When was belting banned in scottish schools

I am talking, not about punishment, but about sanctions, which we generally talk about. However, if one is talking about the concept of punishment, on which the hon. Walker is an expert, surely one does not have as a method of punishment something that people like, unless it is masochism that one is punishing. That is a topsy-turvy argument. The other argument that has been raised is that teachers have a statutory right to carry out that form of punishment because they are acting in loco parentis, as my hon.

Hughes said. If the teachers are acting in the place and using the authority of the parents, the logical extension of that is that the parents should be able to withdraw that authority. Some parents have taken their suggestions on the matter as far as the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. If the parents try to suggest that they are withdrawing rights from the teacher and that he will no longer act in their place, the teacher will say that that does not matter as he is acting in their place whether they like it or not.

Therefore, the parents have no say. Member for Edinburgh, North Mr. Fletcher , the Under-Secretary of State, keeps talking about parents' rights but never does anything about them. Surely parents have some rights in this matter. Before he was corrected by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart Mr.

Maxton suggested that the time might not be right. Since I have been involved first in local government and now in Parliament, which is now for nearly 12 years, it has been said that the time is never right for such a move. In my view the time is always right for making such a move. I agree that we have to try now to make every effort to bring the teachers with us. In many cases we have made a great endeavour to do that. Failing that, we have to move slightly ahead of public opinion because we believe that to do so is right, as my hon.

Friend the Member for Cathcart said. Finally—and that is a code word—I quote Dr. The Whip, the hon. Member for Sowerby Mr. Thompson , does not mind my quoting an English source. Taylor's remarks highlight an important point about discipline and order in schools: I had an experience some years ago when I was deputy head of a secondary school in England that has stuck with me ever since, and which I frequently quote.

One day taking assembly in the absence of the head … and during the singing of some vaguely improving Victorian hymn, I looked down at the serried ranks in front of me and suddenly realised that the minute they decided they had had enough there was absolutely nothing we could do.

We were outnumbered We had as much power and as much influence as the pupils were willing to give us. Order in that school, as indeed in all the institutions of society"— some of us here should remember that— depended not upon the degree of coercion we could exercise, but on the strengthening of a thread of consent that bound us all into the institution. We should all remember that. Pupils are an important part of the institution. They spend one-fifth of their week at school.

Would that he were still Secretary of State. It contains some good recommendations about education. It states that it is important to remember that school is not only what children get at the end of it. We should make it, in itself, a pleasant place to be in. We should make it a place to which children enjoy going, but how can they enjoy it with the fear of the Lochgelly belt hanging over their heads? How can children understand, be educated and develop the gift of learning if they live in constant fear?

That is not a psychological condition conducive to learning. If we are able to make school a pleasant place for children, we shall have achieved something in this debate.

If the Minister reads it, he will see why. It states: Corporal punishment of all pupils in primary schools and special schools and of female pupils will be illegal as from 1st August I have yet to hear an argument against that.

It continues brilliantly: Corporal punishment of all pupils will be illegal as from 1st August That should satisfy the hon.

Teachers have been given warning of the date, so they should have the wit to devise forms of punishment other than the medieval and barbaric practice of wielding the taws. I was belted at school and well remember the experience. It did not make me a better pupil. It brought out the rebellious part of me, not only then but in later years. No one can deny that that happens. All civilised Western countries have banned that barbaric form of punishment. Yet we drag with us this Dickensian or Victorian practice in our reluctance to drop this type of punishment on the ground that there seems to be no suitable alternative.

If it is beyond the wit of members of the teaching profession to provide a suitable alternative, I can only say that they are sadly lacking in education themselves. I do not believe that that is the case. I am sure that we all recall occasions in the classroom when, as my hon.

Hughes said, the teacher dangled the taws over the front of the desk to show the class the punishment that awaited anyone stupid or foolish enough to refuse to learn what he or she was about to impart, almost like the sword of Damocles hanging over one's head if one failed to pick up whatever relevant or irrelevant part of the lesson the teacher wished to impart. Despite the expert knowledge of the hon. Member for Argyll, that is not conducive to good learning. Let those who believe that it is produce conclusive proof of their argument.

