Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether it is his Department's policy to bring forward legislative proposals to ban the use of corporal punishment in the home.

The government has no plans to bring forward legislative proposals to ban parents from using physical punishment to chastise their child.

The government does not wish to interfere in how loving families bring up their children. Legislation already exists to ban the beating of children by their parents; the defence of reasonable chastisement can only be used when a parent is accused of assault and not when the charge is actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm or child cruelty.