A PRO-SMACKING activist told MSPs they were “elitist” and “aloof” for wanting a ban. During a fiery session at Holyrood, Stuart Waiton, a senior criminology lecturer at Abertay University, who speaks for the Be Reasonable campaign, told MSPs that if a slap on a small child’s hand was a “form of violence that harms them you are living on another planet”.

But Professor Jane Callaghan, director of child wellbeing and protection at Stirling University told MSPs: “Corporal punishment has no positive consequences and plenty of negative ones.”

The academics were giving evidence to Holyrood’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee, where MSPs are scrutinising the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill, which aims to ban smacking.

Green MSP John Finnie is behind the proposal, which has already cleared its first stage in Parliament.

The bill abolishes the defence of “reasonable chastisement” and would mean a person charged with the assault of a child would no longer be “entitled to claim that a use of physical force was justifiable on the basis that it was physical punishment administered in exercise of a parental right (or a right derived from having care or charge of a child)”.

Ultimately, it aims to give children the same protection as adults.

Although there is broad support for the change from the Scottish Police Federation, Barnardo’s Scotland, the Church and Society Council of the Church of Scotland and the NSPCC, a group of conservative evangelical Christians has formed a campaign organisation in opposition.

Be Reasonable Scotland, supported by the Christian Institute and the Family Education Trust, claim the ban will “criminalise parents”.

In his evidence, Waiton said it was “nonsense” that children have rights. “The idea of children’s rights is a bit of a nonsense concept. Children don’t have rights.

“They don’t have the same framework of rights as adults. They have protections. And essentially when we talk about children’s rights, what we’re really talking about is the right of professionals to make decisions on their behalf.”

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He told the politicians: “You are undermining the autonomy of loving parents to decide how to raise their children with a sense of privacy and also a sense of support from society.

“This is a tragic, depressing bill which appears to represent the aloof, elitist nature of politics and professional life that treats parents in a very patronising and degraded way.”

Waiton claimed the ban on smacking would eventually lead to a ban on children being grounded.

Callaghan told MSPs that the evidence did not support Waiton’s comments: “Having done hundreds of interviews with children who have experience domestic abuse, I would have to say that I can’t agree that children are a different order of human being from adults. And I can’t agree that they don’t have personhood, that they don’t have the capacity to reflect on their experiences and that they aren’t harmed by those experiences.”

She said the evidence revealed that children “experience the same level of harm as a consequence of smacking by parents regardless of whether it’s loving or motivated positively or not”.

Callaghan also said there was plenty of research to show that children who had been smacked were more likely to have mental health issues and less likely to do well at school.

Finnie said after the session: “The evidence presented today shows that providing children with equal protection from assault by prohibiting physical punishment will bring substantial benefits for individuals and society.”