Appalling instances were cited in Committee of handicapped and mentally retarded children being belted. Conservative Members described that as emotive sensationalism.

Nevertheless, they could not refute that the present law allows it to happen and we heard horrific and recent examples. When the Minister replied that the Government could not legislate against it at present, I could not believe my ears. I took the view that if we could not legislate to abolish such barbarism we had a pretty ineffective form of Government. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire Mr. Foulkes referred to the old joke, which is no joke in this context, about the consequences of people consistently being belted.

I recall even in my primary school days one of my fellow pupils known, for whatever reason, by the nickname of "Spulter" Duncan, a large, well-built boy for his age, who always seemed to be in some kind of trouble. He was not extra-intelligent.

Nevertheless, the teachers seemed to take their spite out on him. I remember the following incident because it is engraved upon my memory. A teacher who I always suspected had sadistic tendencies was absolutely furious with this boy because he had refused to learn or was incapable of learning a table or something of the kind. At any rate, he was not able to utter the sounds that the teacher wished to hear.

The teacher dragged the boy to the front of the class and made him hold out his hand for what we called a "doubler". That is to say, one had to hold one hand under the other, which prevented one from pulling one's hand away or gave one the false courage in terms of mechanics to keep one's hand in the same position so that the teacher could take careful aim and lash.

The teacher was so furious at the boy and what he had done that he drew back in an enormous swing, lifting one leg off the ground to produce the maximum velocity and momentum for the swing forward, almost like a golf swing. The boy's courage had never failed him before. He was a bit slow on the uptake, he did not have the agility of a Soviet-trained acrobat and he did not normally pull his hand away. Seeing what was coming, however, on this occasion he moved his hand slightly to the side.

The teacher, meanwhile, carried on and perpetrated a follow-through with such velocity that he struck his right leg. He screamed in anguish, grabbed the boy by the hair and threatened to pulverise him for moving his hand.

Such was the velocity of the intended stroke that the teacher almost broke his own leg. The belt in the hands of someone as emotionally unstable as that could cause great difficulties. Such treatment might release masochistic tendencies in the boy, who might find that the best way to satisfy those tendencies was to be a truculent pupil. In that way the teacher would perpetually belt him, but far from solving the lad's problem it would merely add to it.

Had the teacher been a sadist, we would have had the unusual situation of a pupil saying "Please teacher, belt me, belt me", and the teacher saying "No".

That was the joke referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire. Frankly, I am concerned about the fact that no initiative has come from Conservative Members on the abolition of what has been described as a medieval and barbaric practice. There was no initiative from Conservative Members in Committee to alleviate what they agreed was a problem.

Indeed, the hon. Member for Argyll said it was something that could only be erased school by school, sadist by sadist. We cannot leave it at that. This is one of the best written new clauses on the Amendment Paper. It ought to be supported. There is no reason why it cannot be supported. I therefore look forward with interest to the Minister's reply. I hope that I am proved wrong, but I suspect that he will have little to say about this matter, because the case is unanswerable. The most cogent reason that I have ever heard for the retention of corporal punishment is that its abolition would cause even more unemployment in Lochgelly.

However, the belts are now made in Cowdenbeath, because the saddler's factory has been moved there. I was born and brought up in Cowdenbeath, and I am concerned about unemployment in that area. My own brother happens to be one of the many thousands of unemployed in the Cowdenbeath area.

Nevertheless, that is no justification for the retention of this area of manufacturing industry, which over the years has caused a great deal of cruelty to countless numbers of children. In I attempted to introduce a Bill to abolish the use of corporal punishment in all education establishments.

Unfortunately, it was defeated by votes to I know that the hon. Members for Argyll Mr. Walker and Fife, East Mr. Henderson were not Members at that time. However, the absent Minister, the hon. Fletcher , was a Member of Parliament at that time, yet his name is missing from the Division List. He abstained. I do not know whether it was a conscientious abstention or a truancy abstention, but his name is missing from the Division List.

