Keir Starmer has formally apologised for the British state’s role in past forced adoptions after decades of campaigning by mothers and children affected.
The prime minister said “the shame is ours” and that he was “deeply and profoundly sorry” for what had happened, as he announced extra funding to help people access their adoption records and reconnect with biological families.
About 185,000 birth mothers and children in England and Wales were affected by forced adoptions between 1949 and 1976, the result of stigma about pregnancy outside marriage at the time.
Speaking in the House of Commons while affected mothers and adult adoptees looked on from the public gallery, Starmer said: “The shame was never yours. The shame is ours. You should not have had to fight so hard for this day to come.
“Today, finally, I do say on behalf of the state and the nations involved: we see you, we hear you and we are truly sorry.”
Starmer said the harm of forced adoptions has been “compounded by the actions and failures of the state”.
“The state did not prevent harm from continuing. The state bears responsibility for the systems it funded and legitimised, which enabled these practices to occur. The state did not do enough to protect mothers, children and families from harm,” he said.
“For this systemic failure, I am truly sorry.”
The Movement for an Adoption Apology said the apology “had come too late for a significant number of people” but that it was “a positive step for the hundreds of thousands of mothers still living with loss, whose suffering has at last been acknowledged”.
