---

Children, Schools and Families Bill

I refer to the exchange between my hon. Friend and the Secretary of State on the 1996 Act. That was predated by the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which was signed, I believe, by Lynda Chalker on behalf of a Conservative Government. The convention imposes severe constraints on the punishment of children, and from that flowed the consequences that the Secretary of State mentioned in the Act that followed. The concept of reasonable chastisement has been in our common law and understood in our legislation for a long time, and the European Court of Human Rights can and does apply United Nations treaties on these matters when developing its own case law. That is where the confusion, if there were any confusion between the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend, might have arisen.