Rowen criticised for smacking stance

Rochdale's MP Paul Rowen has been criticised for his stance on smacking children by his parliamentary opponent Simon Danczuk.

Mr Danczuk believes Mr Rowen took a hypocritical view on the law on smacking children, which currently allows smacking by parents as 'reasonable punishment', during a recent debate on a television programme.

Appearing on Granada TV's ‘Party People’ political programme, Rochdale’s Liberal Democrat MP, told the presenter Rob McLoughlin that he was in favour of a complete ban on smacking children, saying: “I think it is humiliating to treat them in that way. It’s not necessary. Discipline anyway doesn’t rely on the use of force.”

Mr Danczuk thought this to be a hypocritical stance because he believed that Mr Rowen had used the strap during his days as a teacher.

Mr Danczuk said: “One minute he’s taking a ridiculously sanctimonious stand and claiming that there is a direct link between the death of children at the hand of their parents and any kind of smack, the next he’s forced to admit that he belted many kids himself in his former job.

“If Paul Rowen feels so strongly about this, then why did he not stand up to his previous employers and say that he wasn’t prepared to admonish corporal punishment? I really don’t see how he can claim to be making a deeply principled stand when in his previous job he readily took the strap to children himself.”

Mr Rowen has hit back at the claims by saying that although he was given a strap to use at one of the school's that he taught at, he did not use it.

“No amount of twisting from Mr Danczuk of my account of what happened to me as a young teacher will ever construe me as being weak. I attended Bishop Henshaw RC memorial High School as a pupil where corporal punishment was not used. My first teaching appointment in Nottingham did not use corporal punishment. When I moved to Oldham I was given a strap and some of the pupils expected me to use it. I quickly made it clear that I was not going to use it and established discipline without the use of the strap," he said.

The attempt to secure an outright ban on smacking children in England and Wales ultimately failed to secure a vote in the House of Commons. Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, said that an outright ban “would be the wrong thing to do for children”.

“We published evidence from parents last autumn,” he explained. “There was support to strengthen penalties on parents who abuse children but when we asked parents if the state should ban smacking, 70 per cent said no.”

He added: “It’s very difficult to police a smacking ban in any case.”

Paul Rowen commented: “Britain is one of only 5 countries in Europe that has signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child but still permits any form of violence in the home. This is disappointing - we missed an opportunity to demonstrate our full support for the UN Rights of the Child."