is also the responsibility on government and Parliament to protect the human rights of all of its citizens, and that includes children. Sometimes protecting the rights of a minority can require that top-down approach, particularly where it is, as we have said, evidence based and supported by guidance from international rights bodies, as well as international sort of health and medical bodies, including the World Health Organization and others. Also, I think it's worth noting that most parents don't particularly want to use physical punishment. They don't like doing it, and they don't feel good after it. The UNICEF mix programme, which covers a whole range of issues, including violent discipline, and they've conducted surveys in countries all over the world, they've consistently found that the use of corporal punishment is far higher than the number of parents and carers who believe it's necessary to raise a child properly. So I think what's encouraging about that is it implies that parents would use alternative methods if they were more aware of them, more comfortable with them, and had more confidence in them. So I think there's a responsibility there to meet those needs and fill that gap, which this bill would go a long way towards doing, particularly and, as we've said, providing the clarity. I think it's that clarity in the law that's so essential as a foundation to do all of the work around education and parent support, because without it, it leaves that ambiguity, it leaves the confusion, and the assumption is often that if the law allows it, then it must be okay. So we've seen already in Ireland following a similar change there that one of the greatest benefits has been the clarity provided to the police, and particularly to social services and all people working with and for families, that they can say absolutely never physical punishment, not acceptable, and so let's instead talk about the positive things that you can be doing. I want to ask you about the published evidence that there's been that physical punishment of children can cause long-term harm. It's been linked to both further childhood aggression, adult aggression and antisocial behaviour. Is that something that you agree with, and if you do agree with it, could you perhaps give us a bit of an example of why you have that view? Yes, I think there's a huge body of evidence that supports that. The global initiative did prepare a summary of that research in 2016, and at that point there were over 250 studies that showed associations between experience of child corporal punishment and the wide range of negative health and behavioural outcomes that you've mentioned. I think the research continues to be published since then, so there's just an enormous body of evidence supporting that, and there is no comparable body of evidence that goes against it. Okay, thank you. I think there was very strong evidence last week from some academics or authors of some of the papers in Scotland and some of the reviews. I think that the evidence base is growing and is very consistent in terms of the negative impacts of early experience of violence and physical punishment. Just on Tuesday this week, the special representative to the Secretary General on violence against children gave her report to the Human Rights Council and highlighted a number of other reports as well, and so this was something discussed early this week at the United Nations Human Rights Council. Marta Santos-Pais, the special representative, was very clear in relation to welcoming this bill in Scotland and saying that she thought that the evidence was now so strong that all countries need to do this as a matter of urgency and also linked it to the Sustainable Development Goals, and particularly Goal 16 too, and that link to health and development and the idea that this is going to play a really strong role in terms of the lifelong development of children and young people and that very clear link between experience of violence and on-going ability to access rights across the board. Okay, do any of the other panel members want to comment? I think it's important to say that—well, I'm going to speak for the panel, you can correct me if I'm wrong—nobody is suggesting that that link is causal, that because you have been physically punished you will experience XYZ, because I think, again, in all the nuances that can be lost, we are not for one minute suggesting that experience and physical punishment will mean that you will go on to do XYZ, but the evidence shows such a serious link, such a strong link, consistent link, that undermines what we have in our books at present and makes this a really urgent change. Only just to say that, again, I agree with what the panel members have said already, I think there's a significant robust evidence base, as Bruce mentioned last week you heard from some academics who have published papers, who have conducted studies, who are far more qualified than perhaps I am, to comment on what those long-term outcomes are. I think just talking to some of the work that we do on a day-to-day basis in terms of family support and parenting support, we see some of the direct impact and consequences of what some of that work can achieve. All the work that we've done with families over the years has shown that, through addressing the underlying issues for parents around things like mental health, for example, and other factors that may affect their parenting capacity, and the earlier we intervene that we come with confidence to say that we can improve parents' capacity but not also improve capacity but improve relationships with their children by role modelling, demonstrating good behaviours, providing opportunities for staying play, building routines in an effective way, working through sleep routines. All those are things that contribute to being able to build and develop positive relationships between parents and their children, and we know the outcomes. We've already heard much evidence about the outcomes of what that can do, positive relationships and how it can impact on children's wellbeing long-term. We can say with some confidence in terms of the work that we do day-to-day that we see the impact of that with families that we work with. Are the panel aware of any specific equality groups that are more likely to be subjected to physical punishment? For example, children perhaps with additional support needs or physical disabilities. Are any specific groups more likely to be subjected to that? I think that there's research that certainly shows that children with disabilities can be at a heightened vulnerability of violence generally, including physical punishment. Beyond that, I think that there are differences maybe in how it can be applied. Sometimes it can be used for different reasons or in a different way for boys or girls. Bruce, I don't know if you want to comment. Only to say that there are studies that look at gender and disability and things, and I'm not an expert on them, but this is a universal protection that we're looking for that's required. No child should be subject to physical violence. Some children, particularly those who have additional communication needs, are at heightened risk. I'm not an expert on the studies that suggest that they are more likely to be assaulted, but they are at heightened risk and have less ability to express themselves or to seek justice if they are subject to that. That links strongly to the work on restraint and seclusion that my office has done in relation to educational settings, which show that that's much more likely to happen in relation to children with communication additional support needs, but that's not what we're discussing within the context of this bill. This is a universal principle, so the key thing is that no child should. The additional protections that we need to put in place for particular children need to be looked at as well, but I'm not an expert on the evidence around equality issues there. Can I ask the panel then about restraint? Restraint was an issue that I raised last week, and I'd be interested if the panel thinks that restraint should be something that's covered with this particular piece of legislation. Restraint is more commonly used in residential care settings. As I said last week, as someone that has seen restraint being used, it can be quite shocking and alarming to see restraint being used on a young person. There is almost a fine line between restraint being used to prevent someone causing further harm to themselves or others, and actually punishing and harming them through restraint. Restraint can be used in the residential care setting, but it could potentially also be used by carers who are caring for a young person with perhaps quite complex behavioural needs. I'd be interested in your view on whether there is a way that that legislation could protect young people from the use of restraint? As I said, this broader issue is something that I'm particularly concerned about, and I recently conducted an investigation into the use of restraint and seclusion in educational settings, which was laid before the Parliament last year. I would very much welcome the opportunity to come and speak to the committee about that and the recommendations