Ahead of a consolation in January, Huw Irranca-Davies is championing a smacking ban, but do his constituents agree with him?
The Welsh Government have laid plans for a consultation on the controversial smacking plan to take place in January. Championing the ban in Children’s Minister Huw Irrance-Davies, who is also an AM and former MP for the constituency of Ogmore, Bridgend in South Wales.
Speaking in Swansea to celebrate International Children’s Day, Irranca-Davies said that smacking has “no place” in modern Wales. If the Welsh Government’s plans are indeed passed by the Assembly in January, physical chastisement of children will become punishable by law.
In Irranca-Davies’ Ogmore constituency, residents of the village of Gilfach Goch seemed to have split opinions on the proposed ban. Some welcomed it, whilst others chastised the move and argued that, if used sparingly as a punishment, there was “nothing wrong” with the physical punishment of a child.
“It’s rightly being looked at in a different way now,” offers Helen Gibbons. “We’re living in a very different world now, and some things that were OK before, like smacking, just…aren’t anymore. And that’s progress, isn’t it?”
If Wales does indeed ban the act of smacking, it won’t be the first country in the UK to do so. Scotland is in the process of passing a bill by Green MSP John Finnie into law.
Linda Evans, a retired shop assistant, spoke to us about the potential ban at home in Gilfach Goch and said she was outraged.
“You have to teach your children right from wrong,” she said, “And this is one way of doing it, it’s not abuse. My mother used to smack me, and I’m by no means traumatised by it. To think innocent parents could get prosecuted or God knows what for giving their child a little smack now and again…to me personally, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s like the world’s gone mad.”
Huw Irranca-Davies was contacted to request a comment for this article, but has yet to respond.
Want to know more about South Wales’ thoughts on the potential smacking ban? Read our vox-pop feature.
