Starmer to issue formal apology to mothers and children harmed by historic forced adoption policies
Good morning. Keir Starmer is clearing the decks in his last three weeks in office, and today he is going to settle one unresolved issue when he delivers a formal apology on behalf of the state to victims of forced adoption policies that were in place in the middle of the last century.
Between 1949 and 1976, an estimated 185,000 babies were taken from unmarried mothers and placed for adoption in England and Wales as a result of a culture of shame surrounding pregnancy outside marriage. The mother and baby homes involved were mostly run by religious organisations, but councils were involved in placing children for adoption.
In March the Commons education committee said the government should issue a formal apology. Its report is here, and here is Jessica Murray’s story at the time.
And here is the preview story from the Press Association ahead of Starmer’s statement today.
Survivors of historical forced adoption are to get the state apology they have spent decades campaigning for when Keir Starmer says sorry in parliament.
The prime minister is expected to stand in the Commons and acknowledge the harm caused when an estimated 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were adopted in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976.
Starmer’s formal apology will come after he meets with campaigners in Downing Street this morning.
The joint committee on human rights (JCHR) called for a state apology in 2022, saying “the government bears ultimate responsibility for the pain and suffering caused by public institutions and state employees that railroaded mothers into unwanted adoptions”.
Mothers forced to give up their babies have previously described the harrowing experiences of having them taken away and the lingering feelings of shame, while adults who were removed as children from their mothers have spoken of a “harmful narrative” which long persisted that adoption had saved them.
It was confirmed last month by education secretary Bridget Phillipson that a long-campaigned-for apology was coming in relation to what she called a “shameful period in our history”.
The Westminster apology comes three years after administrations in Cardiff and Holyrood said sorry to people impacted across Wales and Scotland.
In Northern Ireland, an apology is also expected but not until after a public inquiry has been carried out, following a recommendation from a 2021 report on mother and baby institutions, Magdalene laundries and workhouses.
Despite the JCHR report recommending ministers apologise, the then-Conservative government in 2023 said while it was sorry “on behalf of society” for the way the women had been treated, it did not think a formal apology appropriate “since the state did not actively support these practices”.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is on a visit related to his party’s policies on water companies.
9.30am: Peter Kyle, the business secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Around 11.30am: Keir Starmer makes a statement to MPs including an apology to victims of the government’s forced adoption policy in the mid-20th century.
Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Hertfordshire.
And, at some point today, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, will publish a written statement on her response to part one of the inquiry into the Southport killings.
I’m afraid we are not able to open the comments today because the moderators do not have enough capacity.
If you want to contact me, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
PM’s apology over forced adoption should include commitment to ‘ongoing support’, education committee chair says
Helen Hayes, the Labour chair of the Commons education committee, has said today’s apology from the prime minister to victims of historic forced adoption policies should include a commitment to “meaningful and ongoing support”.
In a statement, she said:
I welcome today’s long-overdue apology for the state’s role in the historical forced adoption practices that coerced and traumatised mothers and children for decades. While an apology should have been made years ago, I am pleased that the day some campaigners feared would never come has finally arrived …
When the committee published our report earlier this year, we were clear that an apology must be unequivocal, must be co-produced with and reflect the experiences of survivors, and must commit to offer them meaningful and ongoing support … Today’s apology is an important milestone, but it is only a first step.
Tories propose relaxing some rules affecting school-age workers to help more young people get summer jobs
The Conservatives have announced plans intended to make it easier for young people to get part-time work. They are describing it as a campaign “to save the summer job”.
The Tories claim that Labour measures such as the employer national insurance increase, the Employment Rights Act and business rates increases have led to a reduction in work opportunities for young people.
But this campaign is focused on three measures that affect people employing school-age workers. In a briefing note, the party explains:
The current regulations governing part-time work for young people are also cumbersome. For example, at present, school-age workers may work no more than two hours on a Sunday, whether during term time or school holidays. This makes Sunday near impossible for employers and pointless for employees. Those below school leaving age are also prohibited from working after 7 pm. This rules out many of the evening and weekend shifts that are most compatible with school times.
In many areas local authorities also require employers to obtain a child employment permit before employing anyone below school leaving age. Taken together these measures make it near impossible for young people to take on summer jobs.
The Tories say they would: repeal the current restrictions on working on Sundays; relax the window for evening work to 9pm; and remove the necessity for a child employment permit.
Other employment laws applying to school-age workers would continue to apply, the party says.
Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, said:
A generation risks being locked out of the workplace, missing out on the skills, confidence and experience that come from a summer job.
The plans we are announcing today will help change that by allowing employers to once again give young people the chance they need.
Tories call for Immigration Act to be amended so Rochdale grooming gang leader can be deported
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has called for the law to be changed to allow the Rochdale grooming gang leader, Shabir Ahmed, to be deported. (See 9.39am.)
Philp told the Today programme:
He’s a vile rapist who didn’t just organise the rape of young girls as young as 12 years old. He actually ran a gang, doing it on a huge scale. He should be kicked out of the country, deported back to Pakistan, and the law needs to be changed.
Philp said he will be laying an amendment in the coming months to change the Immigration Act 1971, which stops people arriving in the UK from Commonwealth countries prior to 1973 being deported.
He said the Labour MPs Paul Waugh and Jim McMahon, who represent Rochdale and Oldham, have agreed that the law needs to change.
“I hope the government will support my amendment,” Philp added.
Bankers and unions set for clash over possible Burnham tax raid on UK banks
Battle lines are being drawn between City bosses and trade unions over a possible tax raid on UK banks to help fund Andy Burnham’s package for struggling households this winter, Kalyeena Makortoff and Richard Partington report.