in that, I think, the evidence from who cares and the conversations that we have with care experience young people raise this as a very significant concern, which needs to be addressed. The place for that is not in my view within this legislation, though, and I think that partly that's because within residential or educational setting at the moment, you wouldn't be able to rely on this defence because in an institutional setting you're not exercising, even if you're exercising those parental responsibilities, you'd be excluded from this legislation. This legislation isn't really about that, and I think that we would be much better to look at restraint and seclusion in a separate setting and look to see what legislation, policy and practice changes need to be made, a number of which contain within my reports, but also the work that who cares Scotland has been doing. I think this is an issue that urgently needs to be addressed, but I don't think that it sits within the context of this legislation, which is specifically looking at the use of assaults for the purpose of physical punishment and whether that can be justified when exercised by parents or carers in relation to children. I agree very strongly that we need to take action in relation to restraint and seclusion, but in my view this bill wouldn't be the place to do it. I'm conscious that we're marching on, so if you have a different opinion, it would be good to hear it, but if it's agreeing, we'll maybe move on to the next. Simply to say that while I do it absolutely, I agree with Bruce, but also just to say that as a provider of residential childcare and restraint obviously being something that is significant in relation to the work that we do in working with looked after children, we would also welcome the opportunity to come and speak to the committee at any future point to talk about the issue of restraints, as it is an important issue, but I don't think that it's now is the right time in terms of this bill. I wondered last week in evidence that we heard the suggestion that this legislation won't see an increase in prosecutions or fines. Is that correct? It hasn't been the experience in other countries. The increases have been nominal in New Zealand, for example, over a 10-year period. I think there were eight cases, and some of those would have probably been prosecuted, would have already have fallen foul of the law in Scotland anyway. The numbers of cases of intervention being needed in terms of prosecution or court were very low. In fact, when there wasn't a intervention that fell short of prosecution, it tended not to be based on fines or criminal diversion, it tended to be based on putting in place additional support. What I would see would be a need, and I think it's set out in the financial memorandum, for increased resource to be put into support services for families. I certainly think that this would allow us to put more support in place. I wouldn't foresee a significant increase in prosecution or other criminal responses to behaviour that's not already covered by the current legislation. It's the same for the rest of the panel. You don't need to give a long answer if that's the case, but if you've got... Thank you. Could I just give a quick specific example? From Sweden, there was a study done in 2000 which examined the impact that the ban had had there, and that found that actually it had been effective in providing opportunities for increased early intervention and early identification of children and families at risk of violence and providing increased support to families. It saw a decline by a third in the amount of interventions that required out-of-home care, as well as a whole range of other positive benefits. The final question that I really want to ask is whether you think the way this particular bill is drafted and the particular style of it is the correct way to legislate in this area, or if there's an opportunity to do something more comprehensive that's set out in more detailing clarity what our aspirations were? I think we totally support how the bill is drafted. Correct me if I'm wrong, commissioner, but our part of our international or human rights obligations is to remove any permission of violence against children from our legislation, and this is it, this is what we have. So we have a defence from the common law of assault and we need to remove that. We are not alone in relying on the common law, that's the change that Ireland made in 2015 or 2014, that is the change, I understand that the Welsh Government is seeking to make as well because their legislation very much mirrors our own. The culture change takes a while, so it might be that if we pass this piece of legislation we might revisit this at a different point and think actually more needs to be done, but where we are right now I think this is absolutely the appeal that we need to make. Do you think that the legislation amounts to a ban on smacking? This is where we need to be absolutely clear. There is no offence being created in this piece of legislation. This legislation removes a defence that if a parent is charged with assault and the Crown Office has deemed that there is sufficient evidence and that it's in the public interest to prosecute that parent, at that point there should be no relying on a defence because the young person that they assaulted ostensibly is a child. There is no offence in this legislation and we need to be absolutely clear about it. So this is not a ban on smacking, is that correct? The impact of this piece of legislation is hoped to be behaviour change that would result in a lessening of the use of physical punishment. Black and white, that is not what this piece of legislation is doing, it is repealing a defence against assault. Do you think that that is ambitious enough, Mr Adamson, or do you think that we should be setting out in law our intention to make violence against children an offence? First, I agree with everything that Joanne has just said in terms of, I think that that was a very good explanation of it. I think that what is really clear is that this bill is drafted very simply and correctly to address the failure in our law to protect children's rights in relation to the current defence. There are lots of other things that we need to do to make sure that children live free from violence and a lot of that is to do with education but I think this is the correct approach and this is generally the approach that's been taken is to remove that defence to make sure that there's a comprehensive protection. The law, as it stands, knows what assault is and so that's what we need to address. There could be further complications in trying to overcomplicate it and take a different approach. Good morning, panel. I think that the concerns that's been expressed by my colleagues to my right here both at today's session and last week is about the possible criminalisation of parents for what they've been deemed just now as being good parents and I don't share that concern as it happens and I think some of the evidence that I've heard today has been really, really quite powerful actually but I'm wondering actually, you know, as a previous social worker myself and I know that you'll all have experience in this field, actually it's quite, it's quite difficult to get prosecutions for quite serious and heinous crimes against children so I don't actually think that this is the purpose of this legislation or that it will lead to to some sort of criminalisation of parents for what would be seen as a lesser offence from what I may be able to do to there. Do you think, though, that by bringing in this legislation it can actually help firstly bring clarity to the laws you've talked about but also help actually protect children throughout a whole range of things that can happen? I think this issue speaks a lot to the status of the child and how the child is viewed by society and I think this bill could mark a turning point and a significant step in moving from more dominant and viewpoints of children as possessions and property of parents to a more progressive view of children as full rights holders and entitled to their full range of rights and we have seen in some countries that have implemented similar legislation that it has had a positive knock-on effect in advancing children's rights generally. For example, in Austria where a ban was implemented in 1989 a survey was conducted in 2014 which was 25 years after the legislation was passed and that found that they put the same statements to I think it was over 50 people over 15 years of age that had been put to them in 77 and while it showed a significant decrease in support for physical punishment there was also a statement put that when an adult is speaking children should remain silent or something along those lines and there was a really significant decrease in support for that statement as well so I think it went from 64% support in 77 to about 16% in 2014 and I think that shows that change as well and the shifting attitudes that this can bring about in terms of how we view children and their other rights in terms of participation and to be heard. I think that we would agree that this would better protect children because of that invisible line