Concerns about children being physically punished have more than tripled in a year, according to the NSPCC.
The charity said its helpline had heard about children being slapped, hit and shaken as punishment.
It’s urging the new government to close the legal defence of “reasonable chastisement” in England.
It said contacts where physical punishment was mentioned had increased from 447 in the 12 months to March 2023 to 1,451 in the year to March 2024.
Wales banned any kind of physical punishment, including smacking, in 2022 and Scotland introduced a similar law two years before.
A UK-wide ban on smacking should be brought in due to current “grey” areas in the law, according to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
More than half of the NSPCC’s contacts about physical punishment were from members of the public concerned about a parent’s behaviour. Only one in 10 were from a child.
Some 45% of the 1,451 contacts were serious enough to refer to social services or the police, the charity added.
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In 2022, Sir Keir Starmer also called for other UK nations to follow Wales’s lead.
“What it (the ban) does is give children the protection that adults already have, and that is the right thing,” he said at the time.
Studies have linked physical punishment to depression and anxiety and it’s also been known to increase aggression and antisocial behaviour, said the NSPCC.
The charity cited several potential reasons for the increase in contacts.
These include renewed campaigning to ban smacking, more helpline capacity, and a lack of understanding from the public about what’s deemed acceptable when punishing a child.
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Sir Peter Wanless, the NSPCC’s chief executive, said the rise in people contacting them about the issue was “hugely concerning”.
“Mounting evidence shows that physically disciplining children can be damaging and counterproductive,” he said.
“A long overdue change in the law to prevent physical punishment of children must be delivered by our political leaders.
Sir Peter said the new government must act to “end the use of physical punishment across the UK once and for all”.
People opposed to a law change have said previously the status quo still prohibits violence against children while also protecting parents from prosecution for “innocent and harmless parenting decisions”.
Campaigners are urging the new government to invest in youth clubs, as cuts over the last decade have forced 750 centres to close.
As the summer holidays get under way, Mentivity House has just opened its doors on one of Europe’s largest estates.
Based in south London, the new youth club is run by mentorship charity Mentivitity and it provides activities and workshops.
But former teacher turned mentor Patrick Egbuchiem says youth clubs provide so much more than just games for children outside of school.
He tells Sky News: “We look at emotional intelligence, we look at sharing, we look at teamwork, all those soft skills which will enable you to go into any space and feel confident about who you are and what you can achieve.”
Image: Patrick Egbuchiem is a teacher turned mentor
Mentivity House is a new state-of-the art facility which has classrooms and a sports hall, where children are closely supervised by mentors.
Beata Baiten, 10, says the club is just round the corner from her home.
“There’s a big community here, they’re building a lot of houses and there’ll be a lot of children around here so all of those teenagers or tweens can come to this place and enjoy it and have fun,” she explains. “It’s free as well, it doesn’t cost a dime.”
Image: Beata Baiten, 10, is one of the young people making the most of the facilities
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While these doors have just opened to the local community, the YMCA says youth services funding has been cut by £1.1 billion since 2011.
Many campaigners argue the closure of youth centres has helped fuel crime among young people.
Teenagers are now twice as likely to be fatally stabbed than they were 10 years ago and there were around 59,000 arrests of children in 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Sayce Holmes-Lewis, the founder of Mentivity, says children need more support to prevent them from being exploited by gangs.
Image: Sayce Holmes-Lewis, founder of Mentivity
“What we’re seeing now in the communities across the UK is violence, youth violence,” he says. “This is something that we really have to focus on because we have to invest in the earlier stage.
“We have to provide that support to young people so they don’t get to that point where they can pull out a knife or hurt somebody.”
The Mayor of London has just announced an extra £2 million in funding for activities to divert young people away from crimes in the capital this summer.
But Jacob Diggle from charity UK Youth says there is a regional disparity when it comes to youth clubs.
“We know that in the most affluent areas of the country there’s twice as much youth work as in the most deprived areas of the country and that means those that would benefit most from youth work are missing out,” he said.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said that Labour will bring in a youth programme to prevent young people from being drawn into crime.
Windrush campaigners are calling on the next government to grant citizenship to all victims of the immigration scandal in the first 100 days after the election.
Campaigners including Action for Race Equality (ARE) have warned that the current compensation and documentation scheme is “unwieldy” and in need of desperate reform.
This comes as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said that justice for the Windrush community “has taken far too long” as he promised a “fundamental reset” for the Windrush generation.
Sir Keir said the Windrush generation, who arrived 76 years ago on HMT Empire Windrush, in Tilbury, Essex, represented the “best of Britain” as his party vowed sweeping reform, including appointing a Windrush commissioner, to help them.
The Windrush scandal refers to migrants from the Caribbean who started to arrive in 1948 to help rebuild Britain after the war.
