Leigh Road Baptist Church will join more than 200 campaigners outside Parliament on Tuesday to thank the Government, but to also urge it to do more.

Rev Steve Tinnings, associate pastor of the church, told Premier the government deserves to be “celebrated” for its efforts.

On 24th October 2016 parliamentary allies helped secure sanctuary for 750 unaccompanied refugee children.

Alistair Rooms, from the charity Safe Passage that helped facilitate the refugees moving to the UK, told Premier how it was involved in the transfer.

He said: “We were working with a number of young people who were living in tents across the jungle and we were working with them to build up case work on their case and then bring a legal case forward for them to come to the UK.”

The charity’s work caught the attention of Leigh Road Baptist Church.

Rev Tinnings said that, coupled with Premier’s Love Calais Appeal, the church knew it had to get in involved.

He added: “The youth group raised a significant amount of money to help with that appeal.

“That led to a greater awareness of the refugee crisis among the wider church… and so we asked an artist called Mark Stein Adamson if we could exhibit some of his art work around the refugee camps of Lebanon and Jordan, which raised awareness across the town of Leigh. “

The church has also been hosting a Syrian refugee family in a flat after it found out the local council committed to bring in 12 refugees but wouldn’t use social…

New Zealand-based Family First NZ is fighting similar legislation there, saying it aims to “decriminalise parents who use light smacking for correction of children”.

According to the Scotsman publication, Bob McCoskrie, the national director and co-founder of Family First NZ, claimed the move will criminalise good parents and harm children.

He said: “A decade on from the passing of the controversial anti-smacking law in New Zealand, the law has maintained its very high level of opposition, but most significantly the law has had a ‘chilling’ effect on parenting, and rather than tackling rotten parents who are abusing their children, it has targeted well-functioning parents”.

The Scottish Government has declared it will support a member’s bill brought forward by Green MSP John Finnie to scrap the legal defence of justifiable assault for parents who physically discipline their children.

This will add Scotland to the list of 52 countries worldwide where physical punishment of children is outlawed.

The Scottish Government has said physical punishment can have “negative effects on children which can last long after the physical pain has died”.

However, Mr McCoskire feels differently, stating: “The politicians and anti-smacking lobby groups linked good parents who smacked their children with child abusers, a notion roundly rejected – and still rejected – by New Zealanders.

“We would warn Scottish parents that this law will harm and rip apart families.”

The Crimes…