 Felly, wrth gwrs, dwi'n ffrwng ar y grafach y cymaint o'r cymaint yna yw 2019. Felly wrth gwrs, dwi'n ffrwng ar gyfer copieddau maenai a gweld gwneud yn siŵr. Felly, wrth gwrs, dwi'n ffrwng ar y cymaint yw'r cymaint. Y gennau ym mwyaf, wrth gwrs iawn i'r eich cymaint o'r Cymaint. Felly, yma yw'r qufadwch cymaint o'r cysylltu i'r eich cymaint o'r cymaint. Felly, wrth gwrs iawn i'r cymaint, Dr Lucy Reynolds, consultant pediatrician, Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health. Gillian Van Turnhout, former Irish senator. Matthew Sweeney, policy officer, children and young people, children and young people, COSLA, apologies, and Andy Jeffries, senior manager, children and families, city of Edinburgh Council, social work Scotland. Good morning, you're all very welcome. Can I open things off by asking whether you support the bills aims to bring an end to the physical punishment of children? Dr Reynolds, if you'd like to start off. Absolutely, yes. Absolutely, I believe in children growing up in a world free from violence, and that's why I brought the change about in Ireland. Absolutely, experiences that other countries that have implemented this have seen a reduction in violence to children, and I think that this is entirely consistent with the children's rights approach of this Parliament. Absolutely, COSLA members are committed to the principles behind this bill, and it fits within our wider work around whether that be closing interest to the national outcomes and the national performance framework, that young people grow up loved, safe, respected and realise their full potential, and also the principles behind getting a right for every child. Can I ask why you think that public opinion is so mixed on this topic, Dr Reynolds? I think that a lot of people, when I discuss with other people, some of the things that come up are things like it never did me any harm, or thinking this is what my parents did, and therefore it's what I should do, and why would you as a parent keep abreast of all the evidence that is continually coming in, the College of Pediatrics, we didn't come out with our position statement on corporal punishment until 2009, so 10 years ago, but we haven't made a big effort on an information campaign to advise parents, but then that's partly because we're rather stymied by the fact that the law is giving an opposite view to what we would put across as the public health message, how can we be telling parents and caregivers that there is no justification, there's no good, reasonable, justifiable reason to hit a child, and there are plenty of good, justifiable, reasonable reasons not to, how can we get that public health message across effectively when we have a law which actually says it's justifiable? Okay, would any other member touch the comment on that? Certainly in Ireland this was also a question that was asked, and the reality is this is about how bringing forward how I feel I was raised, you know, I had my own mother in the in the Parliament when I brought through the law because I was raised being told, you know, you're not too old for the wooden spoon, so if this, me changing the law, wasn't a judgment on how my parents raised me in any way, luckily I wasn't hit, just to have on the record, but I was always threatened with it, but it's about how parenting today takes place, and that for me is what we need to ensure is as legislators, we bring that forward. So I think always looking to public opinion, when we changed the law in Ireland, we realised that it was the law catching up with how parents were parenting their children today. Thank you, anybody else? So I think there are a couple of related things. One is a fear of disproportionate interference in family life, and another thing related to that is a fear of misusing resources. In other words, some people are worried that parents and children will be brought into a child protection system and will be brought into prosecutions when that doesn't need to happen. What I would say about that is in the operational job that I do in Edinburgh, I quality-sure every child protection concern that comes through the multi-agency process, and I do that every week with senior colleagues in Police Scotland and the NHS. So we are always looking to satisfy ourselves that we're dealing with the right things and that we've taken a proportionate response. We already have quite a low threshold for dealing with assault against children as a child protection concern, but what I would say about that is that it is correct to do that, but we try to use GURFIC and get it right with those families. So we are not bringing families to child protection case conferences, we are not prosecuting parents where what has happened is a relationship that's struggling or some lack of capacity or some set of stresses within a family that has led to somebody losing control. What we need to do is get alongside those families to do the right thing with them and not over intervene with them, and people will not have social workers at their door that don't need to be there because we are too busy to do that. Okay, thank you. Matthew Swinney, do you wish to add anything? Okay, if I can bring in Mary Fee, then please. Thank you and good morning, panel. I have a specific question for Gillian. As you said in your previous answer, you spoke a bit about what happened in Ireland and you were instrumental to bringing about that change and you said that it was almost a catch-up in public opinion. I would be grateful if you could give us a bit more information and a bit more background about how you came to that decision. What the public view was, the level of dissenting voices against the legislation change and what happened afterwards. In Ireland, we had a solid evidence base of how we failed vulnerable children. We had a Kilkenny incest inquiry in 1996, so if I look at where the seeds of this change in laws happened, we actually as the state commissioned over 19 different reports on how we failed children. The report of the Ryan commission in 2009 was quite fundamental because that looked at institutional abuse between 1936 and the year 2000. We had a very difficult pass to face up to as a backdrop and in totality these reports lifted a veil back for us. We could see what had happened to children, we could see what had happened in families and it was a terrain that was really closely guarded. As a start in Ireland in November 2012, we had a referendum to uphold children's rights in the constitution because we had an imbalance. The children of married parents, there was a higher threshold for intervening in a family than if your parents weren't married because of our constitution. We had to ensure that we put into our constitution a very clear articulation that all children are equal before the law. That law was challenged. We had a referendum. The referendum result was challenged in our Supreme Court. I am trying to give you a very quick synopsis. It was challenged. It took two years for it to go through the courts, but the challenge was not upheld and we saw in May 2015 that our children's rights were in our constitution. For me, if you want to look at the resistance, it was probably built up more towards the referendum piece and the change in law in relation to the reasonable chastisement of children to repeal that common law defence of reasonable chastisement. For me was an outcome of the referendum, an outcome of all that history that we had to re-address and that Irish people wanted to ensure that we didn't have laws that in any way permitted us to be violent against children. I am just going to welcome—we've been joined by Jeane Miller, who is a head teacher at EIS. Good morning. You're very welcome. Just to give you the opportunity to answer the first couple of questions that we asked to the other panellists. That's whether you support the aims of the bill in stopping the physical punishment of children and your reflections on why public opinion is so mixed. You don't need to press the button, so that will come on. Yes, I fully support the aims of the bill. Do you have any reflections on why public opinion is so mixed? I think that sometimes change takes time and we're often brought up believing that certain things are right and appropriate. I think that, as we've seen in our schools over many years, sometimes bringing about substantial cultural change can take time too. I think that, with many things in life, the more evidence that is presented to people, the more people get on board. A big part of my role as a head teacher in a secondary school is working with parents and carers to ensure that they fully understand what we see as being positive interactions with young people. At the heart of everything that we do in schools today is about relationships and about building positive relationships. I think that if we work with people and if we don't just perhaps pass legislation but we absolutely work with people to convince them of the merits of this legislation, I think that that will go a long way to changing many of the cultural norms that exist. I'm not sure, Jolene, if there's anything else that you wanted to expand on in your answer. I believe that Lucy wanted to jump in, so I let her in. It's okay with the convener. It was just a statistic, which you've probably all read the equally protected report, the systematic review of the evidence. You may remember in that there was a big population study done in Sweden, in France, Austria, Germany and Spain, where one of the questions that was asked of a population of adults was whether they considered that hitting a child on the face was a violent act. In Sweden, where the law had been that you don't hit children for many years, and this was well known amongst the public, 85% of respondents considered that hitting a child on the face was a violent act. In Austria, Germany, Spain, where they were all in the kind of somewhere in the process of either a public health information campaign and law or one or the other, you know, partway along, and it was around kind of 60-ish percent, 50-60% in each of those countries, whereas in France where there had been no kind of public health campaign, no move toward law, no discussion, only 30% of adults thought that hitting a child on the face was a violent act. So the law combined with the public health campaign, although, yes, attitudes have changed quite a lot without the law and the campaign, but law and an information campaign are effective in moving them further. Can I come back to Gillian now? I suppose the other thing that I would be interested in is the public perception before you introduced the legislation, and I accept that you said you were catching up on public opinion. Was the resistance to the legislation as it was progressing through Parliament? Yes, there was some resistance. There wasn't any organised groups or civil society organisations who spoke against. There was individuals who spoke against the change in legislation. We didn't have the same process that you're having here of having pre-legislative scrutiny in this manner. In fact, the day I walked into the chamber, I didn't know if I had a single colleague with me in the change of law. I was going in not knowing, but I went in knowing that even if I was the only person who said that it is not okay to hit a child, children in Ireland would know that somebody believed that it is not okay for them to be hit. Obviously, I wanted to change the law. Much to my surprise, every single member of the Irish Parliament chose to support the law by not calling for a vote at any stage on it. For me, it was a really collective, powerful moment. It was powerful that we did the change in law, and many of my colleagues said that, on the eve of 2016, because it's 100 years since we had our proclamation where we said to cherish all of the children equally. That, for me, really resonated for us in Ireland. It was quite a powerful moment, even our Prime Minister, or then Prime Minister, Tishok, and Kenny chose to speak in the chamber in favour of the change in law. We had cross-party support. I'm not saying that it was easy. To be very clear, my colleagues pulled me aside. Some civil society organisations and members of the public were saying that the time is not right. We need to do X, Y and Z in order to be ready for this change in law. Let's not do it yet. We totally agree or we don't agree, they may say, but now is not the time. What was fascinating for me, it was really a light bulb moment. The second we changed our law, the same colleagues looked in the face of my face without any irony and said, why didn't we do this years ago? This makes so much sense. I can still pitch to them standing there saying, this makes so much sense. Changing laws like that, as we've seen in legislation, whether it's smoking in public places, in seatbelts legislation, it is amazing the effect that, when, as legislators, we are willing to step forward to ensure that our laws protect all of our citizens, the public do respond positively. Was that the case, the public responded positively? The public, if you now talk to the public, they would believe that this law change happened a long time ago, if you told them it was only a few years ago. In advance of coming here this week, I contacted different civil society organisations or state agencies and it's all still positive about the clarity that this change in law has brought for their work. It has helped them for social workers, it's helped them with their relationship with parents because previously they said to me they had to, when they were meeting with parents, start having a moral discussion about whether you can or can't hit your children and saying, well, I don't think it's a good idea, but they couldn't authorityfully. Now they say, you're not allowed to hit your children, so now let's talk about what you can. Let's talk about positive parenting, so it changed the dynamic of the relationship. That's very helpful. I'll ask my second question later, because I think that that was helpful. