Parents should be banned from smacking their children to stop long-term damage, doctors say.

A report in the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) said that current laws in England and Northern Ireland are “unjust and dangerously vague”.

They said it was a “scandal” that Scotland and Wales had outlawed smacking – as they did in 2020 and 2022 respectively – and the other two home nations had not followed suit.