in Government thinking on reducing anti-social behaviour in society, a group of Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs have said.
The 12 MPs calling for a national debate on the negative effects of smacking included Meg Munn, Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley and a member of the education and skills select committee, Paul Burstow, Liberal Democrat MP for Sutton and Cheam and the party's spokesman for children, and Nick Palmer, Labour MP for Broxtowe.
The MPs said that positive, non-violent discipline was the key to better-behaved children and a better-behaved society.
Ms Munn supported the contention of the NSPCC that physical punishment was a lesson in bad behaviour because it taught children that violence pays and it may lead to aggressive and anti-social behaviour in later childhood or adulthood. She said, 'How can we teach children not to hit out if we continue to say there is a defence of reasonable chastisement? How can we teach them not to hit their friends if we continue to support physical punishment of children by adults?'
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