They were given the right to live and work in Britain permanently but many were later wrongly deemed illegal immigrants.
Image: Many people who arrived from the Caribbean on HMT Empire Windrush lost their UK jobs and homes. Pic: AP
As a result of the scandal, a Windrush Scheme for Documentation was established in 2018 so those impacted were able to retrieve their documents and demonstrate their right to citizenship.
The Home Office estimates that more than 16,800 people have been provided with their documents through the scheme.
However, ARE says a third of those who have received documents are from EU countries and claims more than 57,000 people impacted by the Windrush scandal may still be eligible.
The charity has also criticised the Windrush Compensation Scheme which the Home Office says has paid out £85.86m across 2,382 claims, as of March.
Image: Jeremy Crook OBE, chief executive, Action for Race Equality
But Jeremy Crook OBE, ARE chief executive, believes almost 4,000 claims were rejected and says it is likely because the 44-page long application is “very bureaucratic” and “onerous”.
“Our manifesto calls for legal aid to be put in place by the next government,” says Mr Crook.
‘A fundamental reset’
Labour have said that, if elected, they’re going to streamline the initial applications for compensation, speed up payouts and implement the recommendations which Wendy Williams made in her independent Windrush Lessons Learned Review.
Sir Keir said: “The Windrush generation embodies the best of Britain: determination, spirit, public service and graft.
“But instead of being thanked, they’ve been badly mistreated.
“A Labour government will offer a fundamental reset moment for the Windrush generation, with respect and dignity at its very core.”
He promised “urgent reform” of the compensation system and to restore the Windrush Unit to the Home Office along with appointing a Windrush commissioner to be “the voice of families affected”.
He added: “Justice has taken far too long for the Windrush community.
“A government that I lead won’t let this happen again. Where the Tories have dragged their feet, I am determined to get money out the door to compensate those who were failed by the state.”
‘I still think they’re gonna come for me’
Image: Shane Smith spent almost his entire life in the UK before he was told he had no right to be in the country
Shane Smith, 44, was born in Trinidad and Tobago, but was brought to the UK by his British mum when he was just four months old.
He was at work, in his early thirties, when he was told he had no right to remain in the only place he knew as home.
“I was dragged into the office and they were like, you’ve got an immigration issue,” says Mr Smith.
“I said, ‘Can’t you hear my voice? I’m a scouser!’ That’s when everything fell apart.”
He lost his job as a result of the scandal and it took him years to obtain the documents he needed to be granted the citizenship he was already entitled to.
Mr Smith became homeless as a result of work insecurities, and years later is still battling with mental health issues.
“I just felt alone, I couldn’t provide for my family anymore… I’m embarrassed, because I am a proud man, and before this I thought I was very, very strong,” says Mr Smith.
“I still think they’re gonna come for me.”
Although he may be entitled to compensation, Mr Smith hasn’t yet applied for the scheme, as he believes the process does not consider the complex lives created by the scandal.
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“I’ve got to go through a dossier and provide all this stuff, when half the time I was homeless,” he says.
He says when he received the compensation booklet, he couldn’t face going through the paperwork.
“I just threw it in the bin.”
Mr Smith also says even if he found the mental strength to fill it out, he’s not sure he could accept the money based on principles.
“If I accept it, it’s just like saying what you did to me is fine, and you are okay doing that to anyone else,” he says.
It’s this “lack of faith” in the government’s ability to right the wrongs of the scandal that has inspired ARE, which is also calling upon the incoming government to establish a Windrush covenant for mental health.
A group of campaigners, survivors and families affected by abuse on social media have written to the Tory leadership candidates to urge the next prime minister to prioritise the Online Safety Bill.
Danielle Armitage is one of those who have signed the open letter addressed to the candidates.
She was only 14-years-old when she was groomed while playing an online interactive game for children.
The man claimed to be 16 years old, however he was in fact in his late 40s at the time.
Ms Armitage, who has waived her anonymity to warn others about what happened to her, told Sky News that initially “he arranged to meet me after school”.
“I got into his car and discovered that he was a lot older than what he said. I just froze from that point,” she said.
He drove Ms Armitage to a forest, and that’s when the first sexual assault took place.
More on Online Safety Bill
The situation then “escalated”, and subsequent assaults became more violent.
Ms Armitage said: “He said if I spoke out or told anybody, he’d threaten my family. I felt like I had to see him again.”
She added: “By coming together and speaking out, we want the next prime minister to know what happened to us was avoidable.
“It’s in their hands to protect our children, and to make sure there are safety measures in place for children using the internet.”
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2:58
March 2022: What is the Online Safety Bill?
Campaigners are calling on Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak to resist calls to water down the planned internet safety laws and commit to delivering them without delay.