Former Labour MP forced to give up baby for adoption says mothers will be ‘released from shame’ by PM’s apology
Ann Keen, a former Labour health minister who was forced to give up a baby for adoption when she was a teenager, has said she is looking forward to “being released from my shame” when she and other campaigners get a state apology.
Keen was sent to a Swansea mother and baby home in 1966, when she was 17. She told the Today programme:
We all need this apology because we have always been accused of giving up our babies and we didn’t give them up.
In particular, so many were taken without our knowledge and in my own instance, I went to see my baby on the eighth day because I was told I could have him for 10 [days], and they said: ‘Oh no, he’s gone now. You were getting far too close.’
Keen said mothers like her were told that their children would be better looked after if they were adopted. “Sadly, that hasn’t always been the case,” she said.
She said they were told they would not be entitled to any welfare to help them bring up their children which was “totally untrue”.
And some were given medication to dry up their milk which turned out to be carcinogenic, she said.
Keen, whose son found her and renewed contact after he learned at the age of 27 that he had been adopted, said Starmer was right to apologise.
I understand why the prime minister’s team wanted to get this right, because we’ve now got the opportunity to really put this wrong right, we’ve been waiting a long time, and so I’m just looking forward to today and being released from my shame.
There’s so much trauma attached to all of our families in so many different ways … Even when I was being sworn in as, as an MP, I couldn’t do it because I didn’t feel I was worthy.
Keen, who was the MP for Brentford and Isleworth from 1997 to 2010, will be one of the victims meeting the PM before he makes his statement to the Commons at around 11.30am.
Minister says ‘work needs to happen’ to persuade Pakistan to be willing to take back Rochdale grooming gang leader
Officials are “looking at every route” to deport the Rochdale grooming ringleader set to be released from prison today, a minister has said.
As Josh Halliday, Hannah Al-Othman and Rajeev Syal report, Andy Burnham, who is set to become PM later this month, is among those who have said the government should consider all options to enable Shabir Ahmed to be deported.
In an interview on LBC this morning, Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, said Ahmed was one of a “small number” of people who came to the UK from Commonwealth countries 50 years ago whom the law prevents from being deported. But she also said the government was “doing everything we can, looking at every route, to get this guy out of the country.”
She also suggested Pakistan had refused to take Ahmed.
She said:
There are two problems here.
Number one, there are a very small number of people who came to this country over 50 years ago from Commonwealth countries where the law doesn’t allow them to be deported.
And, secondly, of course, in order to deport somebody, the country to which you are going to deport them needs to be willing to take them.
We’ve removed this man’s British citizenship. He’s a Pakistani citizen.
But there is also work that needs to happen in order to persuade Pakistan to take him back.
How Church of England apologised for its role in forced adoptions
Two weeks ago, the Church of England apologised for its role in forced adoptions, telling survivors the “shame is ours”. Here is Chris Osuh’s story.
Starmer to issue formal apology to mothers and children harmed by historic forced adoption policies
Good morning. Keir Starmer is clearing the decks in his last three weeks in office, and today he is going to settle one unresolved issue when he delivers a formal apology on behalf of the state to victims of forced adoption policies that were in place in the middle of the last century.
Between 1949 and 1976, an estimated 185,000 babies were taken from unmarried mothers and placed for adoption in England and Wales as a result of a culture of shame surrounding pregnancy outside marriage. The mother and baby homes involved were mostly run by religious organisations, but councils were involved in placing children for adoption.
In March the Commons education committee said the government should issue a formal apology. Its report is here, and here is Jessica Murray’s story at the time.
And here is the preview story from the Press Association ahead of Starmer’s statement today.
Survivors of historical forced adoption are to get the state apology they have spent decades campaigning for when Keir Starmer says sorry in parliament.
The prime minister is expected to stand in the Commons and acknowledge the harm caused when an estimated 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were adopted in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976.
Starmer’s formal apology will come after he meets with campaigners in Downing Street this morning.
The joint committee on human rights (JCHR) called for a state apology in 2022, saying “the government bears ultimate responsibility for the pain and suffering caused by public institutions and state employees that railroaded mothers into unwanted adoptions”.
Mothers forced to give up their babies have previously described the harrowing experiences of having them taken away and the lingering feelings of shame, while adults who were removed as children from their mothers have spoken of a “harmful narrative” which long persisted that adoption had saved them.
It was confirmed last month by education secretary Bridget Phillipson that a long-campaigned-for apology was coming in relation to what she called a “shameful period in our history”.
The Westminster apology comes three years after administrations in Cardiff and Holyrood said sorry to people impacted across Wales and Scotland.
In Northern Ireland, an apology is also expected but not until after a public inquiry has been carried out, following a recommendation from a 2021 report on mother and baby institutions, Magdalene laundries and workhouses.
Despite the JCHR report recommending ministers apologise, the then-Conservative government in 2023 said while it was sorry “on behalf of society” for the way the women had been treated, it did not think a formal apology appropriate “since the state did not actively support these practices”.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is on a visit related to his party’s policies on water companies.
9.30am: Peter Kyle, the business secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Around 11.30am: Keir Starmer makes a statement to MPs including an apology to victims of the government’s forced adoption policy in the mid-20th century.
Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Hertfordshire.
And, at some point today, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, will publish a written statement on her response to part one of the inquiry into the Southport killings.
I’m afraid we are not able to open the comments today because the moderators do not have enough capacity.
If you want to contact me, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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