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the panel. Thank you very much for coming to see us today. I'd like to follow on from Mary Fee's question with a couple of specific questions for Gillian Van Tornhout, but then I've got a couple of other questions which I hope that all the panel will be able to answer. I suppose that's because we've heard a lot of evidence, Gillian, of the potential negative outcomes of removing physical punishment from the home, one of which is the protective element that parents believe they should retain the right to physically chastise their children for their own good, for example, if they're about to pull a pan of boiling water down over their head or run out into traffic. Have you seen a massive increase in injuries by boiling water or people running into traffic since you've been smacking? No. Equally, we have not seen a dramatic increase in the prosecution of parents, so just to be absolutely clear on that. The running out of traffic argument was used in Ireland, and somebody on the radio very helpfully gave us the example of that her grandmother has Alzheimer's, and she wouldn't think to hit her grandmother running out in traffic, so why would you choose to hit somebody with a similar cognitive ability that's smaller? As I debated the law in Ireland, you know, you start thinking about if I landed in Ireland and tried to understand the law, or law basically is saying you can hit somebody as long as they're smaller than you and are more vulnerable than you are. We are the rational adults, we are supposed to act in that position of rationality, and we have to think of the lessons that we're teaching children. If you look at any of the examples of hitting children, it's portrayed as if it's a very calm moment and I chose to discipline my child in this way, it doesn't happen in a calm moment, it happens when we're irrational, so that we have this invisible line in our heads that we say, I know the difference between a smack and a whack, we don't. For me it's very clear that we need to ensure that if I'm at a meeting and let's say Lucy or Andy says something that annoys me, I don't immediately think I'm going to give them a bit of a whack because I don't agree with them. No, that's not acceptable, it's not on, so why is it acceptable when it's a child? Because what are you telling the child? This is how you solve a problem, don't discuss it, don't learn to calm down, don't learn to de-escalate. I've tumped to the ground myself when I'm annoyed because I've had to learn these lessons in life and this for me is about helping children in those really critical life skills of how you problem solve, how you deal and also we know that when you hit a child they immediately forget everything that happened beforehand because that person they love, they cherish, has hit them, so there's no connection to what they actually did. Thank you very much for that. We're going to hear this afternoon from an American academic who is very much opposed to the legislation. His name is Professor Lazzellerie and he uses the example of Sweden which we've heard already to denote a correlation between negative social outcomes and the removal of the parents' right to chastise. In fact he points to rather quite the extreme statistic that there has been a 73% increase in the number of juvenile rapes in Sweden since 1979 when the ban came in and he says, although increased willingness to report rapes might have accounted for part of these, of this 73% increase it is likely because a small but increasing number of boys never learned to accept no from their mothers. Have you seen anything like that in Ireland, any corollary between the removal of physical punishment and an uptick in juvenile violence? No, there's absolutely no evidence and I've also, as part of my work, worked with the Council of Baltic Sea States, which obviously includes Sweden, who've done considerable work on the issue of violence against children and I have heard these spurious arguments being put forward and there is no evidence. I have met with people in Sweden whether they're from the police, from social workers, from practitioners on the ground, there is no evidence for those arguments. Thank you. Did you want to bring other panel members in on this? I wondered if if any of the other panel members wanted to do any questions. Yes, on the two questions I've asked Gillian. Yes, Dr Reynolds. So this one's being a pediatrician in Glasgow and representing all the 1,000 pediatricians members of the College of Pediatrics and Child Health in Scotland. I'm also a member of the international society for social pediatrics and child health which actually started off in Sweden but now is an international organisation. We have a big email discussion group and whenever I've posted things in relation to equal protection for children, no pediatrician in any of the countries that have fully protected their children on the law have ever expressed any regrets on any of those discussion groups. Staffan Yansen, who is a pediatrician from Sweden, I think has spoken at the Scottish Parliament before, he spoke, we had a meeting of the international society for social pediatrics and child health in St Andrews a few years ago and he I suppose really listened to him and then thinking I really need to look into this evidence was really the start of me thinking I had a duty as a pediatrician to do more about this. So I hear from New Zealand pediatricians, I hear from Swedish, Icelandic, Spanish, German, Austrian, all of them. There's absolutely no regret with having changed the law and are really kind of looking to us to be next and the countries that haven't yet changed. You know, when I've posted there's a pediatrician in Japan he's going oh oh and what are you doing and of course down south and in Wales and so on they're all looking to us in Scotland to do this, to equally protect children and hope that they can then follow on. I want to make a point in relation to your first question, Alex, which is the difference between hitting and restraint. So the example you gave the first one was a boiling pan of water that the child pulls over. You don't keep children safe by hitting them so you manage the environment in a way that keeps them safe so you don't leave that pan of boiling water there, you are with that pan, you're in front of that child, it's at a height that the child can't reach and that kind of thing. You don't stop a child running into traffic by slapping them, you put yourself in between that child and the traffic or put an arm out and I think that is an important distinction that restraint is sometimes necessary for the safety of the child or the safety of somebody else. If children are punching each other you would get yourself in between them but that is not the same as hitting a child and that is the bit that we are seeing as inconsistent with the children's rights. Do any other panel members wish to come in on that? I was picking up on the latter point but the earlier point, sorry, is a developmental pediatrician. I should say something about the way that children learn and from birth children learn by mimicry. You look on YouTube, it's brilliant if you see little clips of newborn babies, they can't focus terribly well so you have to do exaggerated facial expressions but you get a newborn at this sort of distance and if you've got their attention and you start doing exaggerated facial expressions sticking out their tongues, they do it. It's magic, well it's not magic, it's science, whatever, but they do it. Also later, another thing on YouTube, if you were to put in Bandura, Bobo Doll experiments, Alfred Bandura was a child psychologist, but the experiment is basically that you have two groups of children, you have a room full of a whole variety of different toys and you show one set of children before they go into that room, some film of an adult picking up a toy mallet and whacking nine bells out of a kind of clown doll and the group of children that haven't seen that video don't go in and whack the clown, they look at all the different sort of toys and play with them. The ones who've seen the video are much more likely to go in and pick up a mallet and whack the doll and it's actually very distressing on YouTube. You see lovely little girls just hitting this thing because they've seen it done. Children learn by mimicry and if you hit children you are teaching them to expect either to dominate or to be dominated through physical violence and I don't want our children to be taught that. Also, since my particular specialty developmental pediatrics and disability, I would point out when people realise that adults with learning disabilities were being hit at winter born view, there was universal public outcry. If those people with learning difficulties had been 15, would it have been okay to hit them? If they were 12, would it have been okay to hit them? If they were nine, if they were five, if they were three, would that have been okay to hit them? What age do you think I can tell that a child has a learning disability or has autism or has whatever the problem? Not usually when they're three and yet the peak age for hitting when you look at cohort studies growing up in Scotland, the millennium cohort study, is three. So you like is it a tap? Is it a thumb? Is it a hit? Is it a whack? Is it a smack? Also what is the developmental potential of that person that you're hitting? It's inappropriate way of trying to manage a child's behaviour. It doesn't work to improve their behaviour. It can lead to long-standing difficulties with aggressive behaviours, anti-social behaviours, or with problems with self-esteem and depression. There are no good arguments for doing it. It's like arguing to say, as I say, that my child shouldn't wear a seatbelt. There's every reason to protect them. At this point, Mary Fee had some questions on harm. I'm grateful for the information that you've given us, Dr Reynolds, because I did. My next question was to ask about the impact of hitting a child has. Now, whether that's long-term, short-term, the difference in their behaviour, and you have spoken to some degree about that. I wonder if there's anything else you want to comment about the long-term physical and mental impact on hitting a child and if the rest of the panel would like to comment? It's important to realise that all the studies, like that systematic review, were not about hitting at the level where it's causing obvious injury. This is the day-to-day hitting, what you might say, smacking or whatever. I know that you've heard from academics already, so I'm a bit hesitant about going to research evidence. The Growing Up in Scotland study when they asked parents or main caregiver of a two-year-old, and they'd excluded two-year-olds who already had any kind of behavioural difficulties, whether or not they sometimes smacked, hit their children. They looked at the age of four once that cohort had been followed through, and they compared the four-year-olds whose parent or caregiver had said at two that, yes, they sometimes smacked, and the ones who said they didn't. The ones who had sometimes been smacked at four were more than twice as likely to have some sort of behavioural difficulties on the strengths and difficulties questionnaire, and also studies where you're looking at children who already have behavioural problems, and the interventions that are more likely to be successful in reducing the aggressive behaviours are the ones where you had a lower level of physical punishment at baseline and that the intervention reduced that level of physical punishment. It's very difficult, it would be very expensive to do things where you follow people on to the age of 25, 30, 40 or whatever. I know for myself that all I remember from being smacked, I don't remember individual instances, they were very rare, but I do remember a really deep sense of injustice when it's happened, that's the thing that I remember, and speaking to friends who were, sorry, am I going off topic? No, no, not at all. I wonder if I'll bring in some of the other panel members to give some reflections. Sorry, going back to practice, I hear parents say to me things like, my mother's said, if a child is bitten, bite him back so he knows what it feels like, and that's such a deep misunderstanding of what a child would learn through doing that. Thank you. Do any other of the panel members have any different answers? No, I work in an environment where we are quite rightly not allowed to hit children, but if you go back, you know, in Scottish education and certainly when I was at secondary school in the belt existed, corporal punishment, and I think there was a fear in schools at that time, I think that led to quite a lot of disengagement in the part of some young people too, and we know so much more about the best ways for children and