that I talked about earlier, children are at increased risk of harm because of where we've drawn the line in our legislation. I think that that would provide absolute clarity for the professionals who are seeking to help families because it's tricky territory for them at the minute so if a health visitor is going into a home for example and the parent says you know is it okay he can't really answer that very equivocably it's a kind of value judgment at the moment well no really but this would provide that absolute clarity and would draw a solid line I suppose in terms of what's acceptable and what's not and the other thing that I would point to is the overwhelming evidence that countries which have changed their legislation have seen a significant decrease in injurious severe child mal treatment which is not principally the purpose of this but it shows that there is a correlation there between creating that absolute clarity and actually being able to reduce more serious abuse. I think that that's been answered very well. I'm happy and interested in the time to leave it there. Good morning panel and thank you for your evidence so far. It's been mentioned a few times that the countries that have already introduced this have not seen any increase in prosecution and one of the concerns that we've heard is that there might be an increased burden on public services in a financial sense. Would you say that that concern is founded or would you say that it's maybe not a reasonable concern? I think the evidence from other countries is that while this may lead to additional costs though those are very good economic decisions early intervention works and so while we would possibly expect to see that there may be an increase in early interventions with family we know the economic benefit of that is exponential in relation to the money spent so I think actually there is a need for us to put more money into early intervention services we know that as well we know that it works and so if this bill helps that then that's an additional thing which is useful and what we've seen in the international evidence is that those early interventions work very well and that our economic good sense as well as respecting the rights of children and young people because those those types of early interventions to give families and parents the support that they need for positive parenting actually delivers much much better results and those results can be seen in the health system and in the education system and and so and so I think that that's really important that that any additional cost would be a cost well spent. So you would actually class any money that had to be spent as a result of this bill as preventive spend? Yes. Anyone else? Yeah, I would just like to absolutely agree with everything that Bruce has just said there about what we know about early support and particularly where any resource that goes into providing any additional support as a result of this bill could be quite clearly demonstrated to be preventive spend in that way. I think what we know is early support works working with families as early as possible families who need additional help, support, advice, information. It works, it has positive outcomes and it prevents much worse consequences in the future for families and for their children and I think it fits quite firmly into a current childcare policy framework in relation to getting it right for every child. It's about working with families as early as possible. It's all part of the early intervention agenda and I think any additional support that's required as a result of this bill could be seen in that context. I want to have a wee look at the financial memorandum and the Scottish Government's estimate of £20,000 to support this. We have heard that it is perhaps not sufficient and I know that there has been various written evidence that you have given about that aspect. If we are talking about preventive spend, if we are talking about awareness raising, if we are talking about positive parent and courses and everything else that goes along with that, I heard in one of my other committees this week that a six-week campaign for awareness raising and a change in the law could cost anything up to £0.5 million. Do you think that the financial memorandum is accurate and if not, what do you think needs to be added to that? Where do you think that this money should come from? Obviously, Bruce, you said that it crosses a lot more portfolios than just the one that we're looking at here. I think that the key thing for me is that the educated work should be done anyway, regardless of this bill. Article 19, 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, says very clearly that the state's got an obligation to do all of this promotion and support anyway. Even if this bill wasn't happening, that work should be done, it should be in the budget, it should be set out for. Linking it to this bill and the financial memorandum of the bill, I think is perhaps not the right way of looking at it, in terms of this is an obligation on government anyway, and so actually we should be seeing that spend allocated and a rights-based approach to budgeting would have highlighted that very, very clearly, that more work needs to be done. I wouldn't necessarily see it as a criticism of the financial memorandum of the bill. We do need to put more money into this, absolutely, but I wouldn't say that this is direct criticism of the financial memorandum of this bill, because it's not actually a consequential change. It's actually something that we should have been doing anyway, because we know that it works and it's a requirement. Yeah, I'm not a marketeer, so I have no idea how much these things cost, but only to say that it has to happen if this law changes happens, and it should be sustained. As I said earlier, it shouldn't be a win-off, by the way, the laws changed, this should be consistent messages about positive parenting, and we've got a range of resources already. I mean, we have, every parent receives a ready-dead baby, and then there's a kind of toddler edition. We have health visitors who, at a minimum, go into families, I think, is eight times. These messages should be communicated through our existing resources as much as any additional resources. I absolutely agree. I'm not an expert on marketing or cost of marketing, but I think there was evidence last week, given comparisons between previous public information campaigns around the smoking ban, for example, and how much was spent on that versus what's outlined in the financial memorandum. Utilising the existing and available resources, as John has just outlined, is absolutely sensible and would help to achieve what we're trying to achieve in terms of public information and public messaging. I think also that we shouldn't necessarily think that we shouldn't be implementing all the things that we need to do to achieve what this bill hopes to achieve simply because it's unaffordable or it costs too much. As far as I'm concerned, protecting children should never be unaffordable, and so I don't really see that as an argument that we shouldn't be commencing with this bill. We have a couple of minutes left for this panel. Gordon Lindhurst, do you want to come in with something? A quick question to Bruce Adamson. Are you familiar with the non-fatal offences against the Paris Act 1997 from Ireland? None. Because you suggested that what we're doing is the same as they did in Ireland, but assault is defined in that act, so there they didn't fall back in the common law. So are you saying that you haven't looked at the law in Ireland? Sorry, that wasn't my suggestion. It wasn't made that said that. Ask that you speak through the chair as well, please. Yeah, sorry, it wasn't made that said that. Yeah, but would you agree? I mean, everyone seems to agree that the law should be clear. Yes, the law should certainly be clear, but I'm not sure. Is there a suggestion that the current law of assault in Scotland is not clear? I mean, this would seem to me an argument about... Well, the common law is unclear, and can you name one country where it wasn't, this issue was not dealt with by way of an act of parliament defining the circumstances, including New Zealand under the Crimes Act 1961, section 59, where it's set out in detail. Well, I think the thing in New Zealand is that we codified the criminal law, and so if this is an argument about codifying the criminal law generally, then I think that that could be something that we could look at as how we could make the common law more clear. But I'm confused as to the suggestion that the current criminal system and the common law isn't clear, because this wouldn't be about this offence specifically, but this would seem to be an argument that we should codify all common law in relation to criminal matters. This isn't any different from any other element of the common law, and in Scotland we're very used to dealing with that. But the common law provides defences, for example, self-defence for an adult who assaults another adult, or this sort of defence. So if we're changing the defence, we're changing the common law. And in other countries, including common law jurisdictions like New Zealand, like