A bid to ban smacking has been heavily defeated in the House of Commons.

MPs voted by 424 to 75 against an amendment to the Children Bill that ministers warned would have "criminalised most parents".

Some 47 Labour MPs voted for the amendment which would have removed the legal defence for parents who physically chastise their children.

Children's minister Margaret Hodge said the government's preferred amendment would allow smacking short of those actions which cause actual bodily harm.

"It does not criminalise parents for administering a light smack to their children," she added.

A separate bid by Conservative backbencher Andrew Turner to remove all reference to smacking from the Bill, leaving the existing laws unchanged, was also defeated.