young people to learn now, and again it goes back to what we know at the heart of good learning, good relationships, kindness, caring, et cetera, and I don't think you're going to have that if you in any way promote an education system where you would allow violence and the point of the last question as well about restraint and violence, et cetera. While I was in a home economics classroom yesterday with 20 teenagers making a cake and there's cookers on and there's knives, et cetera, but we taught them, we teach them how to be in a safe environment and for those children who, and young people who do find it difficult to self-regulate, again we talk to them very much about the implications of any kind of behaviour in that environment and the importance of health and safety, so I think it goes back to that mantra of if you build good relationships and if you teach young people in children what's right and wrong and how to behave, then you move away from that environment of it being anything at all to do with violence. Does anyone have anything else to add? We've got to about five past 10, so we'll try and keep... No, sorry. It's a very important, interesting topic, but I think we'll get for it. I know. Annie Wells. Thank you, convener. Good morning. As we've heard, there's a lot of public interest in this legislation that we're discussing today, and there's quite a lot of individuals who have raised concerns about what we're discussing. Do you think that the bill will criminalise parents and lead to and increase some prosecutions, and are you aware of any evidence of that, just open to all PAM members? My experience in dealing with child protection in Edinburgh, as I was saying earlier on, where harm has occurred, we're trying to get alongside families and not criminalise them and not over-proceduralise things, and it is very rare for a case in which a parent has assaulted a child to proceed to a prosecution in my experience unless there has been some evidence of real intent to harm and something we're very worried about. Most parents who hit children, you know, there's been a loss of control, there's a poor relationship with stress around it, and we need to help them with those things and not criminalise them. I'm very clear about that. Maybe I can speak from the Irish experience. Certainly, the reason I chose, the legislation I chose, was because there was no sanctions in it. For me, parents have the toughest job in the world. They also have the most rewarding job in the world, and we need to ensure that, as a society, we work to help parents. Going back to the previous question, we know from research that hitting children either has no effect or it has a negative effect. Therefore, I felt that, as a legislator, we have a responsibility to support parents in their important role and ensure that we have laws that will reflect what works. In relation to criminalising in advance of this meeting, I once again contacted our child and family agency. That's our body for social workers and engagements with parents and families in Ireland. They're an agency that are relatively new, part of our historic past, so they started on 1 January 2014. They have not. They've seen a slight increase, but they don't believe it's the change in law. It's more about the new agency that is dedicated towards supporting children and family. Our Office of the Director for Public Prosecutions doesn't keep statistics of this nature, but they have checked and they have no evidence of any increase in prosecutions. With our Gardish Connor, who is our police service, they equally have no evidence of any increase in criminalising of parents. However, each one of them, when I contacted it, used the word clarity, that the law brought clarity and helped them in their work. I'll make it or try and be brief. To us as paediatricians, this would not change the threshold at which child protection procedures are implemented. We, this is very much a public health measure. Sometimes changing the law is the most effective way of affecting public health change, and I would always give the analogy of with the smoking ban. For myself, someone who goes to lots of gigs, music and you're in the middle of a crowd, it was horrible before the ban. You know always going home with smoky hair and clothes, but after the ban, sometimes somebody would light up in the middle of a crowd. I didn't dial 999 or try and get out of the crowd and call a policeman. I just said, sorry could you stop doing that, and I know that the force of public opinion around me will be with me and they stop. I've never had a problem with asking someone to stop smoking since the ban. Thank you for that. There is also concern that this bill will interfere in private family life. Is this concern justified? You could equally say, well I've already said is things like saying that you should put a seatbelt on when you put your child in the car, is that interfering with family life? I would also say in the past people might have been able to smack their servants or their wife or whatever. Why is it okay to interfere in family life to protect women, protect adults? Why is it not okay to protect children? Yeah, so it agreed that children just need equal protection to adults and we do not intervene disproportionately. We try to make best use of resources by doing what is needed and no more than that as early as stage is possible. So no agency is in the business of wanting to interfere. As I was saying earlier on, we're too busy doing other things that do need us to intervene and I'm not worried about that. I think that this is a simple case of children having equal rights and that is not an interference in family life, it's ensuring that everybody has that same protection. In education we obviously promote UNICEF, I've got a badge on today, wearing it with pride, rights respecting schools and the rights of children and young people's voices to be heard. I think that you can't say that that stops at a school gate, it has to be beyond that school gate and it has to be about all environments that children should feel safe. It's not about interfering in family life, it's ensuring though that children can live in a world free from violence and that includes their own home. Their home should be the safest place and any exposure to violence, whether it's domestic violence or hitting of a child, is telling children that there is some level of violence that is acceptable. Just as a corollary to the previous question, there was one case we had since the law change where a member of the public witnessed a child being hit in a car park quite severely and reported it and it turned out that that child was being significantly abused. The member of the public cited the change in law gave them the courage to say, this is not okay, this is not. So we have seen that one prosecution, so I just want to make sure that I answer your question with integrity, but for me it's more about us as a society ensuring. So if I see a parent having a difficult moment with their child in a supermarket because of where they're displaying the sweets, I don't immediately jump in to criticise the parent. I'm actually seeing how can I help to calm this situation so I will usually be heard muttering it's disgraceful the way they have sweets out there at an eye level for a child. So I think for me, change in the law on Ireland was about us as a society taking a responsibility that we support parents in their role, we know that hitting doesn't work, so let's talk about what actually works, let's support them in that important role that they have. Would it be different if there was sanctions? Would it be different I don't think, for me that there is laws about assault, there is laws on child abuse, those laws have been tried and tested and they are there. This is quite archaic in my opinion that we have a threshold that we say in relation to a child, we have this threshold that you have to pass before those laws can apply. So for me it's very clearly about removing that defence that came from our shared common law, so it's about removing that defence. It's not about putting any additional burdens because those laws exist. Thank you. I was going to ask a question, we've had a concern raised that if there was any increase in prosecutions there would be an increase on public services, but you've said that there wasn't, there was just that one case in Ireland. So just to get on the record, do you think there will be any increase in a burden on public services should this law pass? I think in terms of the causal view, we think that there's probably just still a bit more work to be done in terms of getting an understanding definitely from what the impact of local government on this is going to be. We think currently the financial memorandum sort of thinks that it can all be met within current costs, so I just think that there's a bit more consideration to be done with both local government and Scottish Government working together to find out really bottom out what some of those are, but I don't think it's going to be sort of prohibitively high, but we just need to have a bit more of a deeper understanding of what that's going to look like. Okay, I am going to come on to questions about the financial memorandum. The bill's proposer, John Finnie, has calculated that it's going to cost around £300,000, but the Scottish Government have countered that with a figure of £20,000, so there's quite a big disparity there. Matthew Sweeney, from your point of view, what extra scrutiny do you think needs to be done to satisfy local authorities that we are providing the funds that we're going to need to see that through? I think that it's just sort of reflecting what are the likely additional costs. Obviously there may be some additional ones on children and family social work and maybe Andy can come in with some of the more detail of what that's going to look like in practice, but some of the other things that sort of might want to be considered further is about what would sort of promotion look like and do we want to have some of that done at a local level because perhaps local authorities have effective ends with their communities and if we want to really promote this change at that local level, perhaps additional resources to councils would help with that. The further one we want to maybe just put out for consideration is what type of support would we like for families as alternative support strategies for parenting, and then again how can we support local authorities to financially enable them to do that? Matthew, just to press you a little bit on that, we heard from Andy Jeffries there that actually there wouldn't be a substantial change because social workers would still be working alongside families and I suppose what this intends to do is to provide clarity, can I just press you a little further on what additional costs you think there will be to children and family services in local authorities? That was based on the sort of international evidence which has broadly seen that there has been a slight increase in reporting but not prosecution, so that was that, and I don't know if anyone wants to come in as well. Sorry, Lucy, to Peter Tricia's point of view, we would feel it was very important to have some initial investment in an information public message campaign. We would think that the timing is very good in that there has been recent investment in health visiting services, so for people to be there to support families who are asking about it and about appropriate methods for supporting a child and their behaviours, but in the longer term for specialist services you'll know that the College of Psychiatrists, the College of Psychiatrists of Scotland were entirely supportive of the Bill on consultation because obviously they're the people that when children have significant emotional behavioural difficulties would be seeing them in the longer term, so in the longer term we would expect some savings. Okay, so I made that point earlier on about much of this being core business. I mean I should point out, you know, first of all the distinction between the two roles that I have on one hand I'm representing Social Work Scotland here but I also have talked about my work in the city of Edinburgh and I will not be popular with anybody in either place if I don't make that distinction. The Social Work Scotland position is similar to COSLA in that we are saying just a bit more detailed financial impact assessment would be in order. That is not necessarily just in relation to more social workers knocking on doors but getting this right needs a number of things to be in place, a comms campaign, parenting support, there might be needing to be some consideration of communities that would be harder to reach, so there are some parts of the community in which this message is going to be more difficult than others. We might want to engage with community groups and faith groups. That's the kind of work that needs to happen to help us to be effective right across the country, so it's not just me saying I need another social worker for these six extra cases, it's actually broader work than that and I think that's where we're saying the financial impact needs to be assessed in a wee bit more detail. It's just a note of caution given diminishing resources across the board. Presumably that you're already working with these communities and so it's not brand new work, it's additional. Just to