‘Strong case’ for state to apologise for forced adoption, says Keir Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer has said there is “a very strong case” for the British state to apologise for its role in historical forced adoption.

In an interview with ITV News, the Prime Minister said the practice had been “abhorrent”, adding: “It’s hard to actually believe that it could possibly have happened.”

His comments followed a report from the Commons Education Committee, published on Friday, which said the UK Government should offer an unqualified apology as a step towards giving survivors “peace”.

Sir Keir would not commit to making an apology but said the UK Government was “considering” it.

He said: “My own view is a very strong case for an apology. I’ve asked the teams to speed up what we’re doing.

“We’ve got to get this right with the campaigners and with all those affected.”

Some 185,000 children were taken from unmarried mothers and adopted between 1949 and 1976 in England and Wales.

The policy “caused unimaginable trauma” for generations of women and “profound, often devastating impacts” on their children, Education Committee chairwoman Helen Hayes said.

Her committee has called for a commitment from Government to apologise, followed by ministers working with survivors on the contents and wording.

MPs said the matter must be treated with urgency “given the advancing age of those affected”.

Administrations in Cardiff and Holyrood have previously said sorry to people impacted but campaigners have long called for an apology from the Westminster Government.

A report by the UK Government’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) in 2022 recommended ministers apologise to unmarried women who were “railroaded” into unwanted adoptions.

In 2023, responding to the report, the then-Conservative government said it was sorry “on behalf of society” for the way the women had been treated, but it did not think a formal apology appropriate “since the state did not actively support these practices”.

The JCHR at the time said the lack of apology was “disappointing”.

Giving evidence to the Education Committee earlier this month, education minister Josh MacAlister said he accepted “the state had a role”.

He said the practice “went on for decades, forcibly removing children from these women in homes that were sometimes run by the state, enabled and overseen by social workers employed by the state, and social attitudes that were reinforced by practices that carried on for many years”.

The Education Committee’s report said an apology should cover a wider period “as we have received clear evidence that the practices associated with forced adoptions happened before 1949 and continued after the introduction of the Adoption Act 1976”.