 The next item of business is debate on motion 17342, in the name of John Finnie, on stage 1 of the children equal protection from assault Scotland bill. May I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons, and I call on John Finnie to speak to and move the motion for up to 10 minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am delighted to be opening today's debate on the general principles of the children equal protection from assault Scotland bill. I would like to begin with a series of thanks to the convener and members of the equality and human rights committee for their diligent and measured consideration of the bill, evident throughout all the evidence sessions which had the pleasure of attending. I special thanks to the committee's clarking team for their work as well. Also parliamentary staff and those outwith the Parliament who facilitated the committee's many external evidence taking visits. Thanks also to all the witnesses who gave evidence and everyone who contributed comment from the outset to the process. Of course, I welcome the 75 per cent support that my consultation drew in the backing of members from all the Parliament's parties. Thanks also to many colleagues from all parties in the Parliament for their support and advice as my bill has progressed from the start of the members' bills process. I am also grateful to the Scottish Government for their support of my bill and to the children's minister, Marie Todd, for her support as my members' bill has progressed. I look forward to her contribution this afternoon. Thanks to Nick Thawthorne of the Parliament's non-governmental bills unit and to Katrina McCallum from the Office of the Solicitor of the Scottish Parliament for their work and to my office manager Stephen Dane, who has been tirelessly leading the work in my office on this bill. I was originally approached shortly after the last election in June 2016 by the coalition of children's charities. That was Bernardus Scotland, NSPCC, Children First and the Children and Young People's Commissioner's Office to consider taking forward a member's bill on a simple proposal that children should have the same legal protection from assault as adults do. I am immensely grateful for their on-going support and encouragement since then. I have to say that this was not my first foray into this topic. Working with Bernardus Scotland towards the end of the last session, I tried to squeeze the issue in as an amendment to the criminal justice bill 2015, but the convener of the Justice Committee at that time rolled it out with the scope of the bill. I am, however, grateful in hindsight for that decision, because this has allowed our Parliament, indeed, wider civic society an opportunity over the last few years to broaden discussions about the rights of our children and young people in Scotland. I know that many members from across the chamber are looking forward to supporting the Scottish Government incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law. Indeed, that was recommendation 16 of the equality and human rights, getting rights right, human rights in the Scottish Parliament report in November of last year. I warmly welcome that decision of the committee. I believe that this period of debate and reflection has strengthened my proposals and highlighted a lack of awareness around the issue. On many occasions, I have been contacted and read and countered people who were surprised at the need for the ball, many believing that physical punishment of children had been prohibited long time ago. Of course, it was not, and this important issue has not been looked at for almost 16 years since the last weeks of the first session back in 2003. Perhaps the few members who were there for that debate will, hopefully, agree that now is the time. My intention in bringing forward this bill is to bring clarity to the law by removing the defence of reasonable chastisement, sometimes referred to as justifiable assault, and to send a clear message that the physical punishment of children is not acceptable. The growing body of international evidence shows that the physical punishment of children is harmful to their development and not an effective means of discipline. Professor Sir Michael Marmot of University College London, in the forward to the report, Equally Protected, published in 2015 by the charities, I have mentioned, stated unequivocally, and I quote here, The international evidence could not be any clearer. Physical punishment has the potential to damage children and carries the risk of escalation into physical abuse. It is now time for action. On the issue of physical punishment, Scotland is out of step with Europe and increasingly the world. There is an urgent need for Scotland and the rest of the UK to comply with the international human rights law and prohibit all forms of physical punishment. Dr Anja Helman, a very compelling witness to the committee, also of University College London, told the committee that the evidence from this research and I quote here shows very clearly that such punishment has the potential to harm children and, importantly, that it is not effective as a parenting strategy because it tends to increase problem behaviour in children's socio-emotional difficulties. That is important. As those problem behaviours in children do not disappear at the age of 16, this is a problem that is stored up and damages our future society. I like to quote from the briefing members that I have received, and I am very grateful to all the organisations that have provided the briefings, which, as ever, are extremely helpful. If only I could find the one that I am looking for now, that would be even more helpful. It was from Dr Tasman Knight of the Faculty of Public Health in Scotland, and I quote here, Childhood physical punishment is linked to adult aggression and anti-social behaviour, including aggression and sexual violence within intimate partner relationships. We often in Scotland talk about zero tolerance for domestic abuse and violence, but we allow the use of physical punishment for children. This sends a message to our children that hitting someone is a way of resolving a dispute or if you do not like their behaviour. I believe that this bill is a vital step in ensuring that we see the necessary change in our culture as a society, much in the way that the smoking ban was a necessary legislative step in making Scotland a healthier place to live. Opinion polls, as now, have asked different questions showing a mix of views, with some polls being against the bill, but I say again that the consultation to this specific proposal had 75 per cent in favour. The Quality and Human Rights Committee also heard that in none of the countries that now prohibit physical punishment of children was public opinion with the legislative change at the time of the change. I firmly believe that, as with the smoking ban, we will see public opinion change over time. As Bruce Adamson, Scotland's Children and Young Peoples Commissioner, told the committee and I quote here, you need legislation to drive the cultural change. We know that to be true. In that regard, the issue could be seen in the same way as seatbelts in cars, drink driving and smoking in pubs. On such issues, you need to lead with the legislation in order to deliver the cultural change. It is worth noting, I believe, the opinions of young people in Scotland, which are perhaps more in line with aims of the bill. The Scottish Youth Parliament, which we often refer to in Parliament for the good work that it does, lead the way manifesto. It consulted its members and had 72,744 responses from 12 to 25-year-olds. That is an astonishing figure. 82 per cent agreed that all physical assault against children should be illegal. Feedback from the 260 pupils who participated in the Equalities and Human Rights Committee meeting in a box to gather evidence from children and young people showed that 66 of them supported the bill. My bill aims to bring Scotland into line with it appears to be becoming the international standard in 54 countries. From the very first country in the world, Sweden, in 1979, to Ireland in 2015—I would like to thank Gillian Van Thornhout, the former Irish senator who secured equal protection for the children of the Irish public for our knowledge and support throughout the process. I am sure that all parties will agree that we should work together to ensure that Scotland becomes the best country in the world for children to go up in. I strongly believe that, if passed, my will would play a vital part in making that aim come to the past. I am pleased to note the comments from the minister that the Scottish Government is working closely with relevant organisations to work on the next steps to ensure that the bill should be passed and that it progresses satisfactorily. I would like to take the last opportunity to repeat my thanks to the committee for its support for the principles of the bill and I move that the Parliament agrees the general principles of the Children's Equal Protection from Assault Scotland bill. I now call on Ruth Maguire to speak on behalf of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. I am proud to speak in this debate on behalf of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. I would like to start by giving a heartfelt thanks to our diligent and professional clerking team, who are an example to us all. This bill has dominated our work programme over the last few months. It is an important bill for children and for families and could impact on a huge number of people in Scotland. We knew, as a committee, that we needed to hear directly from those affected and so we set out an ambitious programme of engagement. We went to meet parents and grandparents in Pollock Shields, in Scythill and in Midlothian. We visited young people in Cercodi at the YMCA juniors club. To reach the parents and children that we could not get to, we developed a meeting in a box so community groups could send us their views. We received responses covering over 300 individuals. Finally, we held an external meeting and a day of fact finding in Portree on Sky. We could not have heard from all those people without the help of a number of teams from around the Parliament. On behalf of all the committee, I would like to thank our outreach team and the engagement unit for helping us to hear from so many voices. Our thanks to the members of staff who travelled to Portree with us, official report, media, web and social media, and a particular mention to security staff who travelled through a snow storm to support our meeting. We appreciated having them there. Of course, our biggest thanks goes to those who informed our scrutiny. Over 450 people, many of them individuals, took the time to write to us with their views. I know that many of them have concerns about this bill and the possible impact it might have on family life. I say to those people that, as a committee, we have heard those concerns. We met people who shared with us their fears about the bill and listened to their views. However, we heard, too, that many parents today do not smack their children and that Scottish society is moving that way any event. We need legislation and support to help parents to find alternative approaches to discipline. We also heard from children and young people who told us their thoughts. Our particular thanks goes to the children of Portree High School and Bunscoll Gallic, who shared their opinions intelligently and freely. The preparation that you put ahead of our visit was most impressive. Since the extension of its remit in 2016, the committee has, wherever possible, taken a human rights-based approach to its work. That approach informs our work with children and young people. A human rights approach recognises that children have the right to participate, to be listened to and to have their views recognised and respected. That has been central to our work on the bill, which, after all, has children at its core. That is a bill about rights, about the rights that children have to be free from violence in every setting, including the home. Home should be a place of safety and comfort where a child is nurtured. It is extraordinary that home is the one-place children are allowed to be hit, and it is only children, not partners or pets. All of us have the right for our private and family life to be respected. Much of the evidence that we heard questioned whether there was a conflict between those rights, between the right of a child to be free from violence and the right of parents to raise children as they believe best. We were reassured by the many witnesses who told us that the right to family life does not include the right to use physical punishment. The Scottish human rights commission said that the European Court of Human Rights has determined several times that the right to family life is not interfered with by prohibiting physical punishment of a child. They went on to say that physical punishment clearly interferes with a child's right to dignity. Because of their physical and mental immaturity, children are entitled to and require more, not less protection from violence than adults do. We, as adults and parliamentarians, have a duty to uphold the rights of all vulnerable people. In our visits and engagement, we met parents who told us that they had been smacked and that they were fine, or that they smacked their children with no ill effect. We heard that there is a marked difference between violence against children and a loving smack. Nevertheless, the evidence that we heard from experts and academics is that physical punishment does have negative effects. Those range from depression and mental health issues to increase tendency to use violence themselves. As Jane Callaghan, Professor of Child Well-being and Protection at Stirling University, told us, it makes no difference whether those smacks were administered in love or in anger. The effect is the same. In the course of our evidence-taking, we heard many times that parents need to smack children in certain situations. Maybe the child is reaching for something hot or about to run into the road, but Dr Louise Hill, from the Centre for Excellence for looked after children in Scotland, put it best when she said to us, As a parent of young children, if they run into the road, my immediate response is to hold them. I get hold of my children and I keep them safe. This is what the bill attempts to do. It shows children and young people that, as a society, as a parliament, we want to keep them safe. It puts their rights at the centre of our policymaking and aims to support families in doing so. In conclusion, the majority of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee supports the general principles of the children's eco-protection from Assault Scotland Bill. I now call Marie Todd for up to eight minutes, please, minister. Presiding Officer, I am pleased to be speaking today for the Scottish Government on this bill. As the Minister for Children and Young People, I see this bill as forming a key part of our work to ensure that Scotland is the best place in the world to grow up. Let me first of all thank John Finnie and his team for their hard work and dedication on progressing this bill. I also thank Ruth Maguire and the Equalities and Human Rights Committee for their careful consideration of the bill and their reasoned, balanced report. The Scottish Government supports the removal of the reasonable chastisement defence. I welcome the committee's support in the report for the general principles of the bill. There is a strong rationale for our shared position. The name of the defence, reasonable chastisement, is antiquated. At the heart of the current defence is the concept that it can sometimes be reasonable to strike a child. That is completely at odds with our aim for Scotland to be the best place in the world for children to grow up. We can contribute to that aim by providing children with the same legal protection from Assault as adults have, the principle at the heart of this bill. Scotland can be at the forefront of providing that protection for children in the UK. Removal of the defence will help to deliver the best possible outcomes for children in Scotland. It will assist them in growing up, feeling loved, safe and respected, so that they can realise their full potential. Removing a defence is consistent with international treaties, best practice in human rights and with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In addition, removing the defence reflects the growing body of international evidence, which shows that physical punishment of children is harmful and ineffective. I am listening carefully to what the minister is saying. If we are listening, has she given any consideration to the strong views of the majority of parents in Scotland who find that the bill is unworkable and unenforceable? When asked, more than 90 per cent of parents in Scotland believed that children should have the same protection against assault as adults do, certainly. Oliver Mundell, I wondered if she could set out how many people in Scotland thought that it was appropriate to criminalise parents for those activities, and if she would set out once a defence is removed, under what circumstances parents would be prosecuted. I will happily tackle that point in my summing up. We have been over this at committee and you are regurgitating the same arguments just now. I am going to make progress at the moment. By removing the current defence, the bill will provide helpful clarity to parents and carers about the law. The committee comments on that in paragraphs 1 to 1. Oliver Mundell, I thank the minister for giving way, but if she wants to talk about clarity, is she able to set out one example, just one example, of where someone would be criminalised for an action that currently would be not criminal because the defence exists? Mary Todd. Let me be clear about that. The change in legislation does not create a new offence. What it does—the offence is already there, the offence is already assault, and there is a defence in law against that. What it does is remove the possibility of the defence. When considering a particular case, the prosecutors will take into account all the things that they do currently. There may be an alternative defence, like self-defence. They will take into account the criminal intent. They will take into account the age of the child. There are a number of things that will be considered. I cannot pre-empt a particular situation and make a decision now on who will be criminalised. What I can assure you is that, in Scotland, our intention is not to criminalise parents. Our intention is to provide early support using and getting it right for every child approach, which we have been using for many years, continuing to use that to recognise the situations in which parents need support and to put into support, not to criminalise. That is the last intervention on that. I can allow you a little extra