Ireland, they did it by setting it out clearly in statute. They did it when they codified the common law, as you say, in 1961, or actually previously. New Zealand always had that kind of tradition. It wasn't a change that was made through the crime substitute section 59 amendment act. That didn't codify the law in relation to assault that had already been done. This would be a good place to start making the law clear in that way, as it is in other jurisdictions. I think that if we were going to look at codifying the whole criminal law, that would be a meta for the law commission to look at and others. No, just this offence. First, Mr Linterst, as a courtesy visiting MSPs, get to question the panel, but you need to do it in the same manner as everyone else, so through the chair please. Thank you, convener. If this was a discussion around providing additional clarity to the common law by codifying it more generally, that would be a massive piece of work. I don't think that there is an issue at the moment with lack of clarity within the common law. We're very used to understanding it. I think choosing one specific change here and opening that up into codifying the criminal law is not the right way to approach it. I think some of the things within section 59 of the New Zealand law, which you'd mentioned, have very questionable legal effect in terms of discretion to prosecution, which was considered, if we look at section 59. Four, for example, the first three words are to avoid doubts. This was put in as a political compromise just to reaffirm existing practice. But generally in New Zealand, while we have the codified codification of some criminal law, it's only to the extent that we already understand in relation to common law here. It only sets out exactly the same test that we already know and understand and is applied every day by courts in Scotland. Mr Finlay, do you wish to ask any questions? Thank you, convener. Okay. In which case, thank you, panel, for your evidence this morning. We'll suspend briefly to change panels. Okay, welcome back everybody, our second paneler here. You're all very welcome. Amy Johnston, policy officer, zero tolerance. Alison Davis, chief executive officer, Sahalia. Maureen Phillips, senior family support director at PAMIS. Nora Urig, senior associate, equality and human rights commission. Lucy Chetty, head teacher, new student school, who's here on behalf of Scottish autism. If I may ask you the same question, I ask the first panel. Do you support the bill's aims of stopping physical punishment of children in Scotland? Lucy? Yes, I do support the bill's aims. I think that Bruce had talked about the awareness that that would give in terms of support coming into families and a proactive approach to enabling that, I think. Any awareness to raise that agenda is a positive thing? Yes, we agree and fully support the spirit of the proposed legislation, but we're very concerned about the possible impacts of the implementation. Okay, Maureen. Yes, PAMIS very much supports this bill and, quite frankly, for our families it's a lifeline. Okay, thank you. Nora? Yes, the Equality and Human Rights Commission supports this bill and we are of the opinion that children deserve more protection and not just equal protection in terms of assault as adults. Okay, thank you. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to give evidence today. We warmly welcome the bill, especially the aims and the physical punishment of children and believe that it will send out positive messages around respect, responsible use of authority, healthy relationships and tackling violence with the family and society as a whole. Zero tolerance works to prevent violence against women and girls and our core position is that everybody has the right to live without the fear of violence. Physical punishment of children is part of a wider continuum of violence within our society and ending the justification and the normalisation of this physical punishment will help to reinforce the attitude that violence is never okay in Scotland. Okay, thank you. Alex. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning to the panel. I'll try to be a lot briefer in my questioning to let others in, but I'd like to go back to the same question I asked the last panel. There is, we've had conflicting views about whether there exists in international law treaties and conventions to which this state is a signatory a tension between children's rights and family rights, the rights to family life. Do you recognise that tension? Do you children have rights? And if there is a right conflicting right which allows parents to physically punish their children, are you aware where that exists in international law? I mean, I would just repeat everything that Bruce said in terms of that. It's very, very clear that children have rights, not just on an international level in terms of the UN conventions and particularly the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but also on a European level. And within Scotland we recognise that as well. So in terms of the tension between other rights, particularly the right to family life, again, international law or human rights law is very clear. It's about the best interest of the child and you can have your right to family life, but that doesn't include your right to use physical punishment. Does anyone else wish that? Celia works with women who will have no points of contact with the mainstream community. They've got very different views on parenting. They've got very different cultural contexts of family life. There's no understanding or very rarely an understanding that children have any human rights. We've worked with 1180 women in the past year in 14 different languages. As 763 of those women have been from FGM-affected communities and our survivors themselves. We're looking at situations where there is no understanding that something as severe as FGM is illegal. Never mind smacking a child. We've got levels of severe multiple trauma which isn't being supported or looked after. And what we're seeing is quite a punitive approach from social work. Health visitors frequently don't know what to do. I have to put in the room that Celia works with women who are unable to access mainstream services and that's generally due to language skills, limited confidence, mental health problems, especially very severe trauma. But I believe that if we're supporting them, getting it right for the most vulnerable, then we've got it right for everybody. Celia fully endorses the spirit of the bill but we are concerned about the implementation unless there's some kind of support for parenting and going in to support, especially lone women who are left alone with children. Frequently in the case of Celia Glasgow, children are a result of rape. Trauma provides barriers against positive parenting anyway and the whole mix is very dangerous for children. But to take a punitive approach to the families, to the mothers specifically, doesn't work. It criminalises women, puts pressure on to women who are already suffering, already surviving violence. And what we need to be doing is providing a lot more support. Somebody had a figure of £20,000, we would need that for one month for language support if we were to reach the women just the ones we work with and provide wraparound parenting support. We provide, when resources allow it, parenting support, we do it in six languages and other support we provide in 14 languages. But that has to be done in a concerted way and maybe the Home Office could be persuaded to hand over some of the increasing fees that they're gathering from asylum-seeking and migrant communities to actually provide that kind of learning and support in a culturally aware and trauma-informed way. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else wish to come in? I'm just going to add from the perspective of Scottish autism and we would always advocate the rights of the child but that wraparound support for families is vital. Often the families that we're working with are at a point of crisis and the level of stress that our parents are feeling contributes into how they're able to cope and manage and how their resilience is. So whilst the rights of the child is absolutely paramount, it needs to come with the support around a family too. Okay, we've also had a bit of a discussion about whether the current laws around smacking of physical punishment of any kind are clear at the last time that we legislated within 2003, which gave the limitations I described in the original panel of No Headshots, Shaking or Implements. Do you, from the experience of your organisations, are families and parents aware of where the lines are drawn? Are they sufficient and do they lend themselves to the deployment of physical punishment with control in every case? No, not at all, because there's no points of integration with the families that we work with. They don't know what to do, they're told that smacking is wrong and they can't smack children here, but they don't know what else to do. So children end up not being parented. Parents are frightened of what's going to happen. And then children are put in a position where they do get hit and they get hit very hard and then they get told