Gordon Brown calls for apologies over historic forced adoptions
The former Labour prime minister said the state should apologise for its role in the 'terrible tragedy' of historic forced adoptions involving about 200,000 women in England and Wales.
His comments come six months after campaigners said time was running out, with some women dying before hearing a formal apology.
Karen Constantine of the Movement for an Adoption Apology (MAA) told the Guardian in February: '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.'
Brown said the government should acknowledge 'the damage that was done, the hurt that it's caused'.
He told ITV News: 'This is something that should never have happened … The fact that we can now do something, not to rectify the problem, but to apologise for what happened, I think is really important.'
The Labour government had had sufficient time to look at the issue, he added. 'It's time to make the apology for the forced adoption of children, who are now adults, who have been waiting for the assurance that the government understands what happened to them, waiting to know that the government is prepared to apologise on behalf of the country. While it wasn't this government's fault, I think they are owed an apology.'
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.'
Estimates of the number of unmarried women who were sent to mother and baby homes run by religious organisations and the state between 1949 and 1976 range between 180,000 and 250,000. Most were coerced into putting their babies up for adoption; some babies died due to mistreatment or poor care.
A parliamentary inquiry into forced adoptions in 2021 found the UK government was 'ultimately responsible' for actions that inflicted harm 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.
The Scottish and Welsh governments formally apologised for forced adoptions in 2023.
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'.
ITV News said it had discovered nearly 70 unmarked graves of babies who died at Hopedene maternity home, a Salvation Army institution in Newcastle, through freedom of information requests.
Last year it obtained burial records that revealed 197 babies were buried in mass burial grounds at least 10 different cemeteries across England.
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