time, minister. Liz Smith. Can I ask the minister to explain with clarity, as I think it is her role to do, as to why she believes that the current law is a bad law? Marie Todd. Let me be absolutely clear. The Scottish Government does not think that it is acceptable to use physical punishment on children. We believe that children should have the same protection in law as adults do. By removing the current defence, the bill will provide helpful clarity to parents and carers about the law. The committee comments on that in paragraphs 1 to 1 to 128 of its report. The minority statement in the report says in paragraph 280 that the committee has spent too little time listening to legal experts, but there has actually been significant evidence by legal bodies. For example, the Law Society of Scotland supplementary written submission to the committee says that the bill as proposed would introduce clarity of the law on what amounts to assault on children as far as children and adults are concerned. Assaults on children would not be justified. Children would therefore be afforded the same protection as currently available to adults. Whether prosecution for an assault on a child results would follow a decision by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service as to prosecution being appropriate in the public interest. The society goes on to say that if the bill is passed, there is a need to ensure that there is effective communication of the change to all involved. That has to seek effective ways to ensure that those groups representing protected characteristics are fully considered. The committee also makes that point in the report. As drafted, section 2 of the bill provides that the Scottish ministers must take such steps as they consider appropriate to promote public awareness and understanding about the effect of section 1. If the bill is enacted with section 2 forming part of it, we will of course comply with section 2. The Scottish Government has formed an implementation group that is considering what will be required if the bill is enacted by Parliament. The group's work included what would need to be done in public awareness, and the Scottish Government will continue to provide support for parents and organisations. However, we are not telling parents how to parent. What we will do is continue to provide support for parents so that they can decide for themselves the best way to take care of their children. I am a mum of three, teenagers. We know that parenting is a tough job. We know that children can be challenging and wonderful, sometimes at exactly the same time. Our approach to parenting support will continue to reflect the day-to-day challenges that parents face, and we will continue to provide practical, realistic advice that parents can turn to for help with those challenges. Awareness raising has cost implications. The stage 1 report asks about cost implications of the bill generally. The Scottish Government will consult with members of our implementation group and, following that, will write to the committee before stage 2. The committee noted in paragraph 241 that there are a variety of views on exactly what should be done on awareness raising. It would be possible to raise awareness by taking steps, for example, putting material on websites that have low-cost implications. I note the oral evidence to the committee from Gillian Van turnout on 21 March that, in Ireland, their allocated budget was zero, so they did not have any awareness raising or campaigning in relation to the change of the law. We did discuss awareness raising and campaign work with our partners on the implementation group. We will take account of the points that are made by the committee, particularly on the points that are made in the report. The committee also made points on restraint. The Scottish Government is in agreement with the conclusion by the committee in paragraph 62 of its report that we do not agree that physical punishment is required to protect children from harm. We conclude that the bill as drafted will not change a parent or carers ability to restrain a child to keep him or her from harm. We have noted in the comment in paragraph 68 of the report that restraint and care settings is an area that we believe requires much wider scrutiny. Although we do not think that the bill is the vehicle for that scrutiny, we agree that the bill is not the right vehicle, but we recognise the importance of the issue of restraint and care settings. Mary Fee raised that in committee, and I am very happy to meet her anytime to discuss it further. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, the Scottish Government supports removing the defence of reasonable chastisement. We welcome the committee's report. I believe that this is the right thing as well as a right thing, and I ask members to support the general principles of the bill in the stage 1 vote later today. When I was elected in 2016, I did not imagine that I would be standing up in this chamber to oppose a bill that calls for the equal protection of children from assault. The fundamental problem is that the bill does more harm than good, and it does not live up to its name. It is below the quality of legislation that the people of Scotland should rightly expect from its Parliament. In my view, however well-meaning, it represents an assault on family life. Let me be clear, violence against children is wrong. On that point, I hope that we could all agree. However, that is where I depart company from other members who speak enthusiastically in support of the proposal, because when it comes to the proportionality of subjecting good parents to criminalisation and the suggestion that it is justified and reasonable for the state to intervene in family life where child welfare is not at risk, I cannot agree. To pass legislation restricting parental rights and discretion would be bad enough, but to pass this particular legislation that lacks any clarity as to the threshold for the involvement of the police or, indeed, prosecution is sheer madness, I will do. John Finnie Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am very grateful for the member who has taken intervention. Has the member read the explanatory note in relation to the public interest test, and does he understand that that is not changing? He was present when the police and social work joined together, knowing that their work said that this would bring welcome clarity. Oliver Mundell I thank the member for that intervention. I look forward to the Lord Advocate coming to the committee on 6 June to explain why, in its supplementary written evidence, the Crown Office and Proculator Fiscal Service recognise that there is a question where mild force is used by parents. I want to understand who will be responsible for taking the decision to prosecute parents and under what circumstances. I also wonder whether it will fall to individual police officers to decide whether to investigate families and on what basis and when they will do so. I have not heard any of those answers so far. I think that that is why this represents bad law, and I think that it will lead to more confusion. That was pointed out by Gary Mackityr, a leading criminal lawyer who the committee did not have time to hear from. I think that this leaves us open to potential legal challenge. Other witnesses who came before the committee recognised that that would create grey areas and problems, because the law of assault is quite wide. As legislators, surely our first duty is to ensure that legislation is workable. My concern is that, when I asked the Scottish Government's legal team if they thought that it would be helpful to provide clarity for parents as we do another legislation and areas of criminal law, would we choose to legislate in statute to modernise and fundamentally alter common law provisions by setting out for all to see in black and white in statute the tests that one would expect to be met if the use of force by parents was going to constitute an assault? They responded by saying that they would end up with something close to what they already have. The question therefore is what is the point of that legislation and why has the current Government not sought to do anything to address the seemingly burning issue in over a decade in power? I would be particularly grateful, as I have already tried to ask, if the minister or the member in charge of the bill could set out in what circumstances parents who currently rely on the existing defence will be prosecuted if the bill passes unamended. John Finnie? I say again that the member is inferring that there is some new change of regime as regards investigation and prosecution. Absolutely nothing is changing with regard to that if the member had trouble to read the explanatory note accompanying the bill and listen to the evidence that was presented. Oliver Mundell. That comment from the member is quite frankly insulting. It makes a fundamental error on a point of law. That is that in this country, where a defence exists, it is considered by the Proculator Fiscal when deciding whether or not to take forward a prosecution. The likelihood of a defence succeeding makes a difference in whether or not prosecutors choose to prosecute. We have heard from legal experts, including Pamela Ferguson at the University of Dundee. We have heard from Michael Sheridan, one of the leading criminal law agents in Scotland, that this change, while not creating a new criminal offence, will criminalise behaviour that is currently lawful. That means that parents will be prosecuted, maybe not in great droves, but parents will be prosecuted and subject to police investigation in circumstances where they currently would not be. As I have already pointed to, even the Crown Office, who could be charitably said to have been reluctant to engage with this bill to date, recognised that challenges will arise when physical contact is of an extremely minor or trivial nature. Indeed, it is almost impossible to know when the Crown Office or Lord Advocate would consider the public interest test to be met. It is even more difficult to establish when matters would be considered sufficiently serious for the police to investigate, and it is not clear at all who will make that decision. As a parliamentarian, I have deep misgivings about passing legislation in an area as sensitive and controversial as this, which gives such wide discretion to individual police officers and prosecutors. When it comes to legislating in statute to remove centuries-old common law provisions, I believe that there is a duty on this Parliament to provide absolute clarity and to set out our intentions, not simply to make big bold claims and pass the responsibility for taking difficult and legally complex decisions on to others. The failure in this bill to set out that clarity is an abdication of responsibility, and the bill that is currently drafted is so imprecise that it fails to improve on the current state of affairs. What's more, we've heard from some confusion, indeed from witnesses before the committee, for clarity the law of assault doesn't require a forceful act and there need not be substantial violence or any injury. Indeed, it can include a slap, tapping someone on the back or even a gesture placing a person in a state of fear, even if there's no actual physical contact. That seems a very broad category of behaviour to turn the focus on to with regards to parents. It seems odd to me when witnesses such as the children's commissioner have said that they cannot foresee situations in which small physical interventions would end up in court when the law of assault seems to suggest different. That is the problem with this whole legislation. We haven't got into the legal detail. We've spent far longer having an ideological debate about whether it's right or wrong to hit people about whether or not it says that you can hit your children in the Bible. Those are not the right questions to be asking. We've not investigated this bill properly. I think that, quite frankly, it seems extremely odd to legislate to criminalise people for an action and then hope that it doesn't happen. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity today to participate in this stage 1 debate on the children's equal protection from assault Scotland bill. At the outset, just because legislation is centuries old, it doesn't mean that it's right. We, as parliamentarians and politicians, have a duty and an obligation to be progressive and to lead change. That is what this piece of legislation will do. As a member of the equality and human rights committee, I thank the individuals and organisations who have submitted evidence on this legislation. During our evidence sessions, including one in Skye, the committee heard robust contributions from a range of experts. It is on our evidence sessions and much of what is in the report that I will focus on today. That piece of legislation seeks to give equal protection from assault by prohibiting the physical punishment of children by parents and caregivers. The purpose, as we have already heard, is to abolish the defence of reasonable justizement. Parents and others caring for children can currently use this defence if they are facing a prosecution for assaulting a child. Let me be clear that this legislation is not about criminalising parents or criminalising carers. It is about giving children the same protection in the law that adults currently have. Oliver Mundell, I thank you for giving way. Will you be able to give a guarantee today that no parents will be prosecuted after the law changes? Mary Fee, I thank Oliver Mundell for that intervention. The intervention that he made on the minister when she was making her contribution, I think that she more than adequately covered that area. However, to Oliver Mundell, one thing that I have struggled with for people who say that we should not be removing this defence of reasonable justizement, if any one of us were walking down the road and we saw a carer out with an adult who had a learning disability and we saw that adult hitting that person with a learning disability, I would hope that we would all be absolutely horrified. That adult has protection and our children should have the same protection. I am grateful to Mary Fee for taking an intervention. I could not agree more with that point, but does she recognise that there is a fundamental difference in law between assault and reasonable justizement? Will she recognise that point? Mary Fee, I thank Liz Smith for that intervention. Any kind of assault is assault. You cannot justify it by saying that it was reasonable to hit. If you strike another person, you are assaulting them. The bill seeks to drive cultural change in Scotland to discourage the use of physical punishment. In evidence that we heard in committee demonstrated that physical punishment is harmful to children, we consistently heard that it is detrimental to the wellbeing of a child and is likely to lead to an increase in negative outcomes. The evidence that we heard strongly showed that parents, children and family support services are best served by adopting methods that do not involve physical punishment. By removing this defence, we are protecting children for harm, while also committing firmly to safeguarding children's human rights. Let's be clear, we are a Parliament that is a guarantor of human rights. Once again, we have an obligation to protect the human rights of children. Martin Canavan from Aberlour argued that there naturally exists an imbalance of power in adult-child relationships. As a result, it is critical that children are provided with as much protection in law as possible. That legislation will help Scotland to meet part of our international human rights obligations under the UNCRC. An article 19 of the UNCRC states that countries must take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect children from all forms of violence from any person caring for them. Scottish Labour is fully committed to the incorporation of the UNCRC into Scots law. That legislation is a step towards progressing that commitment. We heard a range of views for and against the principles of the bill. Submissions from organisations that work with and support children fully support the aims of the bill. I understand the concerns that many parents will have regarding the bill. Indeed, the majority of individuals who made submissions did not support the principles of the bill. There were concerns that suggested that banning smacking could overwhelm police and social workers, that loving parents should not be criminalised and that the ban would turn thousands of parents into potential criminals overnight. Individuals stated that smacking is not child abuse and that there is a clear difference between child abuse and loving parental discipline. I also understand concerns raised from parents arguing that the bill could lead to an increase in criminalisation for parents smacking their children. The bill does not make changes to policing or prosecution procedures or practices. The committee has been assured by Police Scotland that it would continue to take a view as to whether there is enough evidence to charge a person and the prosecution authorities would decide whether there is sufficient evidence to support a case. An international experience from countries that have already addressed the use of physical punishment suggests that prosecutions would not notably increase following implementation. Ireland unanimously repealed its common law defence of reasonable chisriesment in 2015. The committee took evidence from Gillian Van Turnu, a former Irish senator, who introduced the amendment that led to the prohibition of corporal punishment in Ireland. She said that, since the implementation of the law, Ireland has not seen a dramatic increase in the prosecution of parents. A key factor in the bill is its aim to facilitate a cultural change that protects children from violence. The public education strategy will seek to work in the same way that the ban on smoking in public places and legislation requiring the use of seat belts is done, not to criminalise but to encourage positive change. Finally, I want to touch on the issue of restraint in care settings. I have seen first-hand the use of restraint and the distressing impact that it can have on children and young people. We heard moving evidence from Mamie Beth Mia, a care experience young person who saw physical restraint as a violent and degrading experience. She said that the bill raises a grey area when a child is removed from their family home to be placed in care. The state then becomes the child's corporate parent and is suddenly okay for the state to restrain the child and to act in an almost assault-like manner that breaches human rights. I welcome the commitments that are being made by the Government to look further at the issue of restraint in care and education settings. I welcome the minister's comments in her contribution today, and I am happy to meet her to discuss further the issue of restraint. By giving children equal protection from assault, we are protecting children and safeguarding children's human rights. Through an effective public education strategy, the bill will aim not to criminalise but to create a positive culture change. Today is the first step in that journey to create a more positive culture. Scotland is not the only country that is on that journey. In its contribution, John Finnie spoke of other countries that have either introduced or are consulting on the introduction of similar legislation. At stage 2, I am sure that a number of amendments will be lodged to not only provide the clarity that many desire but also to strengthen the bill. For those reasons, I urge all members to support John Finnie's bill. I am delighted to speak on behalf of the Scottish Greens today in support of our colleague John Finnie's bill to give children equal protection from assault. I know how hard John is team in the wider equal protection campaign of work, and I am delighted to see the bill's progress towards this stage 1 vote. Children and young people in Scotland have rights, something that we widely recognise. However, as the evidence gathered during the process has shown, our laws are not yet in a position to adequately protect those rights. In 1989, the United Nations proposed a treaty that would lay out the rights of children, as was recognised in the original universal declaration of human rights some decades earlier. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was signed by the Government of the United Kingdom on 19 April 1990 and ratified by the UK Parliament in December of the following year. The preamble to the Convention on the Rights of the Child affirms that, precisely because of its physical and mental immaturity, children need special safeguards, including appropriate legal protections. Children are afforded human rights just as any adult is, and we recognise that they require bespoke rights just as other vulnerable groups do. Article 19 of the UNCRC is unequivocal. State parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence. Article 37 requires protection from torture or other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, reflecting the European Convention on Human Rights and other international treaties. Other articles reinforce the child's right to physical integrity and protection of their human dignity. Repeatedly, the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child has highlighted the continued failings of the UK in that respect and reiterated that the law, as it stands, in the constituent parts of the UK is in breach of this international treaty. The age of criminal responsibility would be another example of that, which is currently under consideration by this Parliament. It is all well and good for those rights to be enshrined at the international level, but the UK as a dualist system when it comes to international law has to give domestic effect to those rights. For a long time, we have treated international human rights as an afterthought, and we have treated those rights as something that is not really applicable to us and presumed that we were in compliance anyway. Over the past several years, things have gotten far worse. The UK's approach to human rights has turned in many cases from an afterthought to one of outright attack and hostility. Just last week, the UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions launched a blistering and utterly unfounded attack on the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Astin, for his report on the UK. That comes after similar responses by the UK Government to reports by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which found grave and systematic violations of disabled people's rights going on right now in the UK. Here in Scotland, we must be better. We can be better. We must take seriously our international commitment to human rights. Today, we have an opportunity to press forward with that commitment. Since we signed the UN treaty on the rights of the child, we have failed to uphold its obligations. The last time that Parliament considered the matter, it tinkered around the edges, hoping, I think, that that would satisfy the UN Committee. Of course, it did not, because the UK, including Scotland, was not willing to take the necessary steps, steps that I firmly believe that we are ready to take now. While the bill is a clear step forward towards recognising the rights of young people in Scotland, there is the broader issue of our human rights obligations and living up to them. Like other members, I was delighted when the Scottish Government announced that it would support and lead on incorporating the UNCRC fully into Scots law. I welcome the consultation that the Government has published in the last week to do just that. The credit for that really needs to go to the Scottish Youth Parliament, which is campaigning for children and young people's rights as an example for others across the islands and globally. Again, I hope that that will be a step that all parties can agree on, allowing us to fulfil our ambition to make Scotland a human rights leader and the best country in the world for children to grow up in. The work being undertaken by the new human rights task force will be a vital part of that. I sincerely hope that the Government seeks to move forward without undue delay with the recommendations of the advisory group on human rights that issued a report in December. Human rights must have a strong domestic basis in Scotland, lest we leave ourselves vulnerable to the disgraceful attacks on basic rights that we have seen characterise the current Westminster Government. To do that, we must legislate on specific rights issues, as the equal protection bill does, and seek to better incorporate international human rights law into Scots law. I would like to conclude by quoting Ian Campbell, who was the husband of Grace Campbell. Mrs Campbell, as some members might be aware, led the court case more than a decade before I was born, which saw the end of physical punishment in our schools. Mr Campbell, explaining Grace's philosophy, said, "...you just don't hit children. It's that simple." It really is that simple, which is why, on a personal level, I have been deeply frustrated by some, a minority, who have used the faith that I share with them as an excuse to oppose this bill. It is why I am very proud of the churches and other faith groups who have strongly supported the bill, because I believe not just as a matter of political conviction but as a matter of deeply held personal faith that children have the same inaliable human rights that we all have. Children and young people are rights holders in and of themselves. They have the right to be protected from assault. I urge all members to support the bill this evening and tell the children of Scotland that they are unbeatable. Alex Cole-Hamilton, six minutes, please. I want to start by offering my sincere thanks to John Finnie, and with the full-throated support of the Liberal Democrat benches tonight for his legislation. I am quite emotional. Members will know that I have spent my entire career prior to being elected to this place in children's rights. Over two decades, I have fought alongside colleagues in Children First, Abel-Ara, Benardos and others to end the physical punishment of children in this country. We have had setbacks and failure, but were it not for their grit and persistence, we would not be here today. It was my great privilege to address them at a rally outside the Parliament this morning. On one occasion, during that campaign 10 years ago, I appeared on Radio Scotland to debate physical punishment with an organisation opposed to change. Immediately after the programme finished, I got a call from my dad. He said, I am really proud of you for helping to lead this campaign. I only ever hit you once. You were two years old, your mum was in hospital having your sister, and you would not eat your dinner. You had a proper meltdown, so I slapped your legs. You turned around and you bit me in the face. He never hit me or my siblings again. I cannot remember a more deliberative process in a stage 1 proceedings of any bill that I have helped to scrutinise. We have heard evidence from academics, parenting experts, religious groups and criminal justice stakeholders. I want to thank each of them and the parliamentary staff of our committee in the conduct of this process. The overwhelming conclusion that I believe that Parliament should arrive at tonight from the evidence that we received at stage 1 is that we should join the ranks of the 54 countries that have extended the same protection to children in their societies as those enjoyed by adults. It is wholly wrong that children should be the only people in our society subject to assault without legal impediment. There is an international imperative for us to pass this bill as well. The United Nations persistently points out that we are not meeting our commitments either to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or the Convention against Torture. We are one of the last remaining countries in the whole of the Council of Europe not to have brought about this change. If we are truly to become the best country in the world to grow up, we will forever fail in that aim for as long as we allow the physical punishment of our children. We will forever fail in our aim also to eradicate domestic violence in the home while we legally or culturally sanction any kind of violence in our society. We shall fail in efforts to reduce violence in our streets in so long as we allow parents to teach children that violence is an acceptable tool of either sanction or anger. We all know that children learn by watching adults. Dr Lucy Reynolds, from the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, offered our committee empirical evidence to this reality in Bandura's Bobo Doll experiment. That demonstrated that children shown a film of an adult picking up a toy mallet and whacking a clown doll in a room full of toys did likewise when they entered the room, whereas children who hadn't been shown the film did not. She concluded in evidence to our committee that, as she said, children learn by mimicry and if you hit children you are teaching them to expect either to dominate or be dominated through physical violence. My father realised that the second I bit him. Crucially, John Mackenzie from Police Scotland, giving evidence to the committee, backed that view up when he told us that there appears to be a link between violence in the home and violence in wider society. I am not blind to the controversy that this policy shift represents, but I have satisfied myself that not one of those arguments deployed holds water. We have heard from the Conservatives this afternoon that the bill amounts to an assault on the rights of parents. I will ask Mr Fraser. I am going to give you a list of reasons for taking intervention. I listened with great interest in what you had to say, but would you accept that parents will discipline their children in a number of ways? They might put them on a naughty step if they are very young, they might exclude them from watching television or playing particular games, or they might ground them. None of those things will be acceptable if done to an adult. In fact, that would amount to domestic abuse if done in an adult setting. So, why are our children different from adults on this respect? Alex Cole-Hamilton I think that Murdo Fraser rather trivialises this, if he equates something like a YouTube ban to the physical assault of another human being. I am afraid that I just don't accept that in any way whatsoever. We have heard from the Conservatives that this bill amounts to an assault on parents' rights, but nowhere in treaties, either international or domestic, is there a right for you to hit your children. We heard the concerns of many who talked about legions of parents being marched through the courts for normal parenting behaviour, but they have no answer to the reality that, in countries such as New Zealand or Ireland, who are comparable and culturally to ourselves, they have virtually no additional prosecutions. Like the smoking ban, I need to make some progress. You didn't take mine. Like the smoking ban, such a change is not designed to criminalise, but rather affect a cultural change. I was gratified that Police Scotland confirmed that they would only bring such charges if it were in the public interest to do so. However, the most persistent argument that we came up against in terms of arguments against the change in the law can be described as the idea of protective punishment. It was used just on Radio Scotland this very morning that, if your child runs out into traffic or moves to put their hand in a fire, you need to retain the right to smack them so that they can learn not to do it again. Can I reassure those people that none of the 54 countries to have ended physical punishment of children have none of them experienced synaptic in child deaths on the road, nor have their pediatrics burned units seen a spike in admissions? The most compelling answer to their argument lies in the consideration of mental capacity. My friend, former Irish senator Gillian Fan Turnhout, who delivered the legislation in Ireland, told our committee that running out into traffic argument was used in Ireland. Someone on the radio helped to give the example, however, of her grandmother, who has Alzheimer's. She said that she would not think to hit her grandmother if she ran out into traffic, so why would we choose to hit someone of similar cognitive ability but who was just smaller? Arla was basically saying that you can hit someone as long as they are smaller than you. I agree with Gillian and every proponent of John Finnie's bill, and I say once again that it is wholly wrong that the smallest people in our society should be the only ones that you can raise a lawful hand to. I support his legislation. We move to the open debate. Speeches of six minutes, please. Angela Constance, followed by Annie Wells. I have to confess that I find it pleasing that it is an ex-police officer that is bringing the legislation forward in Parliament, because it tackles head-on many of the lazy stereotypes about those who serve or who have served in our justice system. Mr Finnie is to be commended because, while I support his bill unreservedly, it is nonetheless a very emotive subject. It is difficult to discuss because, right away, you tap into at least one of three things. First, as I referred to earlier, there is that school of opinion. That school of thought will say that I was smacked, sgelked, hammered or leathered in whatever language you may choose to use and it never harmed me. It is not my place to tell someone that their own personal testimony is wrong. We know that some folk are undoubtedly more resilient than others, but it is fair and accurate to point to a body of evidence that says, overall, physical punishment is more harmful than helpful and, at the end of the day, it does not actually work. Secondly, we will also encounter adults who will recount their own childhood experience that may well have been in keeping with the times in which they grew up and they do so with pain. It is not always associated with the severity of the physical punishment that they experienced, but it was how it made them feel. I visited a day centre not that long ago for older people. One of the ladies was given very forthright opinions, as is her right, about how some young folk need to be brought into line. That resulted in one of the gentlemen making one of the most emotional pleas that I have ever heard in my life about how no child should ever be hit. The third issue that we bump up against that makes it difficult to discuss is parents. Parents of today, with all our worries, are angst about doing the right thing and whether or not we will be judged by those who are meant to be supporting us in doing what, at the end of the day, is the most important job that we will ever have. I am going to decline today, Ms Smith, because I am not going to take interventions because, like good parenting, it is important to remain calm. I want to point to the fact that today's parents are least likely to smack or to even find it useful. In my experience, most parents do not want to smack their children. If they do, they do it because they are at the end of their rope and then they instantly regret it. Yet, as citizens and as a society, we still find it hard to find the best and the simplest ways to support parents. A number of years ago, I was at the shops and this will be a scene that will be familiar to many, but there was a young woman, she was shouting at her wee one, she was yanking him up with his arm. It was really difficult to watch, because I thought that his arm could come out of its socket. I had this real anxiety about what I should do, if anything. I am the local MSP, a former social worker and, to boot, I was an education minister at the time. I did not want to ignore the distress of this mum or a wee one, but neither did I want to be intrusive or heavy-handed. I started rummaging about my handbag, found a sweetie, circled up to the mum and asked her if it would help if I gave the wee one this sweetie. It was just enough to interrupt the flow. The wee one glowered at me and then gobbled a sweetie. All I said to her at the end of the day is, it's no easy, is it? This was a young woman who had a toddler, but she also had a newborn and she was absolutely knackered. I, for one, would not support the bill if I thought, for one minute, it would increase the prospects of mums like this young woman being criminalised. While I accept that all countries and jurisdictions are different, there is considerable comfort to be taken that 54 countries have travelled this road before us. The UK is only one of four European countries that have yet to travel this terrain, so we are not exactly blazing a trail here. Although the bill is not itself a silver bullet, I believe that it will help us to have a better discussion about parents hitting their kids and therefore a better response to supporting parents. If we remind ourselves about the detail of the need to be compliant with the UNCRC and the wholesale approach of article 191 that calls on Governments to take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect a child, this surely is merely an incremental extension of GERFECT. We should be helping to support that behaviour change that is already happening and the law needs to be clearer. Children having the same protection under the law as adults is clearer. By removing justifiable assault, reasonable chastisement as a defence, we do not change prosecution or child protection practice. There has been oodles of evidence in front of the committee that has demonstrated that. Mr Finnie's bill is not just seeking my view to do the right thing, but he has found the right way to do it. Annie Wells, followed by Rona Mackay. Throughout stage 1, I have been clear on my concerns about the children's equal protection from assault bill. None of us in the chamber would ever condone violence against a child and neither would the public. Yet we are debating a bill, a proposed bill, that would see many loving parents criminalised. It is absolutely key to this debate today that we make a distinction between reasonable chastisement from parents and disproportionate punishment or assault, something that is recognised by current law. While members might disagree with me on that point, there is no way of escaping the fact that the bill will be practically unworkable. In 2002, the Justice Committee at the time dismissed the proposal on the grounds that it would be unworkable, unenforceable and that there was no evidence to suggest that it would reduce the harm to children. This time round, the bill has been under the watch of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, of which I am a member. As Oliver Mundell and I said in our minority statement, as well as not being convinced of parents' support for this bill, we do not believe that it will provide legal clarity and in its current drafted form may be open to future legal challenge. In our view, it will create a small but not insignificant grey area where the use or perceived potential use of physical force to protect a child's safety or for the purposes of restraint by parents may be misconstrued or reported to the police as assault. The fact is that, in practice, the police would have to, at the very least, instigate some form of investigation into the circumstances around extremely minor cases. These situations will no doubt bring stress and angst to many loving and caring parents, how frequently such referrals would be made to the Procurator Fiscal and whether those would lead to full-blown criminal trials is still unknown. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal did state that it is quite possible that reporters to the police would rise. Police Scotland also stated that the bill would increase reporters' support to the police, and that they would be able to provide legal clarity to the police. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal did state that it is quite possible that Police Scotland also stated that the bill would increase reporting of crimes with potential costs and resource implications. Many of the written submissions to the committee raised concerns that the bill would increase pressure on services such as police, courts and social work. Significantly, the Lord Advocate has not yet provided oral evidence before the committee, and given that the bill would mean that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal service had to make determinations on whether to criminalise parents, I believe that that is vitally important, and I am pleased that that will be taken place next week. As we mark 20 years of devolution with the creation of the Scottish Parliament, we should be thinking about how we pass good legislation, not legislation that would potentially come under scrutiny for years to come if passed. We must pass legislation that is clear and uncomplicated, and it must be workable. I would like to raise a final point during this debate in relation to the Government's right to interfere with family life. Pauline has shown that parents in Scotland do not support this bill. A UGov survey in 2017 found that 54 per cent of Scots said that smacking should not be banned with only 25 per cent of people in support of the ban. A month after the bill was introduced, a panel-based survey found that only 30 per cent of people supported the prohibition on smacking with more than half—53 per cent—believing that it should be allowed. Alex Cole-Hamilton I am grateful to the member for giving away. Does she not also recognise that other surveys— Mr Cole-Hamilton, could you speak to the microphone, please? My apologies, Presiding Officer. Does she not recognise that other surveys have shown that parents support the equalisation of protection from assault of children? Does she also recognise that we, as a Parliament, should always follow public opinion whatever it says, or should we sometimes try to lead it? Annie Wells What I am trying to say here is that we need to pass good legislation and legislation that is workable and enforceable. Many constituents have come to me over the last few months concerned about the risks that the bill would pose to loving and caring parents. Parents are concerned that, despite the bill's best intentions, it represents an intrusion into family life. One individual stated that it suggests that the Government is above parents who, if this bill is passed, will have decision-making power in the home. Another stated that it is only parents who know their child best and how to approach the sometimes very difficult task of parenting. As with name persons legislation, the bill implies that parents do not know what is best for their children and that parents cannot be trusted to make the distinction between reasonable chastisement and assault. The reality of the situation is that legislation already rightly makes us distinction. If meaningful work is to be done on eradicating violence against children, we should not divert the focus of police and prosecutors and bring it on to good and loving parents who choose, often only very occasionally, to use mild physical intervention to discipline their own children. The bill represents a heavy-handed approach that, despite its best intentions, may in fact distract from our responsibility to protect children. The law currently already protects children from violence and it works well. The reality is that a majority of Scottish people are against the bill as it would criminalise loving parents. We should listen to those concerns, avoid the temptation to virtuosignal and focus on passing good legislation. That is why I will not be supporting the bill at stage 1. I am very happy to be speaking in this debate. I would like to state the outset that I am fully supportive of this bill and I thank John Finnie for bringing it forward. The Scottish Government has always strived to promote and protect children's rights and I believe this bill is an integral part of that. It would bring Scots law into line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which makes it clear that there should be an end to corporal punishment in all settings, including the home. Presently, the United Kingdom is one of only four countries in the EU not to legislate against the physical punishment of children in all settings. Scotland must lead the way here. Children do not have the same protection against the assault that adults do, and that is simply shocking. Hitting children can never be justified. There is no such thing as justifiable assault. If there is not for adults, why should it be so for children? It is an admission that, as an adult… Alex Cole-Hamilton I am very grateful to Rowan Mackay for giving away. Does she agree with me that the Conservatives have said several times in this debate that this law is unworkable, but the defence of reasonable punishment or reasonable chastisement used to apply to men's assault of their wives and of their servants, but happily were repealed some time ago? Rona Mackay Thank you. I absolutely agree that it is totally archaic and should be removed entirely. It is an admission that, as an adult, you have lost control if you have to hit your child, and lashing out can only send the message to your child that hitting will bring the desired result. We know that children are affected by learned behaviour, and that will result in problems for them at the start of their lives—for example, at nursery or school, where they will lash out to get the result that they want and can carry on throughout their life. The bill is not about changing the law. As the stage 1 report stated, as well as providing a legislative solution, there needs to be a comprehensive public education and awareness campaign. Many years ago, I witnessed a distressing scene outside my local supermarket. A mother and her young son, probably aged around 12, were physically fighting with each other, kicking and slapping an equal measure. Shoppers looked down, embarrassed and no one intervened, including I am ashamed to say myself. That incident has stayed in my mind for years after I witnessed it. If the correct legislation had been in place, I am certain that people would have stepped in to say that this is not acceptable and it is illegal, but no one wanted to intervene believing that it was a private matter. I never want to see anything like that again, and it is just one example of why I am entirely supportive of the bill. In my view, there is no reasonable argument against equal protection for children. An excellent briefing from Children First, Bernardus in NSPC Scotland, points out, as we have heard, that former Irish Senator Gillian Van Turnout, who was instrumental in legislation change in the public of Ireland, states that social workers have said that they now have the ability to send a clear message to parents where they can say that they are not allowed to hit their children, so let's talk about what you can do, let's talk about positive parenting. In Ireland, there is an overwhelmingly positive message from civil society organisations and state agencies regarding the clarity that the change in law has brought. I believe that civil society in Scotland will experience that too. That bill and raising public awareness of it will help to create a culture change as seen in other countries and in Scotland around public health issues such as smoking and seatbelts. It will clearly show that Scotland does not tolerate violence against anybody, particularly the smallest, most vulnerable people in our society, children. I believe that legislators have a duty to act when it becomes clear that the law is out of step and out of date with what evidence is saying. The evidence shows that physical punishment doesn't work and can be harmful. Children and their families deserve a law that reflects that. That bill is about changing attitudes to physical punishment of children in Scotland. It's not about making prosecutions easier or criminalising people, it's to prevent others from carrying out those actions in the first place because we know they are harmful. My grandchildren can't believe that when I was at school, children were assaulted by the belt as a punishment. I want them to know that, as they grew up, it was this Government in Scotland that gave them equal protection against all forms of violence. It's our duty to do this for future generations. In conclusion, I am delighted to support the general principles of the Equal Protection Scotland bill. I'm sure that there are few parents who could put their hand on their heart and say that they had never smacked a child. People of my generation were not only used to being smacked as children, but we also ran the gauntlet of the belt to school. Something I'm pleased to say is long gone. What is clear is that using different forms of non-physical chastise works better, and it also takes attention out of the situation. Time out, for example, removes emotion but lets the child know that they've done wrong and have forfeited their freedom as a result. As I said, in my youth, physical punishment was widespread both at school and at home, and most of it was carried out proportionately, but some not. It was difficult to see where that line was drawn. When physical punishment was banned at school, we heard the same arguments that we are now hearing today. Children went home with bruised and blooded wrists. How on earth was that right? I don't think that anybody would go back to those days. I remember a number of years ago walking down the street ahead of some adults and children. One little boy was whinging away. Yes, he was annoying, but he was hardly bad. He was warned to shut up on a number of occasions. Then I heard him being physically punished. I was ahead and could only hear that. I could hear the smacks raining down on him, I could hear his screams of pain, and the more he cried, the more he was smacked. Alongside that came the verbal assault about how terrible a child he was. There was no love whatsoever in that punishment and the horror of it remains with me to this day. I am clear that it was not reasonable just asment, but how could I prove that? Should I have intervened? To my shame, I did not. I went home, feeling sick to my stomach. I did not see it. I had heard it. I wonder what became of that child. He will be an adult now. His starting life leaves me with little hope for his future. We have all witnessed when a child has done something naughty and ran into the road without looking. We have seen the parent grab an arm, pulled them back, and we have heard that parent shout at them, telling them how dangerous that was. No one questions the reaction to a fright. Frankly, you would do the same if an adult was to run into the road as well, and no one would consider that assault. Prosecutions need to be in the public interest and there has to be intent. We hear from other countries that removing the protection of reasonable just asment has not led to an increase in prosecution, but what it does is remove a defence against abuse. We all know the difference between assault and intervention to promote safety, to say that parents will be criminalised, I believe, as nonsense. That said, there will be a few spurious reports, I am sure, especially parents at war, but we know that we have checks and balances in our justice system. There is a process to go through, a police investigation, corroboration and then the oversight of prosecutors. Those provide safeguards to spurious prosecutions and I will take the intervention. Liam Kerr. Just on that point, the member talks about spurious reports. What is the member's view of that? Presumably that is collateral damage on this analysis that perfectly good parents may be subject to the criminal justice system. Rhoda Grant. That is not a reason to continue allowing the assault of a child. There are always spurious allegations. We need to deal with that and make sure that anyone making that is charged with wasting police time apart from anything else. That does not mean that we do not legislate to protect children. There are also concerns when people are voicing that it interferes with family life, but the law, as it stands, currently interferes with family life because it is allowing a different bar with regard to chastisement by a parent compared to that of another adult. To follow that argument through to its conclusion, you could argue that taking action against domestic abuse is also interfering in family life. Family for most of us is the safest place that you can be, surrounded by loved ones who have your best interests at heart, but it is not the case for all. We all know that child abuse happens. How many others, like me, did not interfere because the law allows reasonable chastisement. How does my reasonableness compare with yours? The law needs to protect young and old alike. I thank the member for giving way and I thank her for raising an important point because people have different ideas about what is reasonable and what is severe enough to merit intervention from the police. Does she agree that it would be better if the bill was set out in detail tests that made it very clear and obvious what was right and what was wrong? We all know what is the difference between assault and pulling somebody back. We do not walk down the street and wonder if someone has been assaulted. If we see someone being assaulted, we know it. It is the same with children, but what it does is make it very clear that we should not have a different bar for children than we do for adults. We recognise what assault is and, if we start trying to categorise that in the law, we create loopholes. That would be very unhelpful at this stage. I understand that there are different views about that. Who has not had a moment of right with a child and grabbed them, smacked them or whatever, but that does not mean that it is right. It takes time and consistency to make time out of alternative work, and we know that parents face competing demands. However, we are the adults, the parents are the adults, and we need to educate the whole of society in good parenting skills, and we need to learn patience with children. If I could just finish off on a small point, how many of us have seen a child having a meltdown, a baby crying and watched people tutting at the parent for not controlling that child? I have also seen on occasions where another adult steps in and helps. I think that we all need to be more tolerant and learn to step in and help rather than criticise. Gail Ross, followed by Gordon Lindhurst. Can I agree with the comments made by Rhoda Grant in her very last paragraph of her speech? I thank the member in charge of the bill, John Finnie, for bringing it forward and his staff as well for all their hard work. It has been stated already, but it is worth stating again that article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that I quote, "...state parties must take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect children from all forms of physical or mental violence from any person who has care of the child." We are incorporating the UNCRC and Scots law in the term of this Parliament. We aren't just getting it right for every child. We have one of the most sophisticated welfare-based systems of dealing with children who offend. We have a baby box. We are becoming trauma informed, yet we still have a defence in the law that says that if you are a parent or a carer and you are charged with hitting a child, you can fall back on a defence of reasonable chastisement. The bill, as we have heard, does not create a new offence. It removes that defence. It also aims to foster a change in societal attitudes with alternative methods of positive parenting that do not include punishing children physically. As John Finnie and Rona Mackay have already mentioned, parallels have been drawn with other culture changes that began with legislation that maybe weren't that popular at the start, including the wearing of seat belts or smoking indoors in public places. In oral evidence sessions to the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, the vast majority of witnesses agreed that the evidence in favour of removing this is overwhelming and that the bill has to become law if we are to see a change. At this point, I would like to thank all the witnesses that gave evidence, but I would also especially like to thank our clerks for the absolutely fantastic job that they did in sometimes extremely challenging circumstances. Despite what has been written in the minority statement, the convener and the clerks made every effort to try and get different views on whether the principles of the bill could be supported or not. We did hear from some witnesses that smacking, used