A fresh appeal has emerged to outlaw smacking across the UK, driven by compelling new polling showing that 82 per cent of 18- to-24-year-olds in England now believe any form of force by a parent is unacceptable, up sharply from 64% in 2023, while 81 per cent of parents with children under 18 agree, significantly higher than in previous years.

Health experts, including doctors and psychiatrists, have urged parliament to take decisive action, citing research that highlights the “detrimental effects of physical punishment” on children’s health and wellbeing.

The nation’s four children’s commissioners have collectively condemned the “reasonable chastisement” defence as “outdated and morally repugnant”, especially in the wake of the tragic Sara Sharif case.

From the NSPCC, chief executive Chris Sherwood described the findings as “a wake-up call” and emphasised that:

“Parents and young adults don’t want physical punishment to be a part of anyone’s childhood.”

He appealed directly to legislators:

“As parliamentarians continue to debate the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we urge them to change the law to better reflect public attitudes to violence against children and ensure no childhood has to be tainted by physical punishment again.”

Barnardo’s chief executive Lynn Perry also criticised current legal protections, stating that:

“Physical punishment like smacking is harmful to a child’s health and development, and there’s strong evidence that it influences their attitudes toward violence."

Adding to the chorus, Professor Andrew Rowland of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health argued,

“Health professionals stand firmly with parents and young people in recognising that physical punishment is not only outdated and unjust, but also harmful to children’s health and wellbeing. We urge the government to listen to parents, young people, health professionals and the wider public and to finally remove the outdated and unfair ‘reasonable punishment’ defence.”

Yet not everyone supports reform. A Department for Education spokesperson stated that while officials are “looking closely at the legal changes made in Wales and Scotland,” they currently “have no plans to legislate at this stage.

Meanwhile, Tory peer Lord Jackson warned during a parliamentary debate that abolishing the reasonable chastisement clause might risk criminalising “good and caring parents, as well as overloading children’s services departments."

England and Northern Ireland remain the only parts of the UK where physical punishment of children is still legally permitted under the defence of “reasonable punishment.” Both Wales and Scotland have already abolished that defence, Wales in 2022 and Scotland in 2020.

With public sentiment now substantially aligned against smacking and young people in particular rejecting it outright, pressure mounts on lawmakers to remove 'outdated' legal protections and introduce a UK-wide ban on all forms of physical punishment.