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.
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”.