add from my side, in relation to our agencies in Ireland, when the change in law happened, they saw that social workers, for example, were seeking more information and guidance internally within the agency. As I have said previously, we have a different process in Ireland and our budget allocated was zero, so we didn't have any information raising or campaigning in relation. I would love to be a massive campaign to ensure that we give a message to all children and to all parents, but that should not stop us. I felt me as a legislator to change the law. In Ireland, if you didn't have a public awareness raising campaign, how did you convey to people that the law had changed? We conveyed it through the organisations that engage and interact with children, so whether it's from public health nurses, pediatricians, social workers, so those people are engaging on a daily basis, early learning centres, schools, through the media. For me, it was fascinating to see how that cultural change happened so quickly that people automatically assumed it. In fact, only this morning, when I was discussing with a member of the public that I was here, they said, but that law changed two years ago in Scotland. It is interesting that, when you start having these debates, the public automatically start in their mind saying, oh well, that's changed. Is there anything that you would have done differently looking back now? Would I have done differently? If I had realised that there were so many countries in the world that hadn't changed their laws, I might feel a little bit more anxious about changing the law, but to be honest, no, because for me it was, even if I was going to be the only member of parliament that advocated this change in law, I wanted children to know that I stood for them and that I believed that they could be in a home free from violence. For me, I would still have done exactly the same. What was really heartening was that so many of my colleagues right across parties all realised that the time was right for us to change the law. I want to just pick up on something that Matthew Sweeney said in response to the question that the convener asked. You stated that there had been an increase in reporting, but not in prosecutions. Was that from Ireland, or was that an example from elsewhere? Yes, so when the cause of children and young people were considered to this, we heard research that was presented by Directives of Public Health and by Social Work Scotland. That was from international evidence, both from across Europe and across the world, more broadly. We have also had representations to us that said that if we are going to, I mean, public awareness raising and education campaign is possibly something that we should be doing anyway, to try and not teach, but advise parents of alternative positive parenting techniques instead of using smack-in, which sometimes is used as a last resort. Do you feel that an awareness raising and education campaign would be enough on its own, and why do we need the legislation to back it up? How can you give an awareness raising campaign that is saying something that is the opposite from what the law says? The law is an absolute barrier to us doing what we know we have to do. It sends a muddled message, and that goes back to what social workers have said to me and public health nurses, is that before the change in law in Ireland, they were saying, well, it's not really good, you shouldn't, and all the research and the evidence, and here's what you should do. So they're having that discussion, rather than being really clear and saying, not allowed hit in the same way I'm not allowed hit Lucy, you're not allowed hit children, and now here's what you can do. Yes, Andy. Yeah, agreed. I just think absolute clarity in legislation is helpful, and I think this is heading things in the right direction. And there's an intersection with other proposals, such as the revision of section 12 of the 1937 children and young people's act on willful ill treatment and neglect. There are some grey areas in the legislation that aren't that helpful when we're trying to get it right with parents and change behaviour, and I think clarity will just help that. I mean, sometimes we can have quite difficult conversation with parents and carers, you know, particularly when some young people are having difficulty self-regulating their behaviours, and in those discussions, often the comments are made, well, I know you can't do that here, but we do that, and sometimes I think some parents can find it difficult to see that that relationship that they're developing is actually not helping the situation when they actually come into school and then in their life, and I think that clarity would help us quite significantly in those discussions, too. Fulton MacGregor. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Most of the areas that I was going to ask about have been covered, so I've got three quite specific questions for the panel. I'll just say what a fantastic panel session this has been this morning. Andy Jeffries, you've mentioned quite helpful the child protection processes, and it's something that I have in other members and panelists have brought up at the previous sessions as well. I think you've covered the main points already that I would have wanted to get out, but I wonder if this law was to be passed, would you be able to explain to the committee how the current child protection processes, you know, a hypothetical situation coming in to you, would change? They wouldn't change at all. It's the same business, so national guidance says that if you have a child protection concern, you take a multi-agency approach to that, and that means that three main agencies come together for a conversation, which is social work, police and the NHS. What you're trying to do in that conversation is establish an agreed multi-agency assessment of risk, establish the immediate arrangement for the safety of that child and then get a plan for moving forward, and that will just be the same with any of these kinds of concerns. There is a principle of minimal intervention. The national guidance is in the process of being revised this year as well. You might know that whole multi-agency process. My own view is that that could be made even clearer in national guidance, so we'd be looking at that anyway. But essentially it's about a conversation that has the child at the heart and thinks about immediate safety and how then are we going to help together, and that will be exactly the same before and after this piece of legislation. To put on the record for people who might be watching this, they might be worried about that you wouldn't envisage there being a dramatic increase in children who put through child protection procedures or placed on the child protection register as a result of this legislation. It's very hard to give a definitive answer to that. Child protection concerns vary a lot. As I was saying earlier on, I sign off all the child protection concerns in Edinburgh at a weekly meeting that is multi-agency. The highest number of cases that we've looked at in this calendar year is 66, and the lowest number is 22. That varies a lot over time, and you just respond to the things that need to be responded to. I echo a point that I made earlier on that if we get the GERFEC approach right, there will be less children coming through a child protection route. In Edinburgh, we have less children on the child protection register than we've ever had, and we've got the lowest number of looked-after children that we've had in 10 years, so there's something about getting GERFEC right with those families that is working. The main thing in relation to child protection is that three agencies are agreed and satisfied that that child is safe and we're doing the right things together. From the evidence, one might actually expect a reduction in some child protection cases, because, as Gillian has said, if hitting a child is part of your repertoire of ordinary discipline, then, at a time of stress, you may do it harder than you really intended to, and injure a child to the point where child protection measures may kick in. However, if it just isn't part of your repertoire, even when you're stressed, it's not the first thing that you think of doing. Some of the papers in that systematic review suggested that there would be a reduction in cases of hitting hard because people aren't hitting at all. Thanks very much for that. As opposed to the other side of that, as the child protection is one side that people may have worries about, the other side is the criminalisation, which has been well covered already in the panel. Yourself, Andy Giffries and the Mdals on the panel, are you aware of the defence of reasonable justice that has been used? I don't tend to deal with cases by the time they are out of the child protection process, so I'm no expert on outcomes in court and what happens in court. That happens after the child protection process has done its job. What about in Ireland? Did you come across that when you were taking this law through? I talked to people about private in-camera court hearings. We rarely saw the defence being used, but it has been used in a number of cases. I haven't seen any increase. Nobody has noticed any increases or any trends significant other than, as Andy has clearly said, there are always parameters in relation to child protection that you have, but we haven't seen any differential. We wouldn't really see the relevance of that, whether there had been cases prosecuted, where people had successfully used the defence in the past. It's the public health message that having a law saying that it's okay gives. It's not whether it's been used before or not. We need to get rid of it, so we get rid of that societal message saying that it is justifiable and reasonable for parents or caregivers to hit children. Is it fair to say that it's the clarity that it seems? Yes, clarity, clarity. I was supposed to say the word clarity. Julian said it already. We're all clarity is the big message here. Where can we go back to everybody without me putting it into their mouths as such? When I contacted the different agencies, the different organisations, the word clarity just keeps coming up. One more question, if that's all right. We heard last week when we were in the Skying Committee an aspect that I personally support for the record, but an aspect that I hadn't actually heard before. We heard that, if this law is passed, that it might impact on the more vulnerable and disadvantaged communities where there may be already services involved, police officers, social workers and such. I don't personally think that that would be the case, but I wanted to put it to the panel, particularly Andy Jeffries against sorry, I'm not picked on you, such bit, but the other panel as well are the panel members too. If you think there is any relevance in that argument. Yes, I think there will be sections of the community in which this message is harder to get heard than others. Faith groups would be another. You're talking about different value bases, different beliefs, so there may be disproportionate impact on some communities, and as I was saying earlier on, they're the areas in which we need to work to do the education and engage people and get them on board. Nobody is going to want to punish people who already have adverse life experiences because of poverty or domestic abuse or whatever else they're having to live with us. None of us would want these things present in our lives, and I keep coming back to this point, but it's about how we get alongside those people and help them not to hit their children. It's just as simple as that. We must help them to do other things that are not hitting children. For us, certainly in Ireland, and I don't know the situation in Scotland, but there is a disproportionate belief, I believe, that child abuse is more likely to happen in poverty than it is likely to happen in a family who have respectable professions. We as a society and as legislators have to continually challenge that belief, and I think that that is important. In the change in law, we did also see that there was a challenge with some of our minority groups about explaining and sharing that change in law, but when I engaged with those leaders, those respected individuals in the minority groups, they took it as a really welcome challenge to talk with their groupings, with their members, to share with them the positive parenting and how you raise children in Ireland. For me, it's clarity again. If there is a difference in the prevalence of children being hit across the socioeconomic spectrum, well, all the more reason for them to get the more benefit, if it's more deprived communities. I've worked for the past 17 years as a consultant in North Glasgow. I also cover part of East Dunbartonshire. Occasionally, I'll see someone who's a bit more affluent. That conversation that I had that I mentioned where a young mum, that was certainly from a deprived background, saying that when her son bit another child, her mother said, bite him back so he knows what it feels like. Once I'd explained to her, she could understand, of course, it's ridiculous. I'll now tell my mother. Even last week, I'm trying to think exactly, I'm picturing these parents and thinking, where did they live? How affluent were they? Certainly educated both parents, the fact that it wasn't a single parents. Both