‘Time running out’ for UK to apologise over forced adoptions

London: Time is running out for the UK government to issue a formal apology to women who were forced to give up their babies for adoption in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, campaigners have warned.

Most of the estimated 185,000 women involved in forced adoptions are now in their 70s and 80s, and some have died without an apology on behalf of the state being issued.

Many pinned their hopes on the Labour government after the previous Conservative administration said in 2023 that a formal government apology was not appropriate. But despite strong cross-party support for such a move, the government has failed to act.

“Time is of the essence,” said Karen Constantine, of the Movement for an Adoption Apology (MAA) and the author of Taken: Experiences of Forced Adoption. “The value of an apology would be immensely healing and resolve unimaginable pain endured for decades by an ageing cohort of women who had their babies taken from them.”

Last year, Veronica Smith, one of the co-founders of the MAA, died aged 83. The loss of her daughter in a forced adoption in 1964 had “coloured the whole of my life”, she said. She had hoped to testify at a public hearing into forced adoptions, but the government dismissed calls for an inquiry in 2017.

Discussions with senior Labour politicians before last year’s election led the MAA to believe that a formal apology would be issued if the party took power. “It’s beyond disappointing that it hasn’t happened,” said Constantine. “My many formal and informal conversations led me to believe an apology would be forthcoming and that Keir Starmer would deliver it.”

MPs and peers from all parties who had backed calls for an apology were unhappy with the lack of progress, she added.

Lord Alton, the chair of parliament’s joint committee on human rights (JCHR), urged the government “to take ownership of resolving this wider legacy to mitigate the harm that was done” to women. “This isn’t about apportioning blame, but recognising the serious trauma and lasting pain suffered by so many people,” he told the Guardian, speaking in a personal capacity.

Helena Kennedy, a barrister and member of the JCHR, and Harriet Harman, a veteran Labour politician and a former chair of the JCHR, also said the government should issue a formal apology. State and church bodies “sustained a punitive culture of shaming young women who became pregnant outside of marriage”, said Kennedy.

A JCHR inquiry into forced adoptions in 2021 that found the UK government was “ultimately responsible” for actions that inflicted harm inflicted on young, vulnerable women and children. “An apology by the government and an official recognition that what happened to these mothers was dreadful and wrong … would go some way to mitigate the pain and suffering of those affected,” it said.

Responding to a request for comment from the children’s and families minister Janet Daby, a Department for Education spokesperson said: “This abhorrent practice should never have taken place, and our deepest sympathies are with all those affected. We take this issue extremely seriously and continue to engage with those impacted to provide support and consider what more can be done.”

The Scottish government issued a formal apology in 2023. Nicola Sturgeon, then Scotland’s first minister, said: “The issuing of a formal apology is an action that governments reserve as a response to the worst injustices in our history.” The Welsh government formally apologised for the “life-long heartbreak” caused by forced adoptions also in 2023. In 2018, Leo Varadkar, then Irish prime minister, told parliament: “What was done was … an historic wrong that we must face up to.”

In 2016, the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales apologised for its role in forced adoptions, and the Church of England also expressed “great regret”.

The Catholic church, the C of E and the Salvation Army ran “mother and baby homes” and adoption agencies in the UK from the 1950s until the 1970s. Unmarried pregnant women were sent to the homes to give birth and hand over their babies for adoption. They were not told they could keep their children and had the right to welfare support. Adoption reached a peak in 1968, when more than 16,000 babies born to unmarried mothers were handed to new families.

Michael Lambert, an academic at Lancaster University who has researched forced adoptions, said the government decided not to take over the homes when the welfare state was created in the 1940s, but instead subsidised their services.

“The weight of evidence from archive material and testimonials is huge,” he said. “It’s not just the birth mothers who are ageing and may not live to see an apology, there is also a generation of adoptees who deserve justice.”

As well as a formal apology, the MAA wants government funding for support services for women and their children who were involved in forced adoptions and full access to historical records.