Rules regarding the physical punishment of children are to remain unchanged, the government has announced.

The statement follows a European court of human rights ruling that the UK courts were wrong to allow the caning of a nine-year-old boy by his step-father. A government consultation following the European court challenge found that 70 per cent of parents backed the UK's stance.

Health minister Jacqui Smith said: "I have got to set the sort of legal framework that people have confidence in, that we can enforce, that protects children from abuse but that recognises that parenting is difficult. I am not convinced that banning smacking actually helps us to be better parents."

Forum Response: The Children's Society

A spokesman for the Children's Society told ePolitix.com: "We believes that every child should have the same right to protection from assault as any adult. The statutory defence of 'reasonable chastisement' sends out a message that there are legitimate excuses for a parent to assault a child. We believe it should be repealed. For this reason we welcome the Scottish executive's proposal to ban the smacking of children under three years old and to make it illegal to hit children of any age on the head. We believe it is a lead that should be followed by the Westminster parliament."

"Historically it has been culturally expected in the UK that parents discipline children using physical means, even though many parents tell us how ineffective this practice is. The Scottish proposal is a sign of a momentum of cultural change in the parenting world that also reflects messages coming from the European Court of Human Rights. The clear challenge for government and child care professionals is to ensure that we support parents in finding developmentally appropriate, effective ways of creating firm and secure boundaries for behaviour."

"We understand that a majority of parents in the Governments consultation were worried by the prospect of a ban on smacking. In the UK, 88 per cent of the populace (Department of Health's National Statistics Omnibus Survey 1998) considered it sometimes necessary to smack a 'naughty' child. Sweden recorded similar attitudes in 1979, when corporal punishment was legally banned there. However research in Sweden has shown major attitudinal changes to corporal punishment and a real decline in actual usage as a form of discipline. Surveys of mothers in Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s found that 90% had used physical punishment on their pre-school children, whereas in 1994, only 33% of 13-15 years reported having physical punishment as a young child and then usually only in the mildest form."