I wonder whether that is why the other Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West Mr. Fairgrieve , is present to lead the Government opposition to this reasonable new clause. It is ironic that the hon. Gentleman is responsible for health, because this method of punishing children has undermined the health of some children.

Surely no one in his right senses could ever argue that the health of children is improved by adults resorting to punishing children by means of violence. The use of corporal punishment in our schools is one of the last vestiges of formalised, legalised violence in our society today.

It was abolished in the Armed Forces many years ago. It has been abolished in our prisons—and thank goodness. It is worth pointing out that not even the most hardened violent criminal, who may have committed the most heinous of crimes, can be subjected to corporal punishment legally in our society today. Yet very often tiny children in our schools, who may have committed petty misdemeanours which are no crime at all, are subjected, sometimes daily, to the most violent form of punishment by an adult who may be twice the size and more than three times the weight of the child in question.

Members do not like my using words such as "barbaric", or even "violence", but it does not matter whether one calls it violent punishment, corporal punishment, physical punishment, vicious punishment, or whatever. No one can deny that is is a case of an adult hitting a child. Surely it is time that we in the House of Commons said that hitting children should have no place in our education system.

That is what the new clause is all about. The use of corporal punishment in our schools today has a brutalising effect on the pupil-teacher relationship, a relationship that ought to be based on mutual respect rather than on violent confrontation. The continued use of corporal punishment has a degrading effect on both the teacher and the pupil. I think that it was my hon. Hughes who referred to the possibility of violence breeding violence.

That is not just an empty saying. Some children, particularly those from deprived family backgrounds, who may have behavioural difficulties as a result, see a lot of violence—perhaps in their home background, perhaps in the street. When they go to school they see possibly the most educated person that they will ever encounter in their lives—possibly the only person with a professional qualification that they will ever meet, live with or mix with—standing in front of them with a huge piece of leather attempting to resort to violence in order to solve a problem.

No one denies that there is a problem, because very often teachers face disciplinary problems in their classrooms. It would be wrong of any hon.

Member to claim that we who advocate the abolition of corporal punishment are thereby somewhat anti-teacher. We are not anti-punishment either. I believe in discipline. I stick up for the rights of teachers and believe that children sometimes should be punished if they are guilty of doing wrong. But I maintain that there is something wrong with Scottish education when we seem to be saying that the disciplinary system in our schools would collapse if we did away with violent forms of punishment.

Surely it is not beyond our wit to think of an alternative constructive, non-violent form of punishment. I want to put the matter into the international context. International opinion on this subject puts us at or near the bottom of the international league.

I have gone to international conferences on various subjects. Sometimes the subject had nothing directly to do with education. It is embarrassing when I tell people that I am from Scotland, a Member of Parliament and a former teacher and the first thing they say is "Oh, that is the place where you beat the children, isn't it? With the exception of the Republic of Ireland, the countries that make up the United Kingdom are the only countries in Europe that resort to the use of violent punishment in schools.

Austria abolished it as long ago as It was abolished in in Denmark—a relative newcomer, strange to say—in Finland in about , France in , Holland in about , and Luxembourg in For almost years, since , it has been abolished in Poland, and it was abolished in Sweden in Other countries, such as Italy, maintain that corporal punishment in schools cannot be abolished because it was never permitted.

That list refers to places where Government legislation has banned corporal punishment, but in the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, teachers are forbidden to use corporal punishment by the State rather than by federal law. It is worth pointing out that the Nazi regime in Germany is the only one to have reintroduced corporal punishment since its abolition. It is also forbidden in Switzerland, although the law varies from one canton to the next. It is interesting to look at the list of countries where corporal punishment is still officially used in schools: Australia, Barbados, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, which I have already mentioned, New Zealand, South Africa, Swaziland, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom and the United States in all but two States.

Nearly every country has had some relationship, either past or present, with British colonialism. There is something about the old British Empire. It was founded on violence, or the threat of violence, to such an extent that even in the education systems set up in many of the countries of the Britsh Empire we introduced violence into the classrooms and used violence against the children.