not to tell anybody, which is a double abuse. My position is that the combination of the 2003 restrictions and also some grey area around what is justifiable makes it, there's two points of ambiguity here. Which is very difficult for parents and families to navigate and also for children themselves to understand what's okay. We would expand that out to society as a whole. The idea that some forms of assault, especially to the most vulnerable and inflicting pain as a form of behaviour management, is justifiable, is a very confusing message and sits in opposition to a lot of our other messages around combating violence against women in society through Equally Safe, for example. So I think there's a lack of clarity for families and children and also for society more generally. I just want to look at and answer the question as well about the right to family life in this as well, because I think it's quite relevant, the whole thing, for the people that I support, look after children who have got profound and multiple energy disabilities. So they're non-verbal and often they've got significant healthcare needs. So for these families, they have to, they would use the word fight a lot. And for them, I think they do have a right to family life without having to fight every day for cases. I mean, I spend my life supporting families who have been submitted to the... Their children have been submitted to quite horrific assaults, both physical and sexual, actually. And what they say, we've got the fantastic policies that we've got in child protection, we've got the govec in the schools, but still there are abuses happening, and that's why I'm saying that for this bill is a lifeline, because what these families' children are subjected to is assault. And what they say to me on a regular basis is with the current legislation, the practice of that, when it's put into practice for them, it's not working often, because what they say, and I'll be very honest here, they say we need to sign above the door for our children saying, just help yourself. So that's quite profound. So for us, this bill just as is a lifeline, because it means that they do have the right to family life, and if they say their child's assaulted, somebody through this bill will now have to listen. Thank you. I'm going to bring in Annie Wells now. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Just the same sort of a question that I asked in the last panel, we've seen through opinion polls, we've seen through the submissions, the individual submissions to the committee on this bill. The general public aren't with the bill. How do we go about bringing in the general public with us? How do we go about just bringing them on this journey with us? Because it is increasingly that parents see this as a ban on smacking, and I personally assault on any child is wrong if that is where it is, but parents are seeing it as a ban on smacking. And how do we bring parents on the journey to say that that isn't what the bill is? I think fundamentally most parents really want to do what's best for their child and what's best for their family, but they also don't have the time to sit and read Equally Protected or Dr Halman's work. So there's a job of work around making that accessible for parents and sharing what we've learned around the harms that corporal punishment causes, because we know that the huge balance of evidence finds that it's very little, like it's not effective and it's very harmful. So there's a lot of work around working with the public to have these conversations and engaging with them around this, both through associated public campaigns, but through separate work as well. I think, and I know that Joanna touched on this in the earlier panel, but we do know that children's opinions sit very differently around this issue. 82 per cent of young people responding to the 2016 Scottish Youth Parliament consultation agreed that all physical assault against children should be illegal, so I think there's a big role for children's voices to be heard as part of this. And that opinion change is already happening. If we look over time, we're slowly changing our positions on this. The growing up in Scotland study in Ipsos, Morri Paul found that the declining number of parents say that they have smacked their child with a younger population group more in favour of abandoning smacking altogether. Our position is that this opinion is changing and that the legislation can reflect this as a great opportunity in Scotland at the moment. We know that smacking doesn't work, just like we now know that smoking is harmful, so there's a lot of public awareness around that and we think that children's voices should be at the centre of it. I think it's a very good question. I would add perhaps that the trust and the relationship building with families is where we see a huge amount of change, and that's where I think the focus needs to be with the individual work that people are doing, families on the ground, to help parents understand better ways to manage and cope. The financial memorandum says that £20,000 would be required for this ability to succeed. That's your Gail's line of question. I want to ask about specific equality groups that are potentially more at risk. Are you aware of any children within specific groups that are more likely to be subjected to physical punishment? I know Lucy and Maureen, who have both spoken briefly about the people that you work with, and I'd be interested to hear a bit more about that and if any of the other panel members have any evidence that they can give us. The autistic young people are more vulnerable emotionally and they are more fragile in a lot of senses, so in that sense they are more susceptible to that. I would qualify that with the family and my experience of the families that we work with, where we have young people in high levels of distress. A lot of that response from parents is about how to try and keep everybody safe in that situation. The language around punishment really doesn't feature so frequently in the work that we're doing with the families that we support because it's about coping and how do we put the supports in to help that better coping? When we look at autistic young people, how they perceive punishment, their ability to join those cause and effects, they see the world in a different way so they wouldn't necessarily understand why something is happening in a certain way. I think that's an important part to consider in times of an autistic person. I would echo that as well but I would also like to add that I'm going to agree, disagree slightly with the Children's Commissioner here on this bill and its relationship to restraint and seclusion because I have myself being witness to a child being dragged along the side of a swimming pool under the umbrella of restraint. To me that's assault, that's not restraint so what I would like to see from this bill is maybe not, maybe standing alone it won't change things but maybe working with policy but I don't see it as something separate, I would see it as something, if we're going to have inclusion why would we exclude that group from this bill? If we want inclusion across society then surely children with profound and multiple learning disabilities and autism shouldn't be considered as separate. I think that this bill should work with the other policies because as I said earlier we've got great child protection policies and everything in place and yet this is still happening so I would disagree with that and say that I would like to see this working in partnership with other policies but not separate from it. Just to add what everybody else has already said so in terms of for example disabled children I know there are international studies that show that disabled children are more likely to be punished physically but we don't have sort of clear evidence to show that this is a trend in Scotland itself and there's sort of a similar presumption around certain ethnic minorities that there I think especially studies in the US show that certain ethnic minorities are more likely to use physical punishment when it comes to their children but actually a 2006 study from the Joseph Brown Foundation found that that wasn't the case in the UK. I think what is really important to note here is what has already been mentioned by Alison, Maureen and Lucy actually is that it's really about the support and the awareness campaign and that you try to include everybody and particularly vulnerable children, vulnerable parents and that it's much more about creating societal change and that this legislation and the awareness campaign that comes along with it is really key to try to change perceptions in society and make it very clear and I think that will really help with for example what Maureen was just talking about sort of having people having more of an idea of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. I think also the evidence base for that and the figures for that might you know needs it could be researched a little bit more because often if a family have reported through the child protection route often the families feel it just goes through the process so it's like there's no outcome so that's not recorded then you know so