PROFESSOR Devi Sridhar has reacted with shock after a senior Tory minister admitted his wife smacks their daughter.

The American public health expert, who advised the Scottish Government through the Covid pandemic, said she “couldn’t believe” what she was hearing from Nadhim Zahawi.

The Education Secretary earlier rejected calls from England’s Children’s Commissioner for the country to follow Scotland and Wales in outlawing smacking.

He said parents are “entitled” to discipline their children however they see fit.

READ MORE: Tory minister rejects call for England to follow Scotland's lead on smacking ban

Later he admitted that his own eight-year-old daughter is smacked by his wife “occasionally”.

He told Times Radio: “My very strong view is that actually we have got to trust parents on this and parents being able to discipline their children is something that they should be entitled to do.

“I’ve got a young child, I’ve got a nine-year-old … and I don’t think I’ve ever smacked her but I think her mother on occasion has felt a need for a light smack on the arm if she’s being completely naughty and misbehaving.

“But even when that happens, it has to be on a very, very sort of rare occasion, and not something that we would certainly as parents want to do very often.

“In fact it’s much better to sit down and communicate with your child and discuss behaviour and discuss what positive behaviour looks like – and that’s how we choose to do this in the Zahawi household.”

Sharing a newspaper article on Zahawi’s admission, Professor Sridhar appeared taken aback by the comments.

She said: “Physical punishment of children is awful & damaging & should be banned. It’s illegal in Scotland. “A person is a person no matter how small.”

"Can’t believe we’re hearing this from U.K. **Education** Minister.”

On Thursday, England’s Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said she would be “supportive” if the UK Government decided to follow Scotland and Wales in banning the physical punishment of children, suggesting it is something that should be considered in England.

The National: Wales followed Scotland in banning smackingWales followed Scotland in banning smacking

“My very strong view is that actually we have got to trust parents on this, and parents being able to discipline their children is something that they should be entitled to do,” the minister told Times Radio.

“We have got to just make sure we don’t end up in a world where the state is nannying people about how they bring up their children.”

Wales last month made any type of corporal punishment, including smacking, hitting, slapping and shaking, illegal in the country.

Scotland introduced a similar ban in November 2020.

Souza earlier urged ministers to look at how the legislation moved through the Welsh assembly and said she would support a decision to follow suit.

“Scotland and Wales have done this (banned the physical punishment of children). So we’ve learnt a lot about what that would mean, as it goes into legislation,” she told Times Radio.

READ MORE: Keir Starmer urges rUK to copy Welsh smacking ban – two years after Scots ban

“I think we’ve got a great opportunity to look, watch it, as it’s embedded (in Wales), and I would be supportive — certainly, from what I’ve seen so far — I would be supportive if our Government decided to do the same.”

In Scotland, the "smacking ban" was introduced in The Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019 which made it the first country in the UK to outlaw the punishment.

In Wales, it was brought in under the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Act 2020 and marks the end of the common law defence of “reasonable punishment”.

Parents or anyone who is responsible for a child while the parents are absent can now face criminal or civil charges if they are found to have physically disciplined a young person in any way.