I am glad that the Secretary of State for Scotland is here, because he should be taking much firmer action on the matter. We are in danger of becoming a laughing stock. The right hon. The European Commission of Human Rights has already decided to refer those cases to the court. The boy Campbell is the son of Mrs.

Campbell of Bishopbriggs, who asked Strathclyde regional council for a guarantee that her child would not be subjected to corporal punishment. He never was, but the authority refused to give the guarantee, and Mrs. Campbell decided to take the case to the commission in the first instance, and it referred it to the court.

The boy Cosans, who was a pupil at Beath senior high school in Cowdenbeath, was suspended from school because he refused corporal punishment. His crime was that in taking a short cut home he had been caught climbing over a cemetery wall. The teacher wanted to give him corporal punishment.

The boy refused, the parents supported him and the boy was suspended. The suspension remained in force for the rest of his school life, and I understand that after he left school he had considerable difficulty in finding employment as a result. The cases have now been referred to the court, though in neither was corporal punishment actually used. Another case may soon be referred to the commission to see whether such punishment is tantamount to a degrading form of punishment.

The commission did not refer those two cases on the ground that it was inhuman and degrading, because the punishment had not been used. By a majority of nine votes to five, the commission expressed the opinion that there had been a violation of the second sentence of Article 2 of Protocol No.

In other words, the grounds of referral seem to be based very much on the rights of the parents and the Government, on the face of it, appear to be denying the parents' right to decide whether their children should be subjected to corporal punishment. We face a ludicrous situation. I understand that the Government have asked for extra time to prepare their case at Strasbourg. I am sorry that the Solicitor-General for Scotland is not present.

I trust that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that anyone is guilty before being tried. That is what he is implying. I am expressing an opinion, as I am entitled to do. There is no reason why hon. Members, within the High Court of Parliament, should regard a matter before the European Court of Human Rights as being sub judice in the same manner as a case before a British court.

I believe that the case is indefensible. I do not know how many civil servants and secretaries will accompany the Solicitor-General, a former pupil of Loretto, or his pal, the Lord Advocate, to Strasbourg. Those working on the preparation of the case are wasting time that could be devoted to more important matters concerning the pursuit of justice in Scotland. Has the Crown Office not got its priorities upside down in spending time, money and effort to defend the indefensible in Strasbourg?

It would be less expensive and more reasonable for the Government to accept the new clause. In Committee I moved an amendment that would have given parents the right to decide whether their children should be subjected to corporal punishment. Unfortunately, the amendment was defeated. Every Tory Member who was present that day voted against it. Even worse, on a later amendment of mine, which would have made unlawful the use of corporal punishment on recorded children—children who are mentally or physically handicapped, or both, and recorded as being in special educational need—every man jack on the Tory Benches voted to defeat me.

Theirs is the party in favour of beating handicapped children. That is the only conclusion that the people of Scotland can reach. Conservative Members voted against my amendment. By doing so they voted to make it legal for teachers to resort to the use of corporal punishment and to hit handicapped children. It is disgusting that the Minister responsible for health should come here to defend something that he voted for in Committee.

He told me then that I was grossly exaggerating and that such beatings did not occur. I related a case from my experience when I was a pupil. The lad involved is still a friend of mine. From birth, part of his leg, arm and hand had been paralysed. Almost daily that boy was subjected to a public demonstration of brutality.

It must have shocked not only that lad but also the wee girls who had to watch it nearly every day. It was sickening and obscene. My memories of what went on when I was a pupil are not unique.

Recently, a mother in Glasgow said: A one-handed year-old boy at my daughter's school was on two occasions given six strokes of the belt on his one good hand. Normally when children are belted, they rub their hands together to ease the pain but, of course, he wasn't able to do that. I complained to the 'guidance' teacher who had belted the child. He said: 'How dare you question my professional integrity'.

It is almost incredible that such things should be tolerated in the twentieth century. From 1 August the infliction of corporal punishment on such children will be illegal if the clause is accepted.

I am in favour of immediate abolition, but the amendment is at least a reasonable compromise. I hope that the Government will respond more helpfully than they did in Committee.