in the context of a loving family setting, only administered in extreme circumstances perhaps to communicate a message of safety, could and should still be used. However, there was an overwhelming volume of evidence to explain why even what is constituted as mild or reasonable smacking should not be used. NHS Tayside told the committee that physical punishment of children is associated with a range of adverse outcomes, including emotional and behavioural problems, anxiety and depression, physical abuse and antisocial behaviour, and violence in childhood and adulthood. Additionally, the evidence is that physical punishment does not work, it is ineffective in achieving moral internalisation of the values and behaviours that the discipline is trying to encourage. Why do parents smack? Is it just a momentary lapse of control or is it used systematically by parents to communicate while it can be both? I pressed that point in two of our evidence sessions in order to understand better why smacking was used. I was told by one witness that smacking is communicating with a child through light pain, and by another that it was indeed a slightly painful thing. Should children learn through fear of pain? No, I do not think that they should. Children should learn through love and understanding. I am very grateful to the member for that, because she knows that I have a lot of sympathy with what she says, but is not the logical extension that it is better to educate parents not to go down the route rather than risking criminalising them? Gail Ross. I am happy that Liam Kerr has brought that up, because I will address that later on in my speech, and I will come to that. There were also a number of concerns about criminalising parents, additional burdens on resources and existing staff, but we did hear evidence that other countries such as Ireland that have brought in similar legislation have seen little or no increase in the prosecution of parents. However, however, we envisage that there may be an increase in reporting and that resources will have to be put in place to deal with that. That will include more positive parenting advice and help for families for whom English is not a first language, and who also may come from countries where corporal punishment is more widely used. Should the bill become law, as has been mentioned before, there will have to be an awareness-raising campaign and guidance for professionals and organisations. Angela Constance, in her brilliant speech, talked about parenting not being easy, and I think that all the parents in the chamber will agree with that. You do not need to be a parent to know that this is the right thing to do, but what we need to be very careful about is making sure that the message is not to make children that have been smacked think that they are damaged in any way, and we must also ensure that parents who currently use or have used smacking in the past are not guilty and made to feel like they have done something wrong. This is not an exercising guilt, it is about education and understanding. In conclusion, the bill sees the rights of children put on a par with adults, and it encourages a culture change. However, it has been argued that, in this case, a change in culture cannot happen without legislation, and that is to deal with Liam Kerr's point. If we were only to do a public awareness-raising campaign, that there is no justification to hit a child but then still have a justification for it in our legal system, it sends out completely the wrong message to parents. I will leave you with the words of Gillian Van Turnhout, the former Irish senator and committee witness, quote, We know that when a child is hit, they immediately forget everything that happened beforehand, because the person whom they love and cherish has hit them. There is no connection to what the child did. The law is clear that you do not raise your hand to another adult, the law also needs to be clear that you do not raise your hand to a child either, and this bill brings that clarity. Gordon Lindhurst, followed by Christine Grahame. Deputy Presiding Officer, it gives me no pleasure to speak in today's debate, but someone needs to speak up for Scotland's children, parents and families. Our current criminal law rightly prohibits parents from assaulting their children, and that is the way it should be. I think that that is a unanimously agreed proposition, at least I would hope so. We already have the right laws and procedures in place to guarantee this. The misleadingly named children equal protection from assault bill is not about protecting, supporting and nurturing our children and families. It is a misguided attempt to tell parents how to raise their own children under threat of being treated as criminals and facing the full force of the state if they do not. However, I will not take an intervention at this stage, as I want to address the imbalance that has been in the debate before this place. However, while well-meaning, some supporters of the bill may be, they overlook that crucial point. Families are the bedrock of any stable and civilised society in which the best interests of children can be protected. The state cannot pretend to replace the family and one that does will fail—a point clearly made by the UK Supreme Court in the name to person's case. Johnathan's assumption that QC recently retired justice of the UK Supreme Court makes a key point in his recent Reath Lectures on BBC Radio 4 about the problem with a lot of current lawmaking. He says, and I quote, we are afraid to let people be guided by their own moral judgments in case they arrive at judgments which we do not agree with. That is what we are dealing with here and such bad law upsets good families. Consideration, I have to say, of the bill before us has been a far cry from the informed, careful and considered approach taken with the current law, which was clarified in 2003. Supporters of the bill have had the free run of proceedings before this Parliament and in committee. In spite of an overwhelming response to the committee for members of the public against the bill, it chose to hear overwhelmingly in its public proceedings from supporters instead, nor did it hear in those public sessions from many who submitted against the bill. Crucially, individuals in the front line dealing with the courts and child protection experts—not at this stage—experts in the practice in their field and the workings of our current law. Surely the Lord Advocate, head of Scotland's prosecution service, should have appeared before the committee to answer questions on the bill. But no, we are told that he is invited to give evidence later. It is entirely unsatisfactory in these circumstances for Parliament to be asked to approve the bill. And what of the unsatisfactory unresolved issue of the alteration of the committee minutes rightly raised by my colleague Oliver Mundell in his point of order on 15 May? The provision of parliamentary and other publicly funded resources to support and promote the bill on all sides but a lack of availability to those who wish to scrutinise. Lack of openness, lack of transparency and unwillingness to listen and a failure to respond to concerns raised. Those are issues that simply will not go away. My fear is that the committee and the Parliament will receive a simple fail from the public on this one if, if the situation is not addressed now. Because the message sent out 20 years after this Parliament began is that it is neither the people's Parliament nor a listening Parliament. We are being asked to approve a bill and proposition that has not changed one eye OTA since conception to coming to this point. In spite of the information by SPICE pointing to the crucial differences in other legal systems, this bill does not propose what they have as law in New Zealand nor in other countries which are relied upon. Those are differences which should have been the subject of full consideration and research, not carried out in spite of my request for it. In fact, the unanimous public evidence from supporters of the bill in any event to the committee that parents should not be criminalised by finding them or imprisoning them has in effect equally been ignored for this is what the bill provides for. If it needed amendment at the outset it now obviously does. Elected politicians really should not assume they have some sort of divine right to tell others what to do. I conclude quoting the words of a mother and constituent who wrote to me last week. That is what she wrote to me among other things. The state has ever made an awful parent. I am tired of special interest groups, selective consultations, liberal virtue signalling and media bias trumping plain decency and common sense. I confess that my faith in politicians to act in line with democracy is at an all-time low. Could you restore it, please? Speak, act and vote against John Finnie's children equal protection from assault Scotland bill, and that is what I shall do. Christine Grahame, followed by Claire Baker. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Can I begin by congratulating the member on his commitment to his member's bill as one who has defuned this Parliament? I am only to aware of the time and effort that goes into this process. As a preliminary, let me also say that, like everyone in here, I understand but do not support someone smacking his or her children for wrongdoing. I also find it patronising to be told or to be alluded to not by someone in here that someone of a certain vintage does not want to ban smacking because, quote, I was smacked and it did me no harm. I am not in that category. Times change and rightly so. Ross Greer reminded us that the toss was banned decades ago, quite rightly. My sons do not and never have smacked or used physical punishment on their children, neither do I or my grandchildren what granny does. I would be hard put to recall any time in recent years when I have seen a pair physically punishing a child in public, shouting and even screaming at them in the supermarket. Yes, and as a parent I can understand why that can happen and that can be just as harmful but not hitting them. So first question, do we need this legislation? Policies that have changed our views on disciplining and parenting, the provision of free nursery places, education and social mores, have meant that in public places smacking is to all intents and purposes gone for good or at worst out of sight, and indeed rights can be enshried in common law and case law not only in statute. Second question, if this proceeds as it stands, what then will be the impact on private places, the family home? Will the parents who relied on so called justifiable assault a most unfortunate term think twice? Will parents postpone punishment with the words, wait till I get you home? If breached and reported, by whom? What will the evidence be? Will every report require a police visit, a report? Corroboration will be required for any proposed prosecution. I can just make a little point, and then I quote from Gene Neill Hunter, Scottish Children's Report, his administration who states, The existence of a spectrum of violence in children's lives, particularly in the household, has a very adverse impact on their wellbeing and outcomes. I couldn't agree more, Mr Finnie. John Finnie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm very grateful for the member taking an intervention, as a matter of point, the children's reporter system support the bill. I wonder if the member would acknowledge that much of what she said in relation to the assault on children in the house could apply to domestic violence, which is now rightly addressed in a different approach by not only the public but the statutory agencies. I'll address the part about the children's reporter. The point is that he didn't say that what he did say was that it really is particularly in the household. My concern is that, while this proposed legislation may be something in public places, I really cannot see how it could successfully operate where in the private, in the home, where it would be difficult to please, difficult to prosecute. Indeed, the stage 1 report remarks on the small number of prosecutions following the Criminal Justice Scotland Act 2003, which prohibited shaking or use of an implement. First, the small number of prosecutions referred to in the report does not necessarily establish the 2003 act changed behaviour. It may have. We don't know or are not told in the stage 1 report. How many police investigations were there, how many reports and how many of these went to the crown and how many of the crown did not proceed with through lack of evidence or because it was not in the public interest? It is a case of having detailed evidence. Did parents stop shaking in public at least because of public pressure and similarly with hitting or because of the 2003 act? How many public even know of the 2003 act and what it does? What we do know is that children are still hit, shaken, beaten, smacked in private when cases end up either with social work or can tragedies make front-page headlines. Will the bill change that? I don't know. It seems, from the social work evidence at least, as I read it, that it will not impact on their caseload. There is a necessity for clarity in the law. The definition that is given in the bill is that physical punishment of a child in the exercise of a parental right or a right derived from having charge or care of a child is justifiable and is therefore not an assault ceases to have effect. It is therefore an assault. Whether it is prosecuted or not is another matter, but it is still an assault. The definition of assault in Scots law is, as I understand it, a physical attack on another or threat of such, which is intended to cause bodily injury or which puts the victim in a state of fear that he or she may be about to suffer bodily injury. Those two to me do not sit side by side. I am picking this. A child slapped across the arm for some wrongdoing, which fits in with the member's definition of an assault, but would you call it an attack? As by definition it is an assault that will require some inquiry, although at the end of the day the Crown may decide that it is not in the public interest to prosecute. I understand that. Again, I agree that it is a shame that the evidence of the Lord's advocate was not heard before we get to the stage 1 report. It is crucial as head of prosecutions and at looking at what is in the public interest in Scotland. What is the payment? Again, I will stick to a public place to believe that it is appropriate to do. A slap in the hand for reaching for the forbidden sweets at the checkout is certainly an assault, as defined by the bill. While I really understand the entirely worthy motives of the member, there are too many unanswered questions for me to support this bill as it stands, like an elephant, which is better defined visually likewise as an assault. We know an elephant when we see one and we should certainly know an assault when we see one. Statute legislation can be heavy-handed, forgive the metaphor, is a heavy-handed way of delivering social change. As the bill currently stands, it is in my view not fit for purpose, with a whole host of possible unintended consequences. As Angela Constance said quite rightly, it is good that it leads to a better discussion and parenting, but statute needs to be robust and tested before and acted. We need more evidence, I need at least before I'll support this accordingly. It's my intention to abstain at decision time. Good intentions must be matched by good legislation. Claire Baker, followed by James Jordan. I'd like to first thank the committee for the work that they have done over recent months to produce this stage 1 report. They have attempted to be surer and engage with the debate that surrounds the member's bill from John Finnie, and I also thank the member and his team for their work. I recognise that there was a minority position on the bill from the Conservative members, which questions some of that work. However, as all of us on committees recognise, and as an MSP who has recently scrutinised the census amendment bill—I have recent experience—it can be challenging to satisfy all views on what are sometimes contentious issues. However, while some will put the case that has been articulated during the stage 1 evidence that the bill negates the rights of parents and family life, that it demonstrates the interference of the state and that it denies the right to religious freedoms, those are not arguments that I find convincing reasons to stop the progress of the bill. I am convinced by the argument that children should receive the same protection under the law as adults. I agree with that general principle and I support the bill proceeding on that basis. While John Finnie introduced the bill in 2017, that is not the first time that this issue has been discussed in Parliament. My former colleague Scott Barry, who was the first MSP for Dunfermline, argued the case in the early days of the Parliament and received quite a challenging time from the media. The then Scottish Executive introduced a consultation on the issue before going on to introduce some legislative changes that others have outlined today. You can look back on that previous debate and reflect on why there was not broad enough support at the time. The law was changed to give parents a justification through reasonable trustisement under circumstances. We did not then have a commitment to introduce the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the voices of children and young people were not heard or listened to then, as they are now, and the Parliament in its early days was not free of controversy and questions over its relevance. All those factors contributed perhaps to the limited changes that were then made. So this is unfinished business of the Scottish Parliament and as a serious modern legislature that is committed to meeting its international human rights obligations and not being in breach of the UNCRC, we need to remove the defence of reasonable trustisement. We have been on a path that has dramatically changed our society's attitudes towards children and young people. We no longer have corporal punishment in schools, we recognise the rights of children to protection, physical assault as a means of teaching or controlling children is increasingly unacceptable and now recognised as counterproductive. As a society, we still have issues with violence and, while we can point to factors such as alcohol as an aggravator for that, we should recognise that a society that permits the physical trustisement of children is acceptable needs to reflect on what terms that sets for adult and future parental relationships. Research into the effectiveness of physical punishment as a parenting tool finds that it is not effective in achieving parental goals. There is little evidence to suggest that it improves children's behaviour in the long term and that it can exacerbate the problem