often it's under recorded so there's more more cases of these happening than is actually recorded. In our submission to the committee we actually called for more research and monitoring when it comes to this and I think again an awareness campaign will help with that and then you can see where particular maybe support services are needed more or what a campaign going forward needs to focus on and I think again what Joanna said in the previous panel is really key about that being a sustained awareness campaign. I'm going to bring full to my gregorum with a short supplementary. Yes just a supplementary panel good morning panel you were talking there about child protection process I'm wondering if you if you've got any thoughts on how if this bill is passed how how that will impact on the current child protection process and I'm I'm talking about just now so if a child maybe goes to school or whatever and says you know they've been hit by a parent then a child protection process is is then initiated how do you think removing justifiable assault will impact on that process? Oh well that's a big question I'm not sure I can answer it but I would like to hope that if if the family say went through the child protection process and still the outcome wasn't favourable but the family felt there were still an assault had taken place that then this could come into play but I don't really know what actually is the honest answer how how it would impact me thank you can hear can I just come back to the point that you've just made morning when you say if the family are sure an assault is taken place are you talking about a young person being in a care setting or a school setting so yeah yeah I just wanted to clarify that yeah which is why you're so concerned about the issue of restraint yes because it's used in the school setting yeah okay yeah Alison I don't know if there's anything you wanted to quickly add about the groups of families that that you work with because I know culturally they are quite different from the rest of the families that are represented yes very different cultural approaches to parenting and no way of of learning no roots of learning about any other approaches a lot of people saying well this is just a racist approach and I would say well I was hit a lot it doesn't make my father a monster it just means that he comes from a different time just like some people come and have newly arrived from a different place geographically it just means that attitudes have changed and and we spend a lot of time with women supporting their learning around human rights and responsibilities and child protection that's also about their own safety understanding that their experience of domestic abuse is against the law and that's a really important handle as Amy said you know if we're saying that women should be free from violence in the home and I'm old enough to remember a time when men were saying and supported for saying well it's none of your business if I beat my wife if we're supporting women to learn their right to safety then it's not a huge leap to say well your child also has a right to physical and emotional well-being but a lot more of that work has to be done and we would all of the panel agree that whatever support services that are put in place or enhanced if this legislation passes will be crucial because it can't be a standard support service and education services put into support families it needs to vary depending on which type of family and the circumstances that the family are in absolutely and and currently the health visitors really struggle because they're seeing very good parents very committed parents in extremely difficult circumstances severe levels of trauma themselves trying to do their best but still using the kind of parenting that I was brought up with that they were brought up with and the only way that they can help the the mother it is in our case to learn is through an interpreter and the interpreter may be sitting there saying this is racist why why are you talking to a white person about this just don't tell them anything so I mean we have great concerns about the role of interpreting the lack of supporting first languages the lack of trauma informed support so the health visitors are in a quandary as well and I think quite frequently the social workers are frequently a little bit perplexed as to what to do and we see excuse me very uneven responses from social work and many social workers are fantastic and many aren't many have a very punitive approach and I would say it is institutional racism in in some cases okay thank you very much I'm really interested in in your evidence I just wondered whether it would concern you some of the things we've heard previously both last week and today that actually changing this legislation won't see any significant increase in prosecutions well I would imagine it would see an increase in in prosecutions with the group I work with and I say that because already I have supported a group of families who have been to court they have their cases have gone to court they're sitting at court we don't know for how long they're sitting at court they've not been heard yet and we're talking several years so had this been law I think that would have been a far quicker process for them not so stressful their children their children have been subjected to an assault but the children have in my opinion suffered trauma since the day it happened that trauma still with them while while while their cases sit there waiting to be heard can I just clarify when you talk about your the families you work with being in court they're taking someone else to court they're not being prosecuted for assaults sorry when I'm speaking it's not the families I support have all been their children have all been subjected to abuse in in a care setting or in an education setting not in the family okay thank you so yeah thank you thank you for that I also wanted to ask really all of the all of the panels who work with families whether the families you work with sort of trust the government of the state when it when it comes to parenting and their family life is in do you find that in all cases they find that the law is helpful and that you know health workers social workers do you think that sometimes you know there is a breakdown in trust there that's really my question I suppose within within my experience of the families that we work with they've often had to fight quite hard to get the support that they then have in place so there is a sense of feeling like they're needing to be a very loud voice in a large system that can be difficult to navigate which I think perhaps has an impact on how they they potentially view agencies as supportive or perhaps obstructive there's a multi agency approach to all the supports for the families that we work with and sometimes that's working very well and they feel those props are very helpful and useful but there is a sense sometimes that families feel as though they're they're fighting for things that they need or they feel they need as a family it's fine I move on to to ask me do you think where where parents are using physical punishment that they always have an evil intent or an intention to cause injury do you think it's more complicated than that could I go back to your previous question and just say that I think I think there's a there's a huge level of fear among the women that we support especially when they they begin their journey with us huge level of fear about social work about the role about police about the state refugees have to prove a well-founded fear of persecution to get their asylum application recognised so they've come from environments where they shouldn't trust anybody certainly not the state and certainly not somebody who's you know seen as an arm of the state so there's there's degrees of terror around social work and police intervention that we work very hard on but that becomes more difficult if interpreters are used to aren't effective or if social work social workers some social workers a minority are taking a punitive approach and a very colour blind a colour blind approach in that they're not seeing those people's journeys and those those people's context thank you so just to go back to the next question I was going to ask do you think that where physical punishment is used by parents that there's always an evil intent or an intention to cause injury? I think most parents as Amy already said at the beginning want the best for their child and a lot of it has to do maybe with how you were brought up as well and I think that's why again the awareness campaign is so key and why we really need to see this as sort of a long-term change in society in our perceptions and the fact is that just like with smoking and pubs we now know we have all this evidence we have all these studies that show that smacking or using physical punishment on children leads to all these kinds of problems again like the previous panel said it doesn't mean that if you experience physical punishment you will end up doing XYZ but given all the studies we know that children who receive physical punishment compared to children who don't have higher issues when it comes to antisocial behaviour, violent