The British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has issued a formal apology on behalf of the state to everyone affected by historical forced adoptions in England. The move follows decades of campaigning by those who lived through the practice and its consequences.
Forced adoption, as it has come to be known, involved unmarried mothers being pressured into giving up their children for adoption. According to the account set out, an estimated 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were adopted in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976.
The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, described the episode as a shameful period in the country's history. The government's decision to apologise marks a formal acknowledgement that what happened to these mothers and their children was wrong.
The apology comes on the back of a parliamentary inquiry that examined the practice. Members heard directly from mothers who described feelings of shame and upset, and how they had carried those emotions with them throughout their lives.
Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights found that government decisions had, in its words, shaped the environment in which unmarried mothers were often shamed and coerced into having their children put up for adoption. The committee called for an apology, something a previous Conservative government had said it did not consider appropriate.
Many of the women were very young at the time, and some were teenagers when they were moved into mother and baby homes and other institutional settings. There, according to the testimony gathered, they were cut off from their families, relationships, education and employment, and lived under harsh and isolated conditions.
Some of the accounts were described as harrowing. One woman recounted being made to carry out chores from morning to evening, while others described poor care and being treated badly, in what campaigners have said was a widespread and well-understood practice at the time.
In his statement, the Prime Minister said the apology also extended to the children who were adopted and are now adults. He spoke of those who, through pressure and coercion within these systems, were taken from their families and denied their identity, their history and, sometimes, their safety, including some who grew up believing they were unwanted or were told directly that they were second class.
The apology further acknowledged people who experienced harm even while being brought up in loving homes by their adoptive parents, as well as those adopted across borders or cultures who lost connections to their heritage and personal identity. It also recognised people from ethnic minority backgrounds who experienced racism or were treated differently.
Alongside the apology, the government set out a series of practical measures. The education secretary is writing to local authorities and adoption agencies, setting out the expectation that requests for records be handled swiftly and with compassion, while funded intermediary services are to be expanded, with particular focus on pre-1976 cases where support is currently most limited.
Officials also outlined plans for national, virtual, peer-led support groups for mothers and adopted adults, and new support to help clinicians understand the impact of forced adoption. NHS England is to explore how those who wish to do so can have their experience recorded in their health record, and a testimonials project is to be commissioned to capture the stories of those affected.
Ahead of the statement, the Prime Minister met survivors in Downing Street. Campaigners have also raised the question of possible reparations, and attention now turns to how the government will respond to the wider concerns of those affected in the period following the apology.