behaviour. Although the committee heard evidence from groups representing adults, it did take considerable evidence from children and young people, including curcody YMCA juniors. I did reflect on it. I saw an episode of Super Nanny a few years ago and it was a family with loving parents who used smacking as a means of exerting parental authority. The dad who did the smacking was not arranged when he did it, it was a controlled reaction to bad behaviour and they thought that it did not cause any harm. They did a secret interview with the children and expressed their love for their parents and how happy they were, but said that they upset them when they got smacked and spoiled the relationship with their father. When the parents saw it, I can remember the reaction of the parents, they were absolutely horrified that their behaviour was having this impact on their children. They did not conceive that what they thought was light parental control with a bit of smacking was causing their children that level of concern and it changed those parents' behaviour. So being a parent can at times be difficult and children of all ages can be frustrating and parents wish to protect them from harm. The examples of children running into roads or reaching out to fires, resulting in a tap on the wrist that then leads to prosecution and I feel trivial examples. There is no evidence of support that that is what is happening in countries that have already enacted similar legislation. As Dr Louise Hill informed the committee, international research indicates that there is no increase in prosecutions as a result of a change in legislation. There is, however, a decrease in the use of physical punishment and a decrease in physical assault. She also said that we think that there could be a reduction in prosecutions as a result of the bill because of the culture change that will happen. At present, the UK is one of only four countries in the EU not to legislate against the physical punishment of children in all settings. There is no evidence to support concerns that loving parents will be criminalised or that protection services will be overwhelmed. I respect those who have raised concerns over those issues and it will be the job of future sages of the bill or accompanying guidance to further address those concerns but I do believe that the bill is workable and can be implemented in a way that is understood by parents, by the police and courts that is enforced in a way that is sensible and proportionate. No one argued during stage 1 in favour of hurting children and no one supported violence against children but views differed on whether smacking was a violent act. While the bill's consultation receives significant support, there is a challenge to address in public polling. Although there is a degree of support for smacking, there is also strong support for protecting children and some of us see that as a contradiction. But smacking is not just about the degree of violence, it is about preferring a physical reaction over communication. It is about exerting power in a way that can be humiliating and hurtful. Adults who defend smacking because it did them no harm do still remember that they were smacked and they rarely talk about the good that it did them. The bill extends the same legal protection for our children that exist for adults and I am pleased to support the general principles. I also would like to pay tribute to John Finnie for his tireless working commitment to bringing this bill about today. It is bill may not have unanimous backing, certainly not in the Parliament nor by the public, but it is a vital step forward in creating a fairer and more equal society for all in Scotland and children and young people should rightly be at the very heart of this. I feel a few constituents visit my surgeries to discuss this issue on both sides of it and although I do not sit in the Equalities and Human Rights Committee as a father and a grandfather, I have been very interested in the progress and information of the bill over the past months. For myself, it has been worthwhile trying to understand what young people themselves think about being smacked as a form of discipline or as some parents have expressed as a form of guidance. The Scottish Youth Parliament is an institution that we should be immensely proud of. Before I make my point, I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank the two MYSPs in my constituency, Ellie Craig and Zanib Ahmad, for the hard-working commitment to our community and, of course, all the other MSYPs, whose contributions often help mould debates in legislation such as today's. As mentioned by John Finnie, the Scottish Youth Parliament included the issue of physical punishment in a consultation in 2016, in which it received over 72,000 responses from Scottish young people, 82 per cent of which agreeing that physical assault on children should be illegal. It is pretty clear from research and anecdotal evidence that children find smacking hurtful at upsetsome and an adult lifting their hands to a young child would be a terribly traumatic experience but also has no long-term positive effect. I grew up in a home where both my parents were pretty strict and I was always well aware where the line was, but my father was able to command my respect with lifting his hand to me only twice and I can assure you I completely understand why he felt they need to do that at the time. The only time I physically punished one of my kids was when we were crossing the road, he slipped out my hand and stepped back into the road. I managed to grab him, pull him back to me, I then skelped his behuki whilst hogging him at the same time, talk about mixed messages. The reality is, of course, that I never skelped him to teach him a lesson but as an instinct based on my fear of what could have happened he would have got much more from my show of affection and concern than the skelp ever gave him. As it was the same in the millions of occasions where my dad explained comforted and cared for me than the two occasions mentioned earlier, because they did absolutely nothing for or to me, and all those two occasions—all those occasions did was—they embarrassed my dad and I was embarrassed and ashamed by my behaviour after the wheel was running across the road. I have seen a few people protesting this bill saying things like, my parents hit me when I was younger and it never caused me any harm. However, we could say this about many things in my generation's youth. For example, I rode my bike without my helmet. The fact that I never had an accident was just luck. We sat with our children in uneasened cars and just prayed that there wouldn't be an accident and I could keep on listing safety issues of my youth, which never harmed me, but the fact is that they could have and sadly did harm many others. Legislation, like today's bills, are important steps to trying to help alter our behaviour and that's why as a Government and as a Parliament we must take progressive steps to protect our children and to encourage parents as they continue to grow. Earlier in the speech, I mentioned that I had some constituents coming to my surgeries concerned that their rights as a parent and grandparent were being removed. Presiding Officer, I have no doubt that these constituents have the best interests of their children and their family at heart, but sometimes we have to acknowledge that our current ways just aren't working. For example, if you were standing next to an adult who had his headphones in and the lack of concentration led them to step in front of moving traffic, you'd pull the adult back but you definitely wouldn't hit them. Why? Because we know that would be an assault. So what's the difference between that and me hitting my son? Whenever we choose to discipline children by corporal methods, as the law stands at the moment, we can only do so if we have absolute certainty that at that moment we had no malice, no anger, no age, no frustration and no resentment towards that child. Who amongst us could be sure of that? I certainly know that when I hit my son, it was through anger and frustration that I couldn't protect him from doing what he did. Corporal punishment is the most widespread form of violence against children. If the child is old enough to be smacked, then he should also be old enough for alternative consequences to be levied to him. Surely for the youngest of our society, discipline is always about educating him by using better methods. When we raise a hand or an object to a child of whatever age, we signal to him nothing other than the intent to cause pain and suffering. No adult will ever look back on their childhood with fond memories of their physical punishments, nor will any of them recall a start change and their motivation to alter their behaviour. The overriding memory will be fear, pain and upset, all of which are catastrophic to the healthy emotional development of a child. Children are charged to us to care for and the same way that we care for all vulnerable people in our society. We must then take care over the fragility of that, which is in our care, and understanding that each and every action we take impacts upon their lives for the entirety of their time that they are on this earth, not just in that moment. Instead of more discipline, we need more tolerance, patience and love. Countries all over the world are already taking steps to protect the rights of children with equal protection. Fifty-four countries have already prohibited the physical punishment of children, with a further fifty-six committed to reforming their laws to achieve a ban in all settings. As has previously been stated, the United Kingdom is one of only four states in the EU not to legislate against the physical punishment of children, so I am proud that the Parliament is taking the first steps in moving us towards a brighter future for all our children and fully supporting the principles of John Finnie's bill. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate on the children's equal protection from assault Scotland bill. The state 1 report states that the purpose of the bill is to abolish the defence of reasonable chastisement and to drive cultural change to discourage the use of physical punishment. The defence of reasonable chastisement can currently be used by parents and others caring for or in charge of children if they are prosecuted for assaulting a child. The defence allows for physical force to be used to discipline a child with some restrictions set out in the criminal justice Scotland 2003, section 51. Although I do not doubt for a second the well-intentioned motivation of John Finnie in seeking to introduce this bill and those who support it, the fact is that, rather than driving cultural change and discouraging physical punishment, what the bill does is to criminalise reasonable chastisement and the parents who do not roll out having this as a measured and proportionate tool in the box to use in certain circumstances should consider this appropriate, effective and necessary. I will give witness intervention, but I do want to develop the argument. I'm very grateful for the member giving way. She references the use of a tool proportionately. She also referenced the 2003 criminal justice act, which talked about which sets the limits of physical punishment to headshots, to banning headshots, the use of implements and shaking, and that's it. Does she not recognise that this creates confusion in a grey area, which will lead to parents quite significantly harming their children in deploying that resource? I think that the confusion in this debate and the member is guilty of it, too, as repeatedly talking about assault and the assault of children without taking any cognisance of what determines assault in the law. The point that Christine Grahame made very effectively is the context, the circumstances and the relationship. By abolishing reasonable chastisement, you're turning that whole law of evidence on its head. Supporters of the bill insist that criminalisation is not what the bill aims to do. Nonetheless, it is without doubt a consequence of abolishing the reasonable chastisement defence that cannot be dismissed or glossed over. Put simply, it is not satisfactory or acceptable to legislate for one outcome and hope for another. Above all, the law must provide clarity. If you don't mind John Finnie, I realise that I'm in the minority speaking, and I do want to develop my argument, and I think that it's worth listening to. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal stated in a written response to the Equalities Committee that it is quite possible that the reporting of the assault that is described by the bill will increase due to the proposed removal of the defence of reasonable chastisement, and also due to the increase of reporting from publicity and awareness raising usually accompanies the legislation. At the same time, the Crown Office acknowledges that there is a lack of case law to determine when physical contact of an extremely minor or physical nature could be considered to meet the public interest test to prosecute. However, we do know that, under the bill's provision, cases are to be assessed individually. To establish if there is criminal intent, there will be, at the very least, a police investigation and a referral to the Procurator Fiscal or even a criminal trial. A valid question to be posed here is what happens to the children when those investigations are in progress? Do they remain with their parents, or have they taken into care? If the latter, given the delays in the court process, this could result not just in the lengthy separation but in all the other well-documented trauma-related adverse consequences suffered by children in care. However, if, as John Finnie has said, the bill's intention is not to criminalise parents but to set out a direction of travel about child welfare and child upbringing and to support children, then it seems to me that there is a better way to move forward. Language is important. In the bill, light and rare physical chastisement is equated to child abuse and described as assault. That is a motive language that polarises opinion and stifles informed debate about how to achieve the best child welfare policies. More generally, further work requires to be done regarding the use of restraint and the use of physical intervention by a parent to keep a child safe on one hand and, on the other hand, restraint in educational and care settings, where certain groups of children's behaviour can be challenging and restraint is used in order to contain them, not to punish them. In order to drive the cultural change to discourage the use of physical intervention, there needs to be more awareness and clarification, I accept, on the existing law that constitutes reasonable chastisement and, crucially, the parenting support that is available to families. If a parent and both Angela Constance and I think that James Dorman mentioned this has smacked a child you at a loss of control or stress, surely the focus should be on ensuring the necessary support is available to help them to cope rather than issuing a police warning or prosecuting. Here, at present, current routes that the Scottish Government utilises to communicate with parents are not clear. I believe that the best and most effective way forward would be to instead support the Equalities Committee's request to receive this information, together with an outline of how the Scottish Government intends to reach families who are not currently involved in any relevant services and to provide details of the support that will then be made available to them, rather than rushing to legislate to ban the reasonable chastisement defence. Richard Lyle, to be followed with a brief contribution from Mike Rumbles. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I first remind the chamber that this is a green members party bill? Today I am going to be out of step with the majority, so be it. This bill raises the spectre of good parents being criminalised for using mild chastisement and the police and social workers having to waste time investigating decent families when they should be focusing all their attention on identifying child abuse. I am against parents hitting, slapping and abusing their kids. Yes, very much so. It's wrong. Rightly, we are all committed to protecting children from any violence and the law is very clear in that matter. The present law prohibits all violence against children. In section 51 of the Criminal Justice Scotland Act 2003, specifically outlaws, shaking and the use of any implement. Supporters of the legislation claim that UN Convention on the Rights of the Child compels us to ban smacking. I don't see that in the Texas Convention. Article 19 of the UNCRC states that children should be protected from violence, abuse and neglect. It seems to me that Scotland already fulfills its obligations in terms of the convention. Our law is clear, progressive and I remind members that this law in this area was updated. There recently adds 2004. Back then another proposal to criminalise smacking was abandoned in what the then cabinet secretary described as a victory for common sense. We're a long way from the days of yore when parents could belt a child or use the underslip of a slipper. Any adult who doesn't this in Scotland today can't expect to be punished severely by the courts and I would say rightly so. The member's legislation concerns the defence of justifiable assault or reasonable chastisement. That defence allows parents to use a tap in the hand and a smack in the behind without being prosecuted. That's all it does. I'm not aware of any evidence from any court or the police that it's ineffective that it allows parents to use the unreasonable force of their children or to use the unreasonable force with their children. It will make a tap in the hand or the bottom a criminal offence. That's why newspapers call it a smacking ban. Presiding Officer, my children grew up in a loving environment. I am a grandfather of three beautiful grandchildren who I have the privilege of spending time with regularly. They are my wives in my life. My time with them has made me realise that this legislation could or would hurt families. It's not uncommon to see a parent or a grandparent giving a child a wee tap in the backside in public even in a playful way. I've seen it happening as I waited to collect my grandson from a primary school one day. A grandfather had his granddaughter in his arms. He was giving her a playful tap. The little girl was laughing but from a distance that could have looked like a smack and could be reported to the police. What then? Someone could report that grandfather probably mistakenly had seen it. Supporters of the bill claim that the police will never prosecute those actions, but how can they be so sure? Under the legislation, smacking will be reported to the police. The police will have to record that it is a crime and investigate it. They