behaviour or aggression themselves. With due respect it's not really what I'm asking I'm asking whether parents always would have an evil intent or an intention to cause injury when using physical punishment? I don't think they would. I think the smacking of children comes from a long history of what was normal and what we thought was harmless for a long time which we now know is not harmless anymore. I think and I've experienced this as a parent there's sometimes assumption that actually to be a good parent you should be smacking your child and that's sometimes still permeated through society and that at the core of it though there is still this idea that you are inflicting pain in an attempt to manage behaviour and we wouldn't do that to adults in our society we don't do that to adults in Scotland so there is a slight question of why do we still think it's okay to do that to children and where do we put children in society if we're if we're doing that? I think the supplementary to that which is reading my final question is why then do we not ban physical punishment of children? Why are we picking off a defence that we've heard this morning from the Children's Commissioner isn't going to increase prosecutions is not going to necessarily have a sort of revolutionary impact in and of itself why not make a clearer statement that physical punishment of children is wrong in our legislation? Happy to come in again. I think as we discussed there is an issue of popular opinion and how we work with the public around this and also the evidence from New Zealand and Ireland is that when we take these steps smacking stops or decreases quite significantly so I'm not an expert around legislation but I think there might be an argument around making sure that we're doing this with the public and with the society in Scotland and bringing them with us in this conversation around how we parent and around positive parenting and also making sure that as the rest of the panel has discussed there is that wraparound support to help parents and again I think the previous panel mentioned that obviously this doesn't prevent us from going back in the future and saying that actually more is needed but this is sort of where we're at in Scotland right now. Alex Coe Hamilton in a brief supplementary. Thank you. I have a belief supplementary on Oliver Mundell's question. Would the panel agree that if we brought in a new offence to ban physical punishment that we might actually end up doing what all opponents of this bill fear which is criminalising all parents because immediately if you create an offence then a physical punishment then you remove that element of judgment that an attending police officer or a social worker would apply that by removing the legal defence we know that we send a clear message to parents saying you still have autonomy to parent your children but you will no longer have a legal defence to lean into should you use physical punishment whereas an offence would immediately blanket criminalise every parent who ever raised a hand in any way to their child. There was a question in there somewhere. Do you agree with that? That might actually make the criminalisation of parents more likely. I think probably a staged approach would work better. I think once we've got parenting skills in all schools in every school curriculum at all ages maybe in 20 years time then we bring in the complete law but at the moment I think it's acknowledgement as Nora said it's acknowledgement of where Scotland is at this moment in time. Thank you. Fulton MacGregor. Thanks, convener. I firstly just want to apologise to Maureen for my earlier supplementary question. It wasn't intended to be a trick question and put you on the spot like that and that your evidence has been really good. I think what I was trying to explore at that point was that from my own point of view and I wanted to just hear from other people was that I didn't think that actually a lot would change because social work and police would still need to go out if there's been an allegation that we need to identify if there's been significant harm caused that we need to make judgments on that and it would all be part of a very very thorough process, the child protection process which you know and that's what we've seen on bit on that point as well. I was quite interested to hear your opening remarks Amy Johnson in terms of where this bill sits in the continuum of offences against children and how you think that passing this legislation can help with that because one of the frustrations that I've had as an MSP in my previous work and I'm sure you've all had to is it's actually extremely difficult to bring people to justice for really harmful acts against children so that's why I'm really kind of not buying the argument we're going to have a whole bunch of prosecutions because of passing this legislation so I wondered what your thoughts on that were. We agree and also I think I'd add to that this continuum of violence within families as well and if we look at New Zealand and the campaign that was associated with their legislation there it's not okay campaign looked at how violence is not acceptable within families including domestic violence and domestic abuse as we call it in Scotland and I think it's important also to look at how this bill is supported by other strategies and policies in Scotland around violence against women and girls specifically equally safe the strategy to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls which states that violence against women and girls in any form has no place in our vision for a safe strong and successful Scotland and also states that violence will stop damages health wellbeing limits freedom and potential and is a violation of the most fundamental human rights and I think it's very hard for me to work at how we can continue with this justification of assault of children in any form and within that continuum and still move ahead with the strategy around violence in Scotland. And do you think that the person of this bill will help practitioners out there to maybe identify patterns that you're talking about because I mean I selected what I said originally I still I think that even with the bill passed I think that you know people will go and make judgments and they'll certain things won't be prosecuted but do you think though we will see patterns emerging and you know whereas something that's maybe seen as well that's kind of okay just now we'll maybe be able to look to it. I hope it's also supported with for example the domestic abuse act where you see a pattern of behaviour being acknowledged within that legislation and things you know there's a step away from an incident-based approach towards acknowledging patterns of behaviour that are caused harm and humiliation to children and young people. I think Bruce already mentioned that in the last panel where hopefully this will sort of increase early intervention and increase the support families receive or parents receive and children as well so yeah. I'm hopeful that the new initiative from the Scottish Government to increase trauma awareness and all front line staff in all agencies should have an impact on this because I think if we grow an awareness of trauma the impact on trauma people's behaviour and how we negotiate and communicate more with people who are severely traumatised and we talk about children generally that we work with our you know we've got score very highly indeed on the ACEs scale um I think that is also a building brick which will help towards this process of making you know making Scotland violence free. Thank you. Good morning panel thank you for your evidence so far um would you say that any money funding spent on the implementation of this bill should be classed as preventative spend seeing nods from everybody so yeah I think that's a pretty straight forward. Amy you said that in response to a question from Alex Cole-Hamilton about the current law and the changes that were made a few years ago of punishment of children there's a lack of clarity in society about what is actually not even just acceptable but in the eyes of the law using implements where you know you're allowed to smack a child. Do you think that we're talking about an awareness raising campaign as part of this bill should it be implemented but do you think that there should be an awareness raising campaign happening now? Absolutely absolutely and I think that should cover you know I think that the primary focus should be violence against children and young people but it should cover what's normalised and what's justified and what's acceptable within Scotland and related to violence as a whole. Do you think that that would go some way again in response to Annie Wells's question about taking the public along with us um there seems to be a misunderstanding as to what this bill actually is looking to achieve so we should actually be doing that as part of taking the public along with us at the moment? Absolutely yeah okay um you'll have seen that the children's convener in the last panel had said that the financial memorandum as it stands should actually be looked at separately from what is actually happening and certainly this wider discussion has