If such things have been going on for so long, and if the hon. Gentleman is so concerned, why was nothing done when the Labour Party was in Government? Having failed to achieve his objective by the use of Scottish votes in Committee, why has the hon. Member come here with a trivial handful of his Scottish colleagues to try to use English votes to achieve the same objective?

Gentleman was not asleep, he will know that in I tried to introduce a Bill to abolish corporal punishment in our schools. When it failed, many of my hon.

Friends and I began to try to get a clear affirmation of Labour Party policy on this subject. I am pleased to say that it is now official Labour Party policy to abolish corporal punishment in our schools. If I have anything to do with it, I shall ensure that the next Labour Government take steps in that direction. The Labour Party is not alone in advocating the abolition of corporal punishment. I have a list of the different organisations that are in favour of abolition.

The teachers' unions are not nearly so reactionary as they once were over the abolition of corporal punishment. My own trade union, the Educational Institute of Scotland, is in favour of the eventual phasing out of corporal punishment, provided suitable alternatives are found. Even the Government are on record as saying that they want to seek, by means of negotiation, to achieve the abolition of corporal punishment in schools.

It is interesting to note that as long ago as there was a statement of principles and a code of conduct that were supposed to lead to the eventual phasing out of corporal punishment in schools. In Committee the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North, did not absolutely oppose my amendment in principle in his speech, although he voted against it. He did make some polite noises.

He referred to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities having set up a working party on alternatives to corporal punishment and he referred also to the consultations that were going on.

He said: it would have to be the subject of wider consultation. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman"— that is me— is aware of the steps currently being taken on these serious and important matters. I hope that by the end of this year we shall be able to make some decisions, once we have benefited from the advice of parents, teachers, local authorities and others concerned with these matters.

The Government do not appear to be opposed in principle to this proposition and I hope that we shall receive a more constructive response this evening. We have moved, too. We have said that, instead of going for immediate abolition, we should set two deadlines. The first is next year for children in primary and special schools, and for girls. The second deadline is 1 August , and applies to all other pupils.

This will give time for consultations to take place. It will also enable a better atmosphere to be created in which the consultations can take place. They have been going on since and there has been much dragging of feet. Little progress has been made. If we decide to set these deadlines it will concentrate the minds of those involved in the consultations. It is 13 years since the statement of principles and the code of conduct were published.

They did not have statutory backing. In a sense, the code of practice is purely voluntary, although some education authorities have made it mandatory. Nevertheless, it does not have the backing of an Act or a statutory instrument. There may have been some improvements in some areas, even in the time since I introduced my Bill in People tend to scoff at Ten-Minute Bills, saying that they never reach the statute book, but they can help to form public opinion outside the House.

In there was more hostility towards me and my Bill than there is now. For example, in both the schools that my children attend—one a primary school, and the other a secondary school at which I formerly taught—the incidence of corporal punishment is less now than it was even five years ago.

I do not claim complete responsibility for that, but by attempting to introduce Private Member's legislation and by having a debate such as this Parliament can give a lead to public opinion, instead of following slavishly in the wake of popular opinion, as some phoney populist hon.

Members do. Sometimes we must make a stand, and this is one such occasion. Despite those improvements, the incidence of corporal punishment in Scottish schools is still far too frequent. A recent article in The Observer featured interviews with some Edinburgh schoolchildren about the use of the belt at school. One primary schoolboy demonstrated how some teachers brought down the belt from over their shoulders. At another primary school a pupil claimed that a boy came out of one class with his fingers cut and his hand skinned.

The year-old explained how when a teacher lashed across the hand the thongs of the taws flicked around the palm and bruised the back of the hand, and how when he struck along the hand the thongs bruised the pupil's wrist. We often hear about the deterrent effect of the belt.

It is interesting to note one lad's comment. He claimed that some boys have a competition to see who can get the most. They keep the score, and they are proud of it. It is a strange deterrent that makes children behave in that way. A massive survey was carried out of 30, children who left school during the late s.

The survey was entitled "Tell them from me", and was published by Aberdeen University Press in It is interesting to read what the children said there about corporal punishment. The vast majority of Scottish children are belted during their secondary schooling.

