Lee Anderson says calls to change the law to ban smacking in England and Northern Ireland are ‘nonsense’.
Speaking on GB News, the Reform MP spoke on how he “looks back fondly” on the corporal punishment he was subjected to as a youngster, arguing it gave him a grounding in life.
Asked by Patrick Christys whether it is “ever OK” to smack a child, Lee asserted: “It is.”
He added: “We have to make a distinction between smacking a child for bad behaviour and beating.
Lee Anderson has hit out at calls from doctors to ban smacking children
GETTY / GB NEWS
“Nobody wants to see children being hurt in this way. I think responsible parenting, a carrot and stick approach, which a lot of good parents choose, is the right thing to do.
“Some of these paediatricians and doctors need to butt out a little bit.
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“I see children going to school in my neck of the woods. We’ve got obese kids, we’ve got kids that can’t dress themselves, we’ve got kids that can’t go to the toilet when they start school at four or five.
“We should be concentrating on this. Making sure that our young children have got the basic skills to go through school.
“This is just nonsense. We’ve got young men leaving school who have had bad parenting and turning to knives.”
Patrick went on to ask Lee whether he was smacked as a child, to which he responded: “Yes. I was smacked, and my dad will be watching this now.
Lee Anderson says he 'looks back fondly' on being smacked as a child
GB NEWS
“I look back fondly on my thrashings. I had the old clip around here.
“I tell you what, I went to school at a time when our headmaster wore a three-piece pinstripe suit with a stick under his arm.
“If you misbehaved, you got a quick whack with a stick.
“Nowadays you turn up and you’ve got a headmistress with a pink hair and a stud through the nose wanting to hug everybody. It’s nonsense.”
According to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), the current law in England and Northern England has created “grey areas” which mean there is sometimes a defence to physical punishment.
They have therefore urged “long overdue” amendments to the Children Act 2004 for England and the Law Reform Order 2006 for Northern Ireland “to remove the ‘reasonable punishment’ defence from all UK law”.
Its report on the issue argued that, ahead of a general election, this was a time for all political parties to “make meaningful commitments on this important children’s rights issue”.
Professor Andrew Rowland, a consultant paediatrician and RCPCH officer for child protection, said: “The laws around physical punishment as they stand are unjust and dangerously vague.
“They create a grey area in which some forms of physical punishment may be lawful, and some are not.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Education said: “Any form of violence towards a child is completely unacceptable and we have clear laws in place to prevent it. It is the responsibility of the parent to discipline their children, appropriately and within the boundaries of the law.
“We are supporting teachers, social workers and all safeguarding professionals to spot the signs of abuse or neglect more quickly, and our statutory framework for safeguarding children in England makes clear what organisations should do to keep children safe.”