might arrest a mum or a dad and question them. It might mean getting a child in their own inner room and trying to get a statement against the mum or the dad. Presiding Officer, the police and social services are going to be inundated with trivial reports under the legislation, and they have to treat them as seriously as they currently consider abuse. I'm sure that front-line professionals who are already under great pressure will not appreciate this additional workload, especially when resources are stretched already. I wonder how this legislation will be misused in domestic circumstances when relationships between parents break down. We might see dishonest parents accusing their spouses of smacking in order to prevent access to children. It happens, and I don't think that it will happen, because it will happen. It is clear to me and the majority of people that I represent in the Urinson and Belsil constituency that this law is unnecessary. The polls that I have seen in this issue confirm that 74 per cent of people don't want a smacking ban, and I have had numerous emails from concerned constituents confirming this. Today, with the greatest regret, in my 43 years in politics, I have sometimes had to stick up and stick to my guns, even against the tide. Today, even against the majority, I cannot lend my name to this bill and have to in all conscience abstain. I hope that my reasons for doing so are not misunderstood or misinterpretated by anyone. I was not down to speak in this debate, but I want to respond to Annie Wells, Gordon Mitchell and Margaret Mitchell, in particular. The issue was raised when I was here in the first session of the Parliament 16 years ago. I, like them, was worried about criminalising good parents, and I did not support the measure to my shame. I am now a convert to this cause, and I hope that my comments may reassure members, such as Annie Wells, Gordon Mitchell and Margaret Mitchell, that their fears about criminalising parents are misplaced. Why have I changed my mind? Because of my experiences on the health committee in the second session, when we passed a ban on smoking in enclosed public places, we heard the same arguments that we would see a huge rise in prosecutions, a previously low-abiding people—I have only got one more minute—and it simply didn't happen. It's because of that—I don't believe—for one moment that we will see previously low-abiding and loving parents, I've only got one minute, dragged into our courts. It will not happen. This is not about attacking the rights of good and loving parents. It's not about the state telling parents how to bring up their children. It isn't. It is about removing the defence in law. It is about removing the defence in law of reasonable chastisement from people already likely to be in front of our courts. I would say to members, such as Annie Wells, Gordon Linterst and Yes Richard Lyle, that their worries are unfounded. I would also say that this member's bill is about our Parliament doing its job, and I would remind Gordon Linterst gently that this is only at the stage 1 debate. The bill couldn't be amended before stages 2 and 3, so I'm somewhat puzzled by Gordon Linterst's earlier comments. I can't unfortunately. I only got 10 seconds. I speak as a convert on this issue. I would urge those who are worried about the bill to engage with it at stages 2 and 3, and I hope that, after our further scrutiny of this bill, they will, like me, see the sense of this measure and I only wish I had done this 16 years ago. Fulton MacGregor, before we move to closing speeches. Fulton MacGregor. For me, it's a great pleasure to speak in this debate today. Firstly, as a member of the committee that scrutinised the legislation at stage 1 and, secondly, as a former social worker, I'd also like to put on record my thanks to John Finnie. For me, the bill is really simple to support and it's got a simple premise to give children equal protection the same as adults. It removes a defence, as we've heard from others, that is outdated and belongs firmly in history. In this Parliament has a strong track record in progressive legislation such as in domestic abuse and children's rights, among other things, and it's about time that we join the others 54 countries and remove this defence. As we heard through other speakers and as we heard on committee, the vast majority of agencies that spoke to the committee who have contacted us before this debate are for it. There's a real strong support for Nardos, Children's First, Amnesty International and many others, and that in itself should tell us something. That's because, to disagree with people on the Tory benches and some folk and lone benches, it's a no-brainer. In my opinion, if this was 20 years down the line, it would have been brought forward as secondary legislation and that's not to diminish anything that Mr Finnie is bringing forward. We know that physical punishment is harmful and can lead to aggressive behaviour, and those points have been made and made well by others. The Tories in my mind have tried to make politics out of this, and you've heard that from Oliver Mundell and Annie Wells. I mention those two because they were on the committee and they didn't fully engage in the committee process. They will say that they are against the violence against children, but they are not. They want to keep us in the deep past and do not even have the dignity to try and alleviate genuine concerns that the public are bringing forward. No, I won't, because I have not received one intervention today myself. However, there are some in the chamber, including, I believe, on the Tory benches and in the public who didn't hear all the evidence, so I want to spend the rest of my speech trying to alleviate the fears that they've expressed—the fears that were expressed by Christine Game, Richard Lyle and others. It's not about criminalisation. It's not about the criminalisation of individuals. In my social work experience, I was a children and family social worker for about 12 years from 2004. I was thinking when this bill went through, what would happen if an allegation was made of an assault or being smacked? What would happen just now is that social work and other agencies would investigate and take a measured welfare and support-based approach. If there is criminality to be considered, then that would be done through a joint investigative interview with the police and then a decision would be made on whether to refer to the PEF. The PEF then decides the public interest test and that hypothetical situations at parents will be criminalised for stopping their child running on the road, for example, are absolutely ridiculous. They wouldn't happen now and they wouldn't happen if this law is passed. I think of the process in the journey that would be required for that to happen. A child would need to go to school, perhaps, or a health-based place and say that their parent stopped them running on a road. That would be investigated at that point of contact. I see Mr Mundell laughing away there, but he is laughing away because he knows that it is true, because he was on the committee. That is why he is laughing away. I apologise, I will not be taking intervention. Margaret Mitchell, your example was scaremongering. We are going to have parents suddenly criminalised. What did social work Scotland and police Scotland tell us in committee? They told us that nothing would change, not a thing, and referrals would be dealt with exactly the same way as they are now. In my own experience, I cannot mind one thing about the defence being used. I thought about going out to situations with families, with my colleagues, and what support might be around and how to perhaps safeguard the family. But never once have I been thinking about, oh, this family might use a defence. Any occasions where criminals proceedings were pursued were very clear. Indeed, I was a starting social worker not long after the 2003 act that has been mentioned. It was probably somebody who was not exactly clear on what the legislation was. The legislation was, I think, many practitioners are like that. That is one of the main principles of the bill that is brought forward by John Finnie. It brings forward clarity for practitioners and parents. Most important, it sends a message of the country that we want to be. It makes the current law and processes clearer. Anyone who knows John Finnie and the members of the committee in favour would know, to trust us, that we have been through the committee process, and we would never have been in favour of unnecessary criminalisation of parents. It is the last thing on our minds. The evidence from other countries is very clear that that would not be the case, in fact, far from it. But make no doubt, no doubt about it, that Tory policy here is to degrade the rights for children. So that people out there who maybe think that it is a bit of state intervention or those Tory colleagues who are more liberal standing, who are thinking about voting against, and to my colleagues who are thinking about voting against, please do not leave children with less rights in their own home than any other adult or animal. Be assured that child support protection processes in our country are robust and will not allow the fears that the right-wing fundamentalists of those benches want you to believe. They claim that it is an assault on family life. The truth is to not vote for an assault on our child's rights, and that is not on. So please vote for the principles at stage 1. Thank you very much. We now move to closing speeches. I call on Ian Gray to be followed by Liz Smith. Ian Gray. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I think that it's been quite interesting debate in that we do sometimes have debates of great consensus and there hasn't been consensus really, and so there's been some quite interesting points made and I'll try to address some of them in closing. But in all of that, I think it is worth as we close this afternoon's debate going back to the basics of what the reasons are for pursuing this legislation. I think that there are two significant reasons of principle. The first is the principle of equal protection, and that's the title of the bill. As many colleagues have pointed out, the bill is not designed to create a new crime. It rather removes a defence, which is only available when it comes to the chastisement of children. It is very difficult to get past a very simple statement that if it is wrong to hit an adult, it must be wrong to hit a child too. Mary Fee gave an example of a vulnerable adult being cared for and in the course of that care assaulted. When you think of that case, it seems clear that that is wrong. It's very difficult to see why it would be right if it was a vulnerable child rather than a vulnerable adult. There is also the principle of rights, and a number of speakers have spoken about the rights basis of that. Indeed, we know that the Scottish Government has committed to the incorporation of the UNCRC into our legislation. In 2016, that was also something that was promised in the Scottish Labour manifesto. It is something that we support. I think that Ross Greer and Gil Ross have clearly articulated that the current legislative position that we have breaches article 19. I know that Mr Lyle took issue with that, but I think that the expert opinion was that article 19 is certainly breached. There are two very strong reasons why we need that legislation. I hear what the member is saying about article 19, but does he not recognise that it is important to be able to put that question to the Lord Advocate before we can say that definitively? I agree. I am absolutely sure that, in the course of the legislative process, that opportunity will be taken. The point that I have just made and the differing point that Mr Lyle made will be fully considered. It is fair to say that there have been a number of significant concerns, as well, expressed across the chamber. One of those, of course, is the criminalisation of parents. We have heard a number of hypothetical injustices of situations in which parents would find themselves criminalised, but surely the strongest evidence is from what has actually happened in those countries that have introduced legislation similar to that, notably Ireland and New Zealand. There has not been a sudden criminalisation of thousands of parents. We have also heard the concern that the police will be inundated. Again, in those countries, that did not happen, and we have heard or seen in the committee's report that both the police and the crown office did not believe that they would, in fact, be inundated by reports arising from the change in the legislation. Mr Mundell talked about the restriction of parental rights and discretion, and some of his colleagues raised similar issues. Some of them are about the right to family life, but the fact of the matter is that we already restrict parental rights and discretion. Of course we do. In fact, the right to family life is not an absolute right. As a number of people have pointed out, the right to family life is not protected to the degree that domestic violence is allowed within the family. It is not. We consider that to be unacceptable, because this is not an absolute right but a qualified right. However—I think that that is an important point—the minister made the point that she supported the legislation and the Government supports the bill because of their desire to make Scotland the best country in which to be a child. That is a laudable objective, but I have to say that if we want that to be true, we should not fool ourselves that passing this bill will achieve that. Only last week we heard that 240,000 children in our country live in poverty. The Poverty and Inequality Commission talked about the failure of Government spending to address that. The IPPR and a similar report talked about the importance of fast-tracking the income supplement on which the Government is dragging its feet. We should not kid ourselves that by passing this legislation we resolve all the difficulties and challenges that children face in our country today. One or two members have spoken about the last attempt to make a similar change back in 2003. I was there, of course, at that time. I do believe that attitudes have changed significantly since then. Mike Rumble's attitude for one, but the attitude of the public in civic Scotland is very much so. One or two colleagues have talked about the banning of the belt. When I look at a belt now, I cannot believe that a child—when I was a teacher, children as young as my own grandchildren were hit by a tozzalock elly, which is a pretty big instrument made of leather. Yet, when that ban came in, people thought that that was going to cause all sorts of difficulties, and it didn't. I do think that attitudes change over time, but Ross Greer reminded us that that ban only happened because Grace Campbell went to court. We should change that law before we are forced to do it by a court. The political commentators in recent weeks have quite rightly observed that the 20th anniversary of this place affords us the opportunity to examine how well we do things, whether we are delivering effective legislation to improve the lives of those that it is designed to assist. The anniversary reflect is a time to consider what we have got right, what we have got wrong, to examine our parliamentary procedures and whether our political system is sufficiently robust in terms of passing good legislation. I am grateful to Christine Grahame for what I thought were very interesting remarks about her earlier time in the Parliament, and particularly for flagging up what has to be done to make good legislation. She has talked about the domestic abuse bill and the facts that had to be put through the Parliament before we agreed to take action. Good legislation, in my view, has to be clear and uncomplicated. It must be based on fairness and maximising the common good. It must be acceptable to the public who must see the legislation as both useful and beneficial. As far as possible, it should be easily enforceable and not be open to constant debates about repeal. Like Margaret Mitchell, I do not doubt for a minute the good intentions of those who are proposing the bill. However, there are many of us in the chamber, and not just on the benches, who have grave reservations about what we have before us, because it does not meet the good legislation tests, but because it has exposed the failings in some aspects of parliamentary procedures, most especially when it comes to the laying of necessary evidence before Parliament. I will say more about that later. However, to Fulton MacGregor, I think that he may wish to revise his remarks. To criticise members of this Parliament because he believes that they have not taken due process into consideration, I think that, quite frankly, it is a disgrace, and it undermines what each member, the respect that we have to show to members around this Parliament. As Conservative colleagues have argued this afternoon, the fundamental failing of the bill is its single proposal to classify reasonable chastisement as assault. We have had various members try to argue that those two can be classified in the same way, and I simply do not accept that. Neither does the law, but it is also something that is about the unnecessary and unwanted transfer of power away from parents and the family to the state, and we know what the reaction and the vast majority of parents have been for that. Whatever the bill's proponents might like to argue, it will remove parental discretion and create the scope to criminalise their actions if they administer a miles smack. That cannot be right, and no doubt it explains why so many parents oppose the bill. Nor is there any necessary clarity in the bill, because it is devoid of the evidence, including any conclusive evidence from other countries, to prove that the legislation will make children safer. Indeed, the bill is so weak because of the great areas that it contains, most of them borne out of the completely mistaken view that reasonable chastisement equals assault. For example, are we really saying that when a parent administers a miles smack to a young child for safety reasons to ensure that he or she does not touch an electric plug that we will be reported as committing an assault? That is an open-ended question. Yes, Mr Finnie, I am interested in Mr Finnie's view about that open-ended question, which, as the Crown Office acknowledges, creates confusion and misunderstanding and unnecessary additional anxiety to the parent. I think that the member assumes that the individuals who are daily making decisions about children will suddenly suspend all the knowledge that they have applied thus far in relation to that. That is not the case. Is the member in a position to tell the chamber when she thinks that it is appropriate to commend chastising children? At what age is it reasonable to start hitting a child, please? Liz Smith, I am perfectly happy