parents in front of me were talking about their child's behavioural difficulties, wondering whether the child might have difficulties on the autism spectrum. The dad just made a comment about saying, he doesn't even seem to understand when I give him a smack, blah, blah, blah. He clearly didn't think that a pediatrician would have any issue with that. Of course, I'm not down his throat saying, oh, he was a terrible, terrible person, but he just didn't know. It was funny because his partner was immediately like, don't mention the smacking, so the confusion there. I hear it from families in all different circumstances. I have another question from Alex Cole-Hamilton and then Gordon Lindhurst, and I'm conscious that we're drawing into the last eight minutes. Thank you very much for bringing back in, convener. It's actually two very quick questions, one directly again to Gillian VanTurnehout. We've heard a lot about clarity. I think there is a perception, as Andy Jeffries raised, that we've already done this and that smacking is already illegal in this country, among many, many parents. But can I ask, so there is a confusion there, since the law came always change in Ireland, has that clarity been established? I believe it has, and I don't have any evidence because we haven't done any polling. I did try to see if I had any statistical evidence to present to you, but what I have done is done in very wide consultations in advance of coming here today. I also, as a volunteer, I'm a member of the Irish Girl Guides and I'm a safeguarding trainer, and one of the things we do in trainings is these scenarios and saying, you know, from one to ten on abuse and hitting of children. And I know since we've changed the law and we're doing the trainings, everyone at those trainings knows it. Before I have said anything or any of the other trainers, I'm in charge of all of our trainers as a volunteer, and all of them said that, and that's right around geographically from Ireland, that as mothers certainly they know about the change in law. My second question is again about the evidence that we'll hear this afternoon from the American academic professor, Lozellary. He suggests that without having a recourse to mild back-up smacking, as he describes it, then parents may become increasingly frustrated until they are likely to explode with severe verbal or physical violence. Is there any empirical evidence of that either in Ireland or elsewhere in the international community where this has already happened, and is it a concern of any of the panellists? I suppose I just find it very difficult to even understand the rationale for that argument. Certainly in advance of changing the law in Ireland, I read quite a considerable amount of research. We didn't have the opportunity of the Anya Hyman research on equal protection that wasn't available at that time. But I did look at the research done by Elizabeth Gershoff, which looked at 75 studies, and 161,000 children over 50 years of research. She took all of that herself and Grogan Taylor. That very clearly found that there was no evidence that spanking is associated with any improved child behaviour. In fact, it was more likely to be associated with troubling outcomes, any level of hitting of a child. Systematic reviews are... The word systematic is there. There are people going, looking across, doing searches on keywords, finding good quality studies that give evidence for what you're studying. That hasn't been quoted any of those systematic reviews. That just sounds like somebody who has a preconceived position and is cherry-picking, clutching at straws to find something that might support what they're saying. Obviously, I represent an organisation that represents adults, the length and breadth of Scotland, who work with children and young people every day and sometimes in difficult and distressing situations. There has never ever been anyone who would come forward and say the answer to this is to use violence towards any of those children and young people. In fact, the message from us is very clear. It is promoting good health and wellbeing amongst our children and young people and teaching them about the ways in which they can improve that health and wellbeing and their social and emotional development. Those are what will ensure that, in Scotland, we have children and young people who will want to become parents and carers who would not consider using violence towards any other young person. Okay, thank you. At this point, I'll bring in Gordon Linter, MSP. Thank you, convener. A question for Gillian, perhaps. I read your submission to the committee, which is very helpful and very interesting, about the Irish change in law. What I want to ask, you referring that to the non-fatal offences against the person act in 1897, which is your codified criminal law. Of course, we don't have codified criminal law in Scotland. There are certain defences in that, for example, in section 2 that defines assault, part of which subsection 3 relates to a defendant not knowing or believing that what they do, the force or impact as you define it in your law assault, if they don't know or believe it, is unacceptable to the other person. Do you think our procedure at stage 2, individual MSP, can bring forward amendments? I'm just wondering, thinking about that, do you think that Scottish parents and families should have the same protections in law that Irish parents and families do that we don't have in our common law as opposed to your criminal codified system? Firstly, we don't have a codified law, so just to be absolutely clear, we don't use that system. We also have a common law, and with a common law tradition like yourselves, over the years it has evolved and we have made changes in our legislation. In relation to choosing the non-fatal offences against this person act of 1997 to amend, that is because that is where assault and physical assault were situated, and the Government felt that that was the best place. I was very privileged to have the authority of our Attorney General in helping us in making that amendment. I originally submitted my own amendment, my own humble amendment, but I had the authority of the Government and the Attorney General. We changed the law within our Children's First Act, so the amendment was to repeal the common law defence of reasonable chastisement, and then you place it in the best piece of legislation. It was in relation to our Children's First Act, which was a safeguarding child protection act. It's about having safeguarding statements in youth halls and around the country. Those pieces of legislation were part of that act. There were no sanctions within that act, which is why I chose that piece of legislation. Also, I should add, when we changed the law in Ireland, as we did in this case, very often, for somebody like myself as a children's rights advocate also, is that it takes quite some time for the Government to commence that piece of legislation. I think that this pays testament to the public opinion questions, the resources question. Within four weeks, the Government commenced that piece of legislation. It was very expeditiously changed because it was a repeal of that common law defence within our common law tradition that we have in Ireland. That's a very helpful clarification. As you say, you don't have a codified criminal law, but assault is defined in a statute, so an act of Parliament. It's almost like you have a mixed system between a codified system, a common law system. I mean similar perhaps to England, where they have a lot of offences defined in the statute, some are common law. I think what we're dealing with here is repeal of a defence to a common law defined form of assault, so it's not quite your system. I think your key point is that there's no sanction in terms of criminal law sanctions that I understand you correctly. The laws apply in relation to assault, in relation to child abuse. All those laws apply, but what we did and the change that I brought forward, and certainly from my reading, is what I read within your legislation, but I am not in any way saying I understand the Scottish system. Because we come from a common law tradition, as over 70 countries in the world, we have the same route. The same route that Scotland has for its common law in relation to reasonable chastisement is our route that we had in Ireland. What we did in our legislation was to repeal the defence under common law, which is how all countries, to my understanding, change common law over time through our legislation, we are able to amend and change and update our laws and thinking, so that's what we did in Ireland. Can I thank the panel members for their evidence this morning? That's been really helpful for us, and we'll suspend until 10.15, until then, when the system turns over. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Good morning, I should say. Welcome back. We now welcome panel 2 in our evidence session, John Mackenzie, chief superintendent, head of safer communities at Police Scotland, Mary McMillan, criminal law committee, law society of Scotland and Neil Hunter, principal reporter, Scottish children's reporter administration. You are all very welcome. Can I start things off by asking you if you support the aims of the bill to end the physical punishment of children and to give your reflections on why public opinion is so mixed on this matter? Neil? The children's reporter's administration very much supports the aims of this bill. For a number of reasons, one we've heard already this morning, the bill clarifies a currently very ambiguous aspect of law in relation to defence of the justifiable justizement. A lot of the discussion this morning has already focused on the need for absolute clarity for parents in society about what's acceptable and what's not acceptable in relation to children. The second reason why we support the bill's intent is because I think it very importantly identifies children as independent holders of rights and not rights that are mediated through adults or to their parents but who have rights as equal but slightly different to adults and are independent holders of those rights. I think it helps also to bring Scotland into line with UNCRC. We've heard a number of sessions and promotes positive approaches to parenting and starts to help us to negate the impact of less appropriate aspects of parenting behaviour. In relation to public opinion, I think I've been thinking about this quite a bit. I suppose that in many ways it depends what question you ask the public in public opinion. If you ask it in relation to focusing, framing that around the potential aspects of criminalisation that we've heard through the pastures of the bill today, then you'll get one response. If you frame it much more positively around children's rights and protecting children from harms and promoting the long-term wellbeing of children, you'll get a very different response. John McKenzie? The aim of the bill that is outlined in the proposal document is to split it into two bits. The first bit in terms of promoting safeguard, the health and wellbeing of children and young people and ensuring that they afford the same rights to protection from assaults as adults. That falls in line with Police Scotland's values when we support that component. The vehicle in which it is highlighted when the bill in terms of removing the defence link to justifiable assault, you'll be aware that Police Scotland usually remains neutral in terms of our position in terms of legislation. Actually, I will answer that component in this manner. It's ultimately for the legislator to make a policy decision on what they believe based on evidence, but let me tell you what I think the evidence is based on my judgment and Police Scotland's judgment. It's clear that the multi-agency response that's talked about greatly within the evidence-providing sessions would not change from a police and social work perspective. The issue of the evidence that exists seems to support that actually the wellbeing of children are served by the legislation that's placed in front based on the body of evidence that's been provided. It's clear that there's lessons that can be learnt from other areas that hold in principle a common law system such as New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland, such as explanation notes for parents around that aspect of restraint that's already been spoken about in the earlier session, and also the communication component within the Republic of Ireland, so there's components of that. Going back to the point of do Police Scotland support it, we support the principle that's highlighted. I believe there's a body of evidence to support the rationale behind it, but ultimately the decision for the removal of that defence is for the policy decision for the legislator. In terms of the public awareness, I was just saying to Neil before we came on. I was trying, in my notes, I have actually got from the public survey, 75 per cent of respondents supported the bill, 25 did not, but I just cannot find where that source component is, but it's in my notes, so I believe that to be correct. My anticipation is that the issue of public support will enhance as we move forward. It's demonstrated in Sweden that that's a position. It's been demonstrated in the Republic of Ireland that's a position. I am not so convinced that there is such a polar position within the public of Scotland. That