THIS week we've heard the welcome news that the government is considering introducing a new law to protect children against so-called emotional neglect.

The proposed change would see those parents or carers who inflict significant harm on their children by emotional or psychological abuse, face prosecution for the first time. It follows a campaign for a “Cinderella Law” by the charity Action for Children, which I have been supporting for some time.

Throughout my working life in the legal system I’ve seen countless cases where current laws have failed to protect children.

The legislation we have at the moment is outdated. It’s based on very Victorian ideas of what constitutes child cruelty and fails to recognise that non-physical abuse can and does cause significant harm to children.

Ignoring a child’s presence, failing to stimulate them, isolating and rejecting them can all be harmful. But unlike physical violence, it’s very difficult to prove wrongdoing and the current legislation does not regard it as a criminal offence.

The Cinderella Law will change that. There have been concerns that it will criminalise ‘tough love’ or ‘firm but fair’ parenting, which is what most parents employ from time to time – me included. But if mum puts a child on the ‘naughty step’ and ignores them for a short time as a punishment, that will not count.

This proposal is not about widening the net, it’s about making the net stronger so that we catch those parents and carers who are quite clearly inflicting significant harm on their children.

I have worked since 2012 to support Action for Children’s campaign based on my own experiences as a criminal barrister, when I dealt regularly with child neglect cases. The main problem is that the current law focuses only on the physical effects of abuse.

Emotional neglect by contrast, which modern science now shows can be equally as destructive to a child’s well being, is excluded from the law.

Out of 41 legal systems around the world examined by Action For Children, only two didn’t criminalise emotional abuse. One was England and Wales. This is simply not good enough.

We need a clear, concise and workable definition of child maltreatment; in short, an alternative code that reflects the range of harm of done to children and which provides appropriate legal mechanisms to tackle some of the worst cases.

Emotional neglect must be outlawed, bringing the criminal law into line with its civil counterpart, which already gives social workers the power to remove children if they believe there is emotional abuse.

As many as 1.5 million children are believed to suffer from emotional neglect in the UK. That startling figure on its own is enough to prove that the time for change is long overdue.