Many are frequently punished in this way. In only 10 per cent. The survey showed that 97 per cent. Sixty per cent. Even amongst the high flyers who sat their higher examinations, 88 per cent. It is no wonder that some people refer to "ritual violence" in some Scottish schools. It is high time that it was abolished.

We could take an important step by supporting the new clause. The new clause also refers to the replacement of corporal punishment by "alternative forms of punishment. Counselling does not apply only to pupils or students who have stepped out of line in their behaviour. It goes wider than that. The opportunities are better for counselling on a one-to-one basis. Often a class teacher who has 30 children to tend does not have time to take one disruptive child aside and find out why that child is acting up.

The reason could be something that has happened at home or because the child is psychologically disturbed. Counselling is in the interests of children, parents and teachers.

Surely it is not beyond the imagination of teachers to devise a system of lost privileges instead of hitting children. Detention might be an appropriate non-violent punishment, particularly if the pupil is frequently late or refuses to do homework or lessons in class. To compensate for that, for their own good, detention is a good idea, so long as it is accompanied by a useful educational activity.

I do not believe in incarcerating children, but educational activity during part of the lunch break or after school hours is a more constructive punishment than violence. Pilot schemes are taking place in some schools where especially troublesome pupils are temporarily sent to a special centre within the school.

Its pupil-teacher ratio is lower than in an ordinary class. The teacher in charge is specially gifted to deal with difficult pupils. I am sure that hon. Members who, like myself, have had teaching experience know that some teachers have a special gift for dealing with difficult pupils, determining the problems, and contacting the home. The aim of such a special centre must be to re-educate and rehabilitate the pupil so that eventually he can return to the mainstream of education in the school.

Has the Minister heard about the pilot schemes? Can he tell us any more about them, or is it too early to measure their success? Will he, or the other Ministers at the Scottish Office, visit some of the special centres? The head teachers who took the initiative to establish the pilot schemes should be congratulated. The Government should encourage more initiatives along those lines.

There may be a case for referring very troublesome pupils—for example, those who have resorted to violent crimes—to other authorities. An incident in a school may be referred to the reporter, who, in turn, may refer it to a children's hearing. It is not as though there is no alternative. In the last analysis—I hope that it would happen only rarely—a pupil may be suspended for anti-social behaviour because his presence at a school threatens the educational opportunity of his fellow pupils.

Another extreme measure would be transfer to another school. The Lochgelly Tawse was made by cutting 2ft long strips of leather from pre-tanned and pre-curried hides. The leather would then be dressed and cut halfway up the middle to form the tails. The particular design of the tails provided the searing nip when it struck the student's hand.

However, the Lochgelly method was preferable in that the tails were "edged" in order to prevent drawing blood. In the early s demand for the tawse was strong but a modern manufacturing method was required to keep up with orders from teachers not just in Scotland, but across the UK. The company modernised their method with a state-of-the-art three-phase cutting press, allowing manufacturing of the tawse on a factory scale. By the end of the s it became harder to source leather thick enough to manufacture the heavier versions of the tawse and public opinion on corporal punishment was slowly starting to change.

By the use of corporal punishment was beginning to be phased out in state schools after two Scottish mothers won an action in the European Court of Human Rights. Use of the Lochgelly Tawse and any other form of corporal Punishment was finally banned in state schools in , with Scottish private schools following suit over 10 years later in Margaret Dick is granddaughter of George Dick and daughter of John Dick, the men behind the infamous Lochgelly design. She still runs the family leather goods business from Lochgelly, supplying leather wares for Sgain Dubhs, harnesses and handbags.

These statistics come from a piece I wrote at the time. Then you can get on with the history of U-boat warfare or why the UN is a good thing. When I went to see him in , he reported that business was booming, with the home trade supported by exports to particularly Scottish parts of the old empire such as Malawi and New Zealand. Here at least, cruelty has taken on the strange innocence of folklore.

This article is more than 3 years old. Ian Jack. Boys play football in a Glasgow street in Many children of this generation were belted. Some parents call it a loving smack. I call it violence Susanna Rustin.