goes back to the proud history that Scotland has from the 60s, called Brandon, and our approach to criminalisation of children, and our approach to Gerfett. The stance that I have, and the judgment that I have, is that there are not such polar opinions across the mass of the population within Scotland. As you've said, I'm representing the Law Society's criminal law committee, and it's not our role to comment on social policy, much similar to my colleague. However, clarity of the law is something that is really important to the law society. In terms of, I work as a defence agent at the moment, and the law is not clear at the moment, it's not easily understood by people. Effectively, I think that we sometimes talk about this incorrectly, and it's already an offence to assault a child, if that's what you're talking about. Actually, what there is is there's defences in law. I know that you've heard lots of evidence around that, but that has to be the starting point. Explaining the nuance of those defences and what that means is not something that's well understood by the public or by clients. I think that any clarification of the law is always helpful. Thank you very much, convener. I'm very interested in the point that you've just made, Mary McCallant, because it's something that worries me with how the bills, the particular method that we've chosen for changing this defence out of law, because I think that we hear lots of people talking about this being an anti-smacking bill, and clearly on the face of it that's not what it is. We just heard in the previous session one of the witnesses say that we don't know the difference between a smack and a whack and that there's no invisible line, but I wondered in legal terms and in your practical experience, do the courts make a distinction when it comes to assault between maybe a smack or a whack and something that's designed or intended to cause physical harm? If you take children and what we're talking about today is almost out of equation and just look at assault and how assault is dealt with in the court system, that's relatively clear, and the courts are well used to dealing with that and knowing how to. It does have to have that intention to harm and there's various ways in which that's looked at, but I suppose effectively there will still be a small grey line, a grey area, but ultimately that will end up being down to a prosecutorial decision as to whether or not it's in the public interest to prosecute. Some of what you're talking about may be deemed that it's not in the public interest weighing up all the different various factors they have to weigh up. Ultimately, though, if it's an assault, then it will be, it will, each case is dependent on the facts and circumstances of each individual case. I don't know if that helps to answer your question. That does help. My question is where, as a legislator, how would I know passing this legislation, where that threshold will be and where it will sit? In that context, do you think that it would have been better if the bill's aim was to get into physical punishment of children to positively pass a statute that made that point clear? Do you think that that would give more clarity than just removing a defence? I take the point, but I think that our common laws served us quite well in this area. I think that there's a good understanding of what assault is, what it means in terms of if a client comes in and I'm dealing just with an ordinary assault, it's clear in how you explain that to the client, what we're looking at, what the issues are, what their concerns might be, from a prosecutorial point of view. It's straightforward in terms of, and I think as well, for the sheriff's judges or justice of the peace in terms of making those decisions. That's clear, so I think that our common law does serve as well in relation to that, so I can't see that there's any issue with the way in which the bill's drafted in achieving the aim of what you're looking to do. Do you think that parents would have sufficient foreseeability in terms of moderating their own behaviour in this area, even though there will be no case law because of the previous use of the defence potentially? I'm certainly not aware of any case law that sets a threshold because this defence has been in place. Obviously, where the defence has been used, we don't get into the question of that intention and whether that evil or wicked intent was there. I think that's foreseeable enough. It is foreseeable enough in the sense that there's lots of case law around assault. Obviously, it would be evolving in relation to if you were bringing children in and we would be losing those defence. I think that there's merit in the common law being the source of where our law evolves because we can progress and change things as time goes on. Ultimately, if that law was enacted, the advice to clients would be that it's against the law to assault your child and how that's interpreted, then thereafter it's down to the courts. It would be quite clear in terms of the advice that would be provided. I've got two further questions. That would be relatively quick. If you're confident that the common law is able to adequately define assault, why is the common law so ambiguous when it comes to this particular defence? Why is it so ambiguous? Do you think that the law is ambiguous currently with this defence? In terms of reasonable chastisement as a defence, I think that that is ambiguous and that's why the 2003 act, which I'm obviously in part in relation to. Why is the common law ambiguous for a defence but not ambiguous around the actual defence? What's the difference? I suppose that it depends on what you mean by ambiguity. Reasonable chastisement was broad and up to a point people were clear what that meant and the courts were clear. That was tested and it was found that our level was not acceptable in terms of the international practice in relation to that, which is why we then moved to tighten that up and give further clarification, but it's not that. The common law wasn't unclear. I think that it was that our legal position was not the one that we wanted it to be. Do you think that that perfectly draws out the point? I was hoping. The final question, I guess, would then be Michael Sheridan, the Scottish Law Agent Society, had written an article in the past week or so where he said that, like recently repealed legislation, the proposed legislation might not take into account the practical difficulties likely to arise upon implementation. Do you know what legislation he would be referring to and what he's meaning there? I can't say that I do. I can't say any practical difficulties with implementation. Sorry that I can't answer that. That's fine. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning to the panel. In the last session, we heard a very powerful account of a social experiment from Dr Lucy Reynolds, which she talked about children learning via mimicry. I don't know if you heard it about children who showed a room of toys in an adult using a mallet to hit a clown, and then they were let into the room and then they mimicked the behaviour, whereas the control group who hadn't seen the video didn't. I'm really interested, particularly for the police, but this perhaps expands to the wider panel as well. I've heard over the years in arguments around this to make people like John Carnican, formerly of the Strachlight Violence Reduction Unit, citing the corollary between violence in the home and violence on the streets. Perhaps John, you could lead off with whether you think, as the view of Police Scotland, that you recognise that children learn via mimicry and that is the sanction of the use of violence in the home, the legitimisation of violence in the home through physical punishment, has a causal relationship with violence on our streets? Well, let me be quite straightforward. I suppose you've heard the same evidence that I've heard, and actually there are greater people than I to make that judgment. On page 18 of the proposal it outlines the evidence that exists to demonstrate that. I'm going on the body of evidence that has been highlighted in the earlier session that there appears to be a linkage between violence within the home and violence within the wider society. It's not me or Police Scotland that's making that judgment. I don't have an evidence base to bring to you today to demonstrate that. Both the evidence base and the evidence base that's already been heard by this committee is highlighted in the proposal and highlighted by other witnesses. That's why I go back to my original point in terms of does the bill support the aim of promoting and safeguarding the health and wellbeing of children and, by extension, promoting the health and wellbeing of wider community? Well, actually, the evidence base seems to suggest that it does. Before I bring in the others to answer the same question, can I just ask John either your own view of that of Police Scotland would be to say Marsha Scott from Children and Scottish Women's Aid, who has always advocated that we can't begin to eradicate domestic violence in the home while we still as a state allow any kind of physical punishment in our homes? Well, I would go back to the UK appears to be a bit of an outlier in terms of accepting that corporal punishment in the home remains on just a viable position. It seems to be that there are, there is an evidence base to say that actually the benefits of educating parents on alternative methods of parenting. But I think, you know, the evidence that's been presented by Vary in relation to the domestic abuse component has clearly got linkages in terms of violence in the home, is not just limited to violence against children, violence against women within the home, violence against other members within the home. So, and again, I go back to the evidence, what is the evidence base to demonstrate that that has an impact on children's wellbeing? There seems to be an evidence base to suggest that that is a position. Can I invite other panel members to respond to either of those questions? I think it's fairly clear from the sessions you've had already that the overwhelming evidence suggests that a spectrum of violence that exists in children's lives, particularly within the household, has an impact and a very adverse impact on their wellbeing outcomes. And that spectrum can exist from, you know, very severe forms of violence to physical punishment. And I think it's fairly clear from both evidence and I think people's practice that where we have examples of alternative approaches to trying to parent children, where we have alternatives to the use of physical punishment, there's a clear absence of those adversities and those experiences. And I suppose having listened to the various sessions over the last few weeks, I think, you know, there are, the empirical evidence is fairly stark and fairly overwhelming. And is by far in the majority. In our day-to-day practice in the children's hearing system, clearly children who are living in circumstances where violence and aggression are predominant can present with some very significant challenges and difficulties in their life. Violence would be one aspect of how those difficulties manifest itself for children. And they are significant. And I think if I asked any children's report on the land to tell me about the impact of living in circumstances where there's violence and physical punishment, they would be able to tell me in some detail about what they experience in terms of the children who they're involved with. I can't really speak at length to any of the research, but I can say in terms of practical day-to-day working, I do a lot of criminal work and a lot of children's referral work through to the children's hearing system and there is a sizeable crossover in terms of that, which I think shows something, but I can't speak to any kind of detailed research into the issues. So we're going to be speaking with Professor Lazellore this afternoon who's an American academic who is very much an opponent of this proposed legislation. He cites the example of Sweden, which he suggests that there is a causal relationship between the ban on smacking in Sweden in 1979 and a 7,000 per cent increase in juvenile rapes between then and 2010. Are you concerned that we would experience the same increase in violence and delinquency and rape among children and young people if we go down the same route? So prior to coming here, I actually undertook a bit of research to determine whether there was any indication at the such. So the first I heard this piece of academic research was when I was sitting in the back listening to the earlier session and actually the term suggests that there is a causal effect and a 7,000 per cent increase actually is meaningless to me unless I understand what the base figures are in terms of what that is. However, what I would say is from the research I undertook the interaction with colleagues from the Republic of Ireland, research from New Zealand, wider authorities. I do not see any evidence-based to seem to suggest that that is supportive. I will, with interest, go back and read this piece of research and listen to the evidence session later on, but I have nothing to bring to this table to suggest that it would impact negatively. Actually, there are other research programmes that would suggest that it would impact positively. It then goes back to this