Smacking ban led to riots, says Labour MP

London: The ban on smacking children must be overturned to help prevent a repeat of last summer's riots, according to a senior Labour MP.

Former Education Minister David Lammy, who represents the Tottenham area of North London where the disturbances started, says working-class parents need to be able to discipline their children physically to deter them from joining gangs and getting involved in knife crime. Calling for a return to the Victorian laws on discipline, Lammy said parents were "no longer sovereign in their own homes" and lived under constant fear that social workers would take away their children if they chastised them.

The MP said it was easier for middle-class parents to control their children as they could afford to pay for private schools, which have tougher discipline than state schools, as well as activities such as tennis lessons.

Lammy, 39, said he was smacked as a child and it taught him self-discipline and respect, adding that he had smacked his own sons, aged three and five — mainly to protect them from danger.

He called for a reversal of Labour's 2004 decision to tighten up the smacking law. Previously parents could use "reasonable chastisement", while the new definition prohibits any force that causes |"reddening of the skin". Lammy poured scorn on that description, saying it was irrelevant to black children.

He said: "Many of my constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour Government, saying, ‘You guys stopped us being able to smack our children.'

Scared

"When this was first raised with me I was pretty disparaging. But I started to listen. These parents are scared to smack their children and paranoid that social workers will get involved and take their children away.

"The law used to allow ‘reasonable chastisement', but current legislation stops actions that lead to a reddening of the skin — which for a lot of my non-white residents isn't really an issue."

Daily Mail