with the current law, because I do not believe that anybody at all has provided the necessary evidence to explain what is the bad aspect of the current law. I refer back to what Christine Grahame said and to what Mr Rumbles said about the original legislation that we took in 2002-2003, when we debated that issue for a long period of time. Can I just quote what Jim Wallace said in that debate? My good friend and the late David McLeachie made the point that the Scottish Parliament should leave well alone and resist the temptation to interfere and legislate at every turn when it is unnecessary to do so. Jim Wallace, who proposed the bill, accepted that his bill would not introduce any protections that could not reasonably be dealt with by the courts and the same remains true today. That is the fundamental problem about this bill, Mr Finnie. It does not have the evidence that is required to ensure that the additional protections would be put in place. There is no evidence, Mr Harvie. I am grateful to the member for giving way. I have tried to listen as closely as I can to those who do not support the bill. It seems to me that there is one question that they have all avoided. If they are right, why is it that the voices of children's rights organisations are so clearly behind the bill? Why is it that so many people who have children's rights and wellbeing as their professional expertise are supporting the bill and only the Conservatives have it right? Mr Harvie, have you listened to the opinion polls among parents? Those are the very people whose actions or the scope of the bill would be made into criminals, potentially. That is the problem. Of course, there are many charities who have spoken in favour of the bill. I understand that, Mr Harvie, but there are many, many parents across Scotland who have taken the complete opposite view and that tells as much a story as those who support it. I made my remarks at the beginning about the legacy of this Parliament after 20 years about whether we can take pride in passing good legislation. As things stand just now, the bill, just as was the case with the deeply troubled named person legislation, is very wide of the mark indeed about adhering to the key tests that underpin good legislation. Just like the named person legislation, it does not have the support of the public. It is not incomparable. It is because it is unnecessary interference and because it is unworkable. I am deeply troubled about the bill because it has exposed some of the fundamental weaknesses in the manner in which the bill has so far been scrutinised. I hope that you will agree that it is entirely wrong that stage 1 debate of the bill is happening prior to some crucial legal opinion being placed before the Parliament. As a longer-serving member of this Parliament, I am frankly astonished that it has been acceptable to proceed to stage 1 without the Lord Advocate appearing before the committee to answer questions on the bill and before the point of order that Oliver Mundell raised on 15 May has been properly addressed. That together with some of the fundamental failings in the bill is why I will certainly not be supporting it at the end of today. I am grateful to members who have contributed to today's debate and I would like to take the opportunity to address some of the specific points that have been raised. First, criminalisation of parents. In other jurisdictions that have implemented similar legislation, there has not been a significant increase in prosecutions. We expect that to be repeated in Scotland. In Ireland and New Zealand, the change in law was similar to that. In Mr Finney's bill, no, I will not take an intervention. I am sorry, I have a number of issues that have been raised during the debate that I wish to respond to, so there will be limited time for me to take interventions. You had multiple opportunities to intervene in the first time, so I hope to answer all of the issues that have been raised during the debate in my closing speech. In Ireland and New Zealand, the change in law was similar to that in Mr Finney's bill, the removal of a defence. Neither country has seen a significant increase in prosecutions. In New Zealand, the five-year period after the law came into force, there were just eight prosecutions. In Ireland, the committee heard that the office of the director of public prosecutions has found no evidence of any increase in the number of prosecutions. Of course, the approach in other countries varies. Legal systems and approaches vary, but the point is that physical punishment is wrong. This bill fits the legal system in Scotland. Members have asked, does the bill criminalise smacking? As the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said to the committee in their supplementary submission, the bill, as currently drafted, removes a defence to a behaviour that otherwise falls within the scope of common law crime of assault rather than creating a new crime. The practical effect of that would be that some acts carried out as physical punishment, which may be commonly referred to as smacking, would no longer benefit from the defence of reasonable chastisement and would fall to be considered in terms of the law of assault, as it applies generally. So what is the approach to prosecutions? Decisions on prosecutions in individual cases are entirely a matter for the Crown Office, acting under the direction of the Lord Advocate. Similarly, it is for the Lord Advocate alone to consider whether the guidelines in relation to prosecution will be drafted and published. The Crown Office prosecution code sits out the test that prosecutors apply when deciding whether to take prosecutorial action. Richard Lyle raised the issue of unnecessary police and Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service action in trivial cases. The written evidence makes it absolutely clear that professional prosecution will, as now, follow the Scottish prosecution code. Firstly, prosecutors must establish if any report received discloses a crime known to the law of Scotland. Secondly, prosecutors assess whether there is sufficient, admissible, credible and reliable evidence that the offence was committed and that it was the accused person who committed it. Finally, prosecutors consider what action, if any, best serves the public interest. In doing so, the Crown Office takes into account a range of applicable criteria, such as the nature and gravity of the offence, the impact of the offence on the victim, the personal circumstances of the accused, the attitude of the victim, the age of the offence, any mitigating circumstances, the effect of a prosecution on the accused, the risk of further offending and considerations relating to the public concern. The Scottish Government considers that the main aim of the bill is to make it clear that physical punishment of children is wrong rather than the criminalisation of parents. In terms of clarity in the law, as Rona Mackay said, the committee heard that in Ireland different civil society organisations and state agencies are positive about the clarity that was brought by the change in the law, and social workers have better relationships with parents because they can provide clear advice. That does not fit with the spectre being raised of a huge number of increased concerns and an overburdened people responding to minor issues. That echoed the evidence that the committee received from social work at Scotland, from Barnardo Scotland, with the NSPCC and Children First and the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, Parenting Across Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland. There is broad civic support for the change in legislation. All those people agreed that the bill will bring clarity to the law. As a number of contributors, including Rhoda Grant, have said, it removes the judgment around how my reasonableness compares with others. It sent a clear message that physical punishment of children is unacceptable and a clear message to society that clarifies the law. As the Crown Office put it, the common law crime of assault is well understood and it is widely used to prosecute offending in courts across Scotland, resulting in a large number of convictions each year. The Crown Office added that the bill proposes to remove this defence, which means that the legal situation would be simplified and children would receive the same protection from assault as adults. Gordon Lindhurst said that the Lord Advocate had not given evidence. I have to correct that, because the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service gave detailed written evidence to the committee. Gordon Lindhurst also said that the bill tells parents how to parent. It does not. It makes it absolutely clear that parents will still have a range of positive techniques at their disposal when disciplining their children. On the issue of interference with family life, we are not aware of any international treaty provision that gives the rights to parents to physically punish their children. We note that the committee came to the same conclusion in paragraph 95 of its stage 1 report. Murdo Fraser asked why physical punishment of children was different from all the other forms of discipline that might be used, such as the removal of privilege or the naughty step. Let me be clear that the difference is that there is a solid body of evidence that physical punishment is harmful. Let me remind you that the bill is supported by the Faculty of Public Health, the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health. There is even a statement opposing physical punishment from the Academy of Pediatrics in America. Let me read to you the evidence submitted by the Royal College of General Practitioners during the course of the Welsh bill passing through their Parliament. The balance of evidence seems sufficiently clear and compelling to inform us that parental use of physical punishment of children plays no useful role in their upbringing and poses only risks to their development. That is the Royal College of General Practitioners, scientists who are used to assessing the quality of evidence that is available to them. I would like to thank the committee again for its consideration of the bill and for Mr Finnie to Mr Finnie for taking it forward. I urge members to support the general principles of the bill. I thank all the members who have participated in what has been a very interesting debate. It starts off by the convener of the committee talking about the ambitious programme of engagement that took place. I had forgotten about the snowstorm and the sky, and it is commendable the efforts that people went to share their views with us, more in time to all the kids at Boonskull, Higallic, Postree. The convener talked about a rights-based approach, and the deliberations were about children being at the core, and we have forgotten at our peril that that is what this is about. It was also early mentioned from the convener of a conflict of rights, but it is a very clear statement that physical punishment does not interfere with the rights to family life. Hold your children, keep them safe was a very good phrase from that contribution. The minister followed that on by again citing the evidence that she has there and talked about the work that the Scottish Government is doing to make Scotland the best place for children to grow up. The reasonable chastisements antiquated, and it odds with that aim. I certainly would share that view and share the view that the minister expressed that there should be the same legal protection for all individuals, regardless of their size. Now, there was much speculation about the public interest test, and I did, on occasion, try to intervene. I have to tell you that there is very little mystery about it. Indeed, it is covered in the explanatory note, as a lot of the points have been raised, and at paragraph 13 on page 3, the bullet point 6, or the footnote 6, actually gives you a link to the web link that would explain all the factors that are taken into place. Absolutely nothing is going to change in relation to that. Now, the next contribution came from my good friend and colleague, Mary Fee, who I thought made, as ever, an excellent speech, citing the example of learning disability adults. The public reaction to that, if they were to be subjected to being assaulted. The very clear statement of assault is assault. That is unequivocal. I thought that another very important point that Mary Fee made was that the Parliament is a guarantor of human rights, and that is absolutely—there is an imbalance at the moment, as you rightly identified with us, and it will be part of a culture change. My colleague, Ross Greer, then went on to give a very comprehensive resume of the rights and the shortcomings that exist at the moment. Those are acknowledged by the Scottish Government. Indeed, they were acknowledged by the Equality and Human Rights Committee, who commended the approach of the adoption and incorporation of the UN convention. I would share my colleague Ross Greer's view that the human rights advisory group's findings must be acted upon. You just do not hit children, I think, is a very good statement. Ross Greer was brave to talk about personal faith, and I do appreciate the faith groups that have had a contribution to this. I am particularly grateful to those who lent their support to the legislation, and that is not least the Quakers and the Church of Scotland. We are rights holders in here, and we need to do that. Next speaker was Mr Cole-Hamilton. I would like to acknowledge his support throughout this, and the advice that he has very generously shared with me, and his long-standing commitment to this cause that predates a lot of us. His father's face is in my thoughts at the moment, given the retribution that he took in his father. He is quite right to say that there is an international imperative. It was the first substantive mention of the police and chief superintendent MacKenzie, who came and gave evidence. What I thought was very compelling evidence of explaining, along with his colleagues, sitting side by side him from social work, saying what happens at the moment, the shared work that takes place, the interests of the child being at the forefront of deliberations, the public interest being a factor and that nothing would change if anything happened to be greater clarity provided. No right to hit was a comment that Mr Cole-Hamilton made there. Angela Constance again, and I am not going to have time to do everything but another excellent speech there. Yes, I was a police officer, and that might surprise people, but I was struck as a child and I struck my children. I think that we are all the richer if we learn from experiences, and that is what it is—the unfolding evidence is irrefutable of the damage. The phrase never harmed me or yesable. Liam Kerr. I am grateful to the member for taking the intervention. My colleague Liz Smith raised some really quite important procedural points. I am just wondering if the member can come back on the points that Liz Smith raised. John Finnie. Well, if this is about accusations and what would happen, nothing that would happen is differently. Liam Kerr. I do not feel it is for me to comment that views have been shared with the Presiding Officer. Certainly, unlike some members, I attended every session of evidence, and I thought that we heard very compelling evidence and comprehensive evidence. I did not hear any attempt to stop hearing evidence. There was no—and there was a significant number of written submissions as well, of course. Yes, indeed. Haskell Hamilton. Just to clarify, I am grateful to the member for giving away, the committee went to great lengths to encourage representations from groups opposed to this legislation, as it did from the key members of the judiciary that were already described in the Crown Office and the Lord Advocate, both of whom submitted written evidence. I agree with the member that the evidence that we received was as comprehensive as it could be. John Finnie. I thank the member for that intervention. Annie Wells talked about legal clarity, but I have to say that it was not apparent to me that she was not at all the sessions that I was at that she had taken on board all the information that was there. Rona Mackay was the next speaker who talked about learned behaviour, which I thought was a significant factor. Rhoda Grant—perhaps you can tell me how long I have, Presiding Officer, please? I'll get another two minutes, Mr Finnie. That's right, indeed. Okay, thank you. Likewise, Rhoda Grant, I thought, had a very powerful speech and talked about verbal assault there. We know that we have checks and balances in our system and the reassurance that there is there. Gail Ross, the incorporation of rights, baby box and the direction of travel—I have to say that Mr Lindhurst would not take an intervention. Clearly, the Tory's aspirant legal shock jock was, I think, way off the mark there. Claire Baker talked about being convinced that children need equal protection and talked about the work of Mr Barry in an earlier session, and that is to be commended, and the unfinished business. That is how I see it. There were excellent contributions again from James Dornan, and I am grateful to my colleague Mike Rumbles. I thought a very courageous thing to say that you have changed your mind on the basis of evidence that has been received. That evidence has been overwhelming. The evidence suggests that physical punishment of children is ineffective. It has potential long-term effect. We know that young people support this change. The practitioners, the police, the social work, health professionals, the regal professionals, the children's charities support it. We have members from all five parties in the chamber support it. It is time to give children equal protection. Thank you very much. That concludes the debate on the stage 1 of the children's equal protection from assault Scotland bill. We move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of business motion 17432, in the name of Graham Day, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a revision to the business programme. I ask Maurice Golden to move the motion. The question is that motion 17432 be agreed. Are we agreed? We are agreed. We turn to decision time and there is one question this evening. The question is that motion 17342, in the name of John Finnie, on the children's equal protection from assault Scotland bill, be agreed. Are we agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to division. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 17342, in the name of John Finnie, is yes, 80, no, 29. There were two abstentions. The motion is therefore agreed. That concludes decision time. We are going to move shortly to members' business, in the name of Mary Fee, on SAMH report on universal credit and mental health. We will just take a few moments for Members and the Minister to change seats. A few moments and then we'll proceed.