point, even the wider view of increased reporting. Actually, why is increased reporting seen as a disadvantage or a poor thing with us? Actually, increased reporting might be a good thing to support parents, to support children. So, actually, I think that there is a body of evidence to suggest the opposite, but I will listen with interest later on with regard to the evidence session that is coming up. Anybody else? Not a researcher, but I did read it and it did not particularly make sense to me, but that is it. In the last panel, I asked Andy Jeffries the quite practical question just about how this change in the law, if it has passed, would affect the child protection process, which obviously involves social work and police. John Mackenzie, I wonder if I can ask you the same question. You have probably heard me ask it to Andy Jeffries. If our fellow comes in and there is a joint social work and police investigation, how would it, if this law is passed, change in police interaction? It was nice to see Andrew. I have not seen him for a number of years and he referred to a weekly IRD meeting that he attends in Edinburgh. Actually, I used to sit every week with him at that same IRD meeting and Andrew Jeffries highlighted to the committee that it would not make any difference whatsoever in relation to the processes that are adopted. I will reiterate that position. It will not make any difference. There will still be, if it is believed to be, a child protection matter. There will be a multi-agency response. That means that there is a three-way conversation. At least a three-way conversation, there might be other parties involved depending on the circumstances and then an assessment of risk. A multi-agency approach and safeguarding the child or children would be undertaken. The removal of this defence will have absolutely no impact on the processes and procedures that are adopted by social work health and police, as outlined in the 2014 child protection guidelines. Do you think that that also applies to the one that processes are rather reasonable, of course, about the decision of the police to charge or not? I suppose that that would tie in to my more substantive question about whether you believe that you have seen the actual defence used. I have seen the defence used. There are two items of case law that are within the papers that I have highlighted back in 1988 and 1989. I am aware of the defence being used during my period. I have spent the best part of my policing career within the area of public protection. I have seen the defence used, but then I go back to the point that it is a defence. It is a defence for the point of trial for somebody to determine whether there is a justifiable reason for that assault. That would not impact on the approach that we then adopt if there is a sufficency of evidence to indicate that a child has been assaulted. I go back to the terms that have been used within the media and within the smacked and whacked. I actually are not that helpful terms that are used. The term assault is probably the more accurate term if there is an indication or evidence to support that a child has been assaulted, then that will be reported and ultimately it will be for the procurator of fiscal to make a decision. We will determine whether there is evidence to support a charge. The fiscal will obviously make a decision whether there is evidence in law to support a case and ultimately there would be a report to the wider concerns or potential report to the report in terms of the wider wellbeing of the child. For clarity, the existence of the defence does not impact just now or in the future on a police decision to charge, I suspect? It should not impact is what I am saying. The removal of the defence of justifiable assault should not impact on the processes that are adopted unless there are wider guidance documents that are associated, wider clarification notes, whether there is crown guidance on the matter. However, as I have read the bill or the intended bill, it should not impact on the process that is adopted. In Neil Hunter, from a children's reporter point of view, if this bill is to get passed, what would be the practical and day-to-day implications for the run of the hearing system? As of today, the police and local authorities have a duty to consider referral to the reporter where they consider a child as requires protection or guidance or treatment or control and where they consider compulsory supervision may be required for that child, and that does not change. We do not require an offence that will be committed for those concerns to relate to referral to the children's reporter. In fact, the GERFEC approach, which has been really effective in ensuring that so many children have access to voluntary support within their families and in their communities, has really enhanced the ability to focus on those children who do need to control and supervision and guidance and treatment and where there are grounds for compulsory measures. It does not really change that the focus on all those decisions in relation to referral is on the best interests and the welfare of the child, and that would be the sole determining factor in reference to the children's hearing system. When children's reporters receive referrals, our job is to ascertain whether a ground referral is relevant to the child's circumstances, whether there is suficiency of evidence to establish that ground referral should be required to do that, and whether it is in the child's best interests for a children's hearing to be arranged to consider compulsory measures. Again, that will not change. That will be very much focus on each individual child, their circumstances, the background to the referral, and the focus on the child's welfare. Stensibly, the process around child protection, GIFEC, referral to the reporter remains the same. Do you think that there is any merit in the argument that we heard from the committee that was in Sky last week that, if the bill is passed, it may inadvertently be more disadvantageous for families from certain backgrounds who perhaps have already got agency involvement, such as social workers and police, and are maybe involved in the hearing system? I suppose that I will go back to Andy Jeffery's point earlier, that we, in terms of our public promotion of the new legislation and the public promotion of positive parenting, I think that we will need to work harder in some areas, in some communities and in others, but I do not see any particular community or group being disadvantaged by the main beneficiaries of the proposal of our children. If we need to work harder to get the message across to adults and those with a parenting or caring responsibility in particular areas of society, that is exactly what we need to do. I will bring in Mary Fee who has a question on specific equality groups. My question follows on quite nicely from the line of question that Fulton McGregor has opened up. That is about specific equality groups. I suppose that I can maybe start with Neil, and maybe John might want to come in on that. I would be keen to know if you have any evidence that would suggest, or are you aware of any evidence that would suggest that specific groups are more likely to be subjected to physical justizement, that is a difficult word to say as well. Are those children and young people who have physical or mental limitations, or children from a care experience background? The main evidence that I am aware of is the vulnerability of children with a disability who may be particularly vulnerable to experiencing physical assault and abuse. We have done some work in our research in SCRA on awareness of broader child protection procedures and expectations in black minority ethnic communities, which we conducted about two years ago, that showed a lower level of awareness of child protection arrangements and procedures and protections and perhaps in other groups. We have continued to do a piece of work at national and local level to think about how we can promote understanding and awareness of child protection and child concerns in those communities. I am not aware of any other areas or populations or equality groups that would stick out in my mind in terms of being disproportionately affected by the proposal. As I said, the main beneficiaries of this are children. Again, there may be some further work to be done in some communities or in some equality groups that will be more of a challenge for us, but I think that the challenge is there to be met. That is very helpful, John. I do not have a great deal more to add. I have not seen the wider equality impact assessment that has been undertaken in relation to the bill and any work that is going to be undertaken in relation to a wider equality impact assessment. That is clearly going to be a piece of work that has to be carried out. It is clear from evidence across the world that raising awareness is a really important component of introducing the bill. That falls again on the policymaker legislator to ensure that there is clear communication. I think that there is evidence and suggestion that within the Republic of Ireland there is some lessons to be learned in terms of that communication process. There are also clear elements about setting parameters of what, the difference between restraint and assault, and it goes back to the questions that you had earlier. I think that there is an experience in New Zealand in relation to learning from that. Beyond what Neil is saying, I have nothing else to add in terms of the impact across a wider equality from a manacolic perspective. That is helpful, thank you. You wished to add anything to that, are you? Okay, thank you. Annie Wells. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Just asked the same question, which asked this morning's panel to get your thoughts on. Do you think that the bill will criminalise parents and lead to an increase in prosecutions? Are there any evidence of this to any member of our all? We may. Again, I tried to find out through a bit of the search and looking at the evidence sessions already heard. The evidence seems to suggest that there is no indication that it results in increased prosecutions. There is a suggestion that it results in increased reporting, which is different. In terms of the reporting, and again you go back to New Zealand over two-year period, I understand that there was an increase of 36 reports over two years. How indicative or useful that figure is, it is probably not that useful, but it gives an indication of the numbers within experience within New Zealand. Will the bill criminalise parents? I go back to my original point. The bill is a removal of a statutory defence of justifiable assault. I cannot see how that would criminalise parents in as much as we have an opportunity to communicate wider with parents, to highlight what the values of Scotland and wider organisations are in the hope for the children within Scotland. I do not believe that there is any evidence that even suggests across other countries that have went down this route that it criminalises parents. I think that it is important to say that I think that the ethos of the bill is about changing public attitudes. It is not about increasing prosecutions. Ultimately, I am just reiterating that I think that it will increase potentially in reports to the police, because if you have any public awareness campaign around an issue, then that might be a likely effect. It is back to the point that I made earlier. It is down to prosecutorial discretion as to how they then proceed. I cannot see any evidence that would suggest an increase in criminal prosecution against parents. I think that the long term, we should see the benefit of this bill and its proposals in terms of recalibrating our approach to how we support and rear children in his country. I do not see any real evidence that state intervention in family life will increase as a result of this bill. The reason I say that is because our focus is on best interests of the child. In each part of the child protection and the child welfare system, there is discretion and judgment built into it, which I think takes it away from having those binary or hard lines about prosecution or not. Our interest is in children's welfare and protection, and we are able to make best decisions that we can make with that kind of guiding aspect. I do not really see any evidence or any concerns from people within my organisation that it will lead to increased prosecution of parents or increased state interference in family life. Following on from your comments, there is a concern, though, from some that the bill will interfere in private family life. Is that concern justified? Obviously, you have answered that, Neil, but I wonder if anyone else has answered that. I think that one of the important roles that the children's reporter performs is to make sure that there is not inappropriate state interference in family life and that any interference in family life has to be proportionate and justified. That has to be based on evidence. I would reiterate the points that Neil has highlighted, and I would go back to some of the points that Andrew Jeffries mentioned earlier on, on that very subject, about interference with family life. I do not believe that there is any evidence to demonstrate that that would be the position. The only thing that I would say is that the right to family life is obviously within article A. It is not absolute right. There are limitations on that, and I think what the bill is talking about fits within what is achievable within that. Thank you. Gail Ross. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Although we have heard from various witnesses that said that, well, certainly the evidence from other countries says that there has not been an increase in prosecution, but there may well be an increase in reporting. Do you expect any increased burden on public services as a result of that? My understanding is that there will be an increase, or my professional opinion and judgment is that there will be an increase in reporting. The extent of that increase in reporting is hard to determine, to be fair, based on the evidence that has been presented from New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, and I use those to as an example, based on the system being founded in common law. I have also looked at other areas such as Sweden. Professional judgment would suggest that there will be an increase in reporting. In terms of the size of that increase in reporting, it is unclear. It would appear that New Zealand, as I have said earlier, has not had a significant impact. That goes back to the financial impact assessment and statement that has been provided. It is hard to actually determine what the financial impact would be from a public service perspective. I would suggest that there still requires some analysis in relation to what the real impact has been within other jurisdictions such as the Republic of Ireland. The evidence that has been presented has been minimal impact, but I think that there are some gaps within that evidence that has been presented, and it is worthy of looking at further evidence to understand what has been the impact. It has been suggested that there is a high probability that it will save money further down the line and that that should be looked at as preventative spend. Is that something that you would agree with? I would tend to agree with that on two points. I am not convinced that an increase in reporting should be seen as a disadvantage. It should be seen as an opportunity to support parents to understand any risks associated with the family environment and hence be seen as a preventative approach to reduce spend in the future. That might be a reasonable argument with an element of rationale behind it. The second bit to that is understanding the sort of savings from prevention has always been very difficult to achieve because you actually have to try to understand what the baseline figure is, and actually we do not have an understanding of what that baseline number is in terms of at this moment, and that has been the challenge in the Republic of Wales. I think that there is an element of rationale around the bit about it could prevent cost in the future. Again, I believe that there is probably some further analysis that is required to be undertaken to clearly understand that position. If there were an increase in reporting, I think it is likely to be fairly small and fairly short-lived. If it leads to families' need of support and help being identified earlier, that is likely to be a good thing. We have already heard this morning about how our public services currently line up around the principles of GoFec to get alongside families. There is a possibility that, if there were a short increase in reports, there could be some positive benefits for that in terms of early elective interventions with families rather than waiting for circumstances to become acute, where agencies like my own may have to step in and consider more formal interventions. In the long term, I have said that this is about recalibrating how we bring up our children in Scotland. I do not see any long-term financial consequences or long-term strain on the public purse. I see opportunities for earlier and effective intervention with families working alongside them. I do not have anything to add to that. I want to add one additional point just in support of an early comment. If you go to the Swedish example, my understanding is that there was an 83 per cent acceptance that corporal punishment within the home was not justifiable. The introduction of legislation resulted in now a 97 per cent position where the population do not believe that corporal punishment is justifiable within the home. By introducing or having a clear public message, we will then present an understanding to the wider public and a social acceptance. I would anticipate from the evidence that corporal punishment in the home is not acceptable. That might not have, as Liniel said, the long-run approach might not be impactive to services. Certainly one of the aims that we have talked about in previous evidence sessions is to go for cultural change and that is what we have spoken about here today. One of our previous panels said that the aim is to just stop adults lifting their hands to children full stop, whether that is assault or whether it is. We have also heard that described in another panel as a light tap in the hand as part of loving chastisement or punishment. How will the police, because you talked about setting parameters between restraint and assault, set parameters between what is viewed in some communities as a loving tap on the hand? If you are called out to those sort of instances, how will you determine what is in the public interest? Let me start by saying that, again, it is the role of the legislator to make sure that there is clear public messaging of what is acceptable and not. That is a clear position in terms of making a determination of what is a tap on the hand or what is an assault. That will be born from an evidence base, whereby we would have a discussion about how to approach if it was highlighted as a child protection concern, make a determination of what the evidence base is and then make a determination whether it was a sufficence of evidence to justify the term assault. That will not change any. Let me be clear, in all my years in the public protection arena, I have never heard anybody reporting or engaging with the police about something that will get a tap on the hand. We are talking about using examples such as a tap on the hand by a parent. Probably that is not a useful example to provide when what we are talking about is assault on children. Thank you. Just one final question, again, evidence that we have had in that basically says that if we are doing an awareness raising campaign, an education campaign, if this work is happening now with positive parenting and looking for alternatives to smacking, do you think that we are already moving towards that as a society and if we are, is there a need for legislation? Why don't we just do the awareness raising and the public education campaign on its own? Social attitudes have changed. I think that they have changed slowly. I think that the continued presence of a justifiable assault on children is holding us back in terms of absolute clarity about expectation and about conduct of parents in it or conduct towards children. Public awareness campaigns can really help, but with this really ambiguous aspect of law continuing to be present in Scottish society, the pace of change will always be hampered by that. I think that, again, coming back to this, we will issue about rebasing, recalibrating what we expect in terms of the wellbeing and health and development of Scotland's children will accelerate the positive progress that we have made. I also think that I have spent much of my career in social work and healthcare and I have seen some really good developments around programmes in our communities across Scotland, whether it is triple-P or whether it is melo-painting, delivery by services such as health visitors and others. There is a real sense of a lot of that apparatus being able to support families being currently in place. I think that a change in the law, a reset of the tone will help us further in terms of the delivery of support to families that we need the most. I would reiterate Neil's opening comment about, I believe, the sort of social attitudes that have an art changing. I then go back to, I am taken by the evidence presented earlier on, that that sort of juxtaposed position of having, in law, saying one thing and then in guidance or public messaging saying another thing. I am convinced, based on what I have heard, that that is a helpful position. Is there one thing or the other? I would probably support that view. I think that an awareness campaign says this is what we want you to do, but the law says another. I think that the law does give people clear messages as to what we are looking for in terms of their interests. If your intention is to make social change, you also need the law to support that so that you can communicate that effectively to people. It is confusing. I have a client at the moment where I sat with her watching a police interview of her ex-partner talking about what he had done. Her view was that he had admitted to an assault and he had, but there was clearly a defence there of reasonable chastisement. For her watching that, it was clear that he had broken the law and he had admitted to that, but he had not. I think that all of that is confusing within the relative what families are looking at. If you are saying that ultimately she had the view that swacking in any shape and form was already illegal, but it is not. You need to be able to say to people both things at the same time if that is what you are wanting to do. Gordon Lindhurst. Perhaps a question for John McKenzie. We heard from an Irish senator this morning who was involved in the legislation there. She said that there are no sanctions, which was the word that she used on the legislation, the way they introduced it there. The spice paper commissioned by the committee set out in Sweden said that, likewise, there are no sanctions there. We do not have in our system, as they do in New Zealand, for example, a statute of limitations that would relate to this sort of potential offence. Lots of different systems and very different mixed approaches to different things. Sweden, of course, is a statute of limitations. Should we not, in the bill, make clear and spell out in black and white, as you have or one has in Sweden, Ireland and New Zealand, the rights that parents and children and families have, which we do not have spelled out in our law and this bill does not seek to do, because I think part of the concern is, as you will know, we have a high percentage of prison population in this country. We tend to approach the criminal law very differently than in other countries. We may be seeking to try to move the approach differently with the raising of the age of criminal responsibility, but is this something that we should make clear in the bill on different points so that we have the same rights in Scotland as they do in these other countries, parents and children? I listened with interest at the earlier session and I confess that to answer your question in any sort of structured manner, I would have to go back and have a check to see what the position is in the Republic of Ireland and in Sweden. However, I suppose that I go back to some of my opening comments. It's for the legislator to make the decision what's in this bill based on the body of evidence. I don't have anything constructive that I could add to the question that you raised because I would want to go and research that point that you've made, but again, I would reiterate that, based on whatever evidence and body of evidence, that's the decision for the legislator to make. I don't know, convener, if the other two panellists could be allowed to comment. Of course, if they have something that they wish to say. Very briefly I would say that I think you have different legal systems that do things in different ways, but if they reach the same aim and have the same objective, I don't think that it really matters too much. I think that we do have a good system of common law in this country and I think that there's no reason to move away from that. I may have misunderstood your question, but anything that sets out clarity for parents in terms of their rights and responsibilities would be really helpful. I don't think that we necessarily need to inshrine that in law. I think that responsibilities, parental rights are something that we need to be able to be very clear in terms of promoting understanding of and what we expect of parents in relation to their conduct towards children and particularly in relation to their conduct in ever changing societal expectations. I think that this bill creates new positive societal expectations in relation to parental conduct. John Finnie wishes to come in here. I don't have a question. It's just a point of clarification to an aspect that Mr Linter has just raised. Of course, it's important to have clarity and the clarity about transitional arrangements is covered in paragraphs 118 to 120 of the policy memorandum, just for the record. Thank you for that. That brings us to the end of our session today. Thank you very much, panel, for your evidence. The committee has already agreed to consider evidence in private, so I now move into private session and ask the public gallery to clear. After consideration of evidence in private, the committee will reconvene not before 1 pm in committee room 1, where we'll take evidence for your video conference from Professor Robert Lazzeri. Thank you.