opened up a conversation about support that's currently available and I think you've all mentioned that. I just wondered about the awareness raising campaign as well as you know what we should be doing already in terms of trauma informed not just frontline staff but communities as a whole as well. Where do you think that the gaps are that might be looked at once we start the awareness raising around this whole issue? The awareness raising is done in one language and based on two in Scotland and based on the assumption that everybody has an understanding and a buy-in to issues around equality and social justice and human rights it won't reach the people who are already very vulnerable and already being approached in an impunitive way so the impact would be disproportionately on marginalised new ethnic minority communities and I mean asylum seeking and refugee communities and that would be a dangerous position to be we're already in a difficult position on that but it would put us in a more difficult position unless we took that prevent those preventative measures very very seriously and that means costing them properly and saying right it needs to be in first languages and it needs to be culturally aware and trauma informed okay anyone else okay thank you sorry just in terms of talking about costing and financial aspect of it I think it's really vital to realise that as preventative measures you're going to save costs in the long term um you know yeah so um maybe this does need more than 20 000 but in terms of reaching especially um sort of the communities that Alison is talking about that is work that actually should be done anyways and um again like Amy said linking it to wider issues around violence in society violence in homes um all of this work should be going on anyways and to increase our capacity and increase our resources that are directed towards that work is really important um so just one final question convener for me we we keep talking about or we keep hearing in evidence this word assault and violence and you know that there obviously are current laws in place that should prevent violence against anyone whether it's children or within the family or women um and obviously you know awareness raising of that is vital we've had representations from members of the public that say I should be able to and I think that there's a a gap that we have in our explanation of the difference between an assault on a child and violence in the home again whether it's against anyone and what parents are coming to us and saying a slight tap on the back of the hand or a slight tap on the back of the thighs etc etc is there a difference or should we just not be lifting our hands to children in any circumstances whatsoever we shouldn't be lifting our hands to children there's a slight tap on the back of the hand if you've had no sleep it can be very heavy slap or if you've had a bad day or if you've been tortured or you've been raped across you know parts of Africa and the Mediterranean then you know you're going to be in a state where you can't measure that so to so to have an absolute ban makes far more sense and I think is a lot easier to follow and you will get people interpreting that slight um so you know touch very differently and how are you going to measure that and again what sort of message are you sending to children and the slight tap on the hand for somebody who has got complex sensory system could escalate to a full blown incident which would then lead to the restraint so in many ways the ban would prevent a lot just to add exactly on to that point when you've got a young person that's in a high level of distress and you might see some form of um I suppose what could be deemed violent behaviour physically intervening and that can cause that stress transaction to multiply and make the situation a lot worse okay yeah it was discussed at the previous panel but that was found under equally protected that children parents don't often start off abusing or seriously assaulting their children it starts with lighter or milder physical punishment and that's not to say there's necessary you know if you if you smack a shell that's what's going to happen but if we if we're trying to minimise risk around around that then I think it's necessary to say that we don't raise our hand to children at all just going to bring alex in on that yeah just um you've largely answered it there but I mean as a supplemental to gail ross's question um we have had uh empirical research from academics who oppose a change in the law to say that so-called backup smacking is actually a more effective tool of parenting than other sanctions um are you would you agree that or do you think that um but that by removing the option to back up smack then we are impeding the normal parenting behaviour of reasonable parents who can always retain control no but we we need to be giving uh a lot clearer messages on what a positive parenting is I know people who don't smack their children and the children probably wish they would because there is huge levels of emotional abuse and coercive control which is you know is the same thing um so we need to be sending out messages around positive parenting rather than saying don't smack do support in this way positive parent positive messages thank you do any other committee members have anything they wish to ask in which case um gordon if you have any questions you wish to put through me to panel thank you convener if I might ask just um two questions and perhaps just of Nora Gurdig I think on behalf of the human rights commission um I'm just interested in seeing the the paper that you submitted that you indicated case law demonstrating a general trajectory sorry towards prioritising uh children's rights over parental rights I think that's something that was covered in the first panel a bit um do you see parents rights or children's rights as one being more important than the other and that's the first question um I mean so in terms of I think we already talked about this earlier in terms of international human rights law it's very clear that um the best interest of the child needs to be um a priority but I don't actually see it being about the rights of the parents versus the rights of the child because again it's about a change in society and creating more nonviolent society as a whole and linking it to what Amy has already talked about violence in the home um and wider issues that we know there is a connection in terms of physical punishment and domestic abuse for example wait sorry no okay if convener might just ask one further question and um it's this who then should decide for the parents of the children is it is it not just saying it's people out with the family who will decide instead of the parents and children no I think in a lot of ways you're actually giving more of a voice to children so you're creating more of a platform for communication where you're recognising that both have rights and that it's about them as a family union union and um how they interact with each other and really sort of the messages you send to to a child again if you're using physical punishment what sort of message are you sending to the child we know in terms of long-term studies what children who receive physical punishment are more likely to have sort of antisocial behaviour but also in terms of that communication I think sending more positive parenting messages is much more useful thank you Mr Finlay just to add anything I have no questions for the witness's bit would you indulge me in a point of information if I could please convener and that's about the issue that's the figure of 20 000 that's been mentioned on a number of occasions the issue of promoting awareness and understanding of the bill is covered in paragraphs 27 to 31 with the financial memorandum and the 20 000 figure is actually the Scottish Government's figure and in fairness to them the state in paragraph 30 that a full marketing campaign would cost between 200 000 and 475 000 they then go on and to give balance they they then go on to to say that using some existing resources like existing websites and information to key stakeholders that they don't think it would need a full campaign that's not the view that I formed in relation to the figure of 300 000 which is the figure on the bill the background to how that figure comes up is outlined in paragraph 29 and it relates to relative campaigns that the Scottish Government have run over the period in the published figures so the the figure for the campaign that we took as the comparator was 303 000 so we've rounded it to 300 000 and that would cover a period of approximately excuse me six months before and after the law came in where the bill to be passed so it's just that point of clarification thank you for that clarification okay our thank you for your evidence this morning panel it's been very helpful our next meeting will be on the 15th of march in Portree on the island of sky our meeting begins at four o'clock in the finger centre and members of the committee will hold a public q&a session immediately before that starting at 3 15 the committee has previously agreed to hold discussions of evidence in private so we'll now move into private session