Junior education minister Baroness Ashton said it would be irresponsible to allow a vote to amend the Children Bill when top lawyers had advised the Department for Education and Skills that the proposal would have a wider scope than its authors had intended.
And it would place an unacceptable burden on social services departments because police would often refer the cases to social workers, she said.
But determined campaigners said they would redraft the amendment and bring it forward at the next stage in the Lords in mid June. They pointed to a poll commissioned by the anti-smacking Children Are Unbeatable alliance, which indicated that 71 per cent of people supported change.
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