The proposed legislation had been scheduled to make its way through parliament before the summer recess but, due to competing demands in the chamber, has now been delayed until a new prime minister is in place.
It aims to regulate social platforms, to ensure they protect their users from harmful content, with fines and other potential penalties for those who fail to do so.
There are concerns in some quarters that the bill will damage free speech and enable censorship, while others believe it does not go far enough to curb the spread of harmful material online.
In their letter, the campaigners said it is “upsetting” to see some opponents of the bill “rejoicing at this delay and calling for the legislation to be scrapped altogether”.
The coalition is made up of 15 grooming and sexual abuse survivors, and parents of children who died by suicide after seeing harmful content online.
“We have long campaigned for laws to better protect children online and were frustrated and disappointed to see the Online Safety Bill delayed rather than pass through parliament last month,” the letter reads.
“With every month the legislation is delayed, the NSPCC say we will see more than 3,500 online child sexual abuse crimes against children. These offences have increased tenfold in just a decade. And bullying, pro-anorexia posts, harmful self-harm and suicide content continue to fill children’s streams.
“This level of harm against children would not be accepted in any other industry, which is why the next prime minister must make the Online Safety Bill a national priority and pave the way for urgent regulation to begin.”
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Concerns have been raised by experts on all sides of the debate around the bill after changes in government and ministers with different priorities overseeing the legislation.
In their letter, the campaigners insisted Ms Truss or Mr Sunak must move forward with the bill.
“Should you become the next prime minister, we urge you to keep the promise made to children and families and deliver a robust Online Safety Bill in full and without delay,” they said.
“Any watering down of the bill would be unacceptable and break the commitment made to children and families in the Conservative Party manifesto to deliver the strongest possible protections for children online.”
Campaigners have said there is still a long way to go to support young people and prevent suicides after the government announced further funding for student mental health services.
The Student Minds mental healthy charity has received a three-year funding commitment of £262,500 annually from the Office for Students and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, to extend the provision of Student Space.
The platform offers students one-to-one mental health support as well as services via web, call and text.
The funding comes after the government allocated £3m to help the NHS work more closely with universities when providing students with mental health support.
However, campaigners have said there is a long way to go when it comes to providing students with the best possible mental health provisions.
Mental health activist Ben West told Sky News: “So many students I talk to don’t know what’s available, and even if they know what’s available they’re so mysteriously presented that, that there’s so much anxiety about going.
“That is such a barrier to receiving that help.”
He added that discrepancies between universities are also rife.
Mr West said: “It varies massively from university to university.
“Some universities I’ve seen and heard about are great, they’re very proactive in terms of the support they offer, and some universities are incredibly unproductive.
“We need so much more regulation and guidance from government.”
In 2018, Natasha Abrahart took her own life while in her second year at the University of Bristol.
Struggling with social anxiety, her well-being deteriorated as she faced increasing pressure around oral university assessments.
Her department was made aware of her situation.
Robert Abrahart, her father, told Sky News about how Natasha’s flatmate had written to staff about the fact the student had been having suicidal thoughts “and to some degree attempted it”.
He said: “At that point, you’d think people would pick up on it and do something.
“In fact, yes, they helped her to get to the GP service, but did nothing else in the department.”
Image: Natasha Abrahart took her own life in her second year of university
Her mother Margaret Abrahart added: “I think they were quite frightened to talk to her in case it was upsetting.
“But then at the same time, they seem OK with putting her into a situation that would be really upsetting.”
Her parents later learned of more attempts their daughter had made to get help.
Mr Abrahart said: “There’s records of her searching the internet for ways of solving her own problems.”
Her mother added: “It’s very tragic to see the attempts she made to sort out her own problems.
“It was just one of those problems that was just too difficult, and she needed help”.
Image: Natasha Abrahart with parents Robert and Margaret
Ultimately, a landmark court ruling found the university’s failures contributed to Natasha’s death.
At the time, the University of Bristol said staff worked hard and diligently to support her and it is committed to providing the best possible support for students.
The university has also applied to appeal the court’s decision.
The case sparked conversations around student mental health, and her parents continue to campaign so other students don’t experience the distress Natasha did.
There are also concerns about the training around mental health provided to student-facing staff.
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Sky News obtained data from 109 universities through Freedom of Information requests.
It showed that 98% offer student-facing staff mental health training.
However, it isn’t mandatory in 67 out of 107 institutions – that’s 63%.
And while 37%, 40 out of 107, have some form of mandate – in most cases, this doesn’t cover all staff.
Clinical psychologist Peter Kinderman told Sky News understanding of mental health must be widespread.
He said: “It should be part of the duty of care that all university staff – and that includes cleaning staff as well as lecturing staff – should have towards their students.
“It should be inherent in what universities do.
“If universities are ducking their responsibilities to understand and then support student mental health, then I think they’re at fault.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
