Britain’s forced adoption scandal: Why won’t the government say sorry?

www.itv.com/news/2025-04-15/britains-forced-adoption-scandal-why-wont-the-government-say-sorry

Sarah Corker

Social Affairs Correspondent

Other countries where forced adoption took place have already issued a formal apology but Westminster has done nothing, ITV News Social Affairs Correspondent Sarah Corker reports

Over the past 12 months, ITV News has heard heartbreaking testimony from unmarried mothers whose children were taken, and adult adoptees who are still searching for the truth.

Their calls for an official government apology for the state’s role in this cruel practice which lasted for four decades continue to go unanswered.

Other countries where forced adoption took place, including Canada, Australia, Ireland, Scotland and Wales have already issued a formal apology, and in some cases set up redress schemes. Westminster has done nothing.

During an interview with ITV News, I put that point to the Minister for Children and Families, Janet Daby MP, who said it’s "under review".

“There isn’t a reluctance to apologise, there’s still communication taking place, it’s still being looked at," she said.

"Information will be coming out. I acknowledge the awful situations that have happened and it wasn’t right. We recognise the tragic situation of historic forced adoptions.

“I’m not ignoring them at all in respect to this, it’s something that the Department of Education is continuing to review and there will be information out,” she added.

Janet Daby, Minister for Children and Families, told ITV News Social Affairs Correspondent Sarah Corker that the government's response to historic forced adoptions is 'under review'

Jacqui Adams, 63, was a teenager when one day everything changed.

“When I was 17 my mother died. No brothers, sisters, no grandparents, no aunts, uncles, nobody else,” she told ITV News.

"And the day she died, I found out that my entire life was a lie and they weren't my parents, they weren't my family. And that I came from somewhere else."

In 1961, her mother was one of hundreds of thousands of women forced to put their babies up for adoption. Jacqui was just a few weeks old when she was adopted.

Jacqui Adams pictured as a child.Credit: ITV News / Supplied

Between 1949 and 1976, an estimated 200,000 women were sent away to mother and baby institutions run by the church and state - places of shame and secrecy.

The adoptions were often handled by religious organisations.

“I don't have an identity. I can't build proper relationships with people, because you don't trust anyone,” Ms Adams said.

She told me an apology is "imperative" but added it is "just the beginning".

The group Movement for an Adoption Apology (MAA) also want specialist support for those affected including trauma informed counselling services, help with reunions and tracing as well as easier access to historical records.

Jacqui Adams said an apology from the government is 'just the beginning' and would need to be in a public arena

In 2021, the Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin apologised for the "profound generational wrong visited upon Irish mothers and their children".

Following that apology a compensation scheme has been set up for survivors.

Ireland’s Children’s Minister Norma Foley told ITV News of the importance of recognising the state’s role this scandal.

“We are mindful we will never be able to do enough, but we have to do something that acknowledges what happened and that we are cognicent of all that had to be endured," she said.

"So the apology, the payment scheme, the birth and tracing information, the advocate for survivors. It’s been very much informed by the survivors themselves."

Norma Foley, Ireland’s Children’s Minister, told ITV News of the importance of recognising the state’s role this scandal

Ireland’s reckoning with its dark past and how to help those who continue to suffer is constantly evolving.

The role of the Irish Special Advocate for Survivors of Institutional Abuse is to amplify the voices of survivors and make sure the government there listens.

I asked Patrica Carey, who has been in the role for just over a year, why after all these years nothing similar has happened in Britain.

“I don’t understand why they are reluctant, because a verbal apology is probably the easiest thing to do and I say this with no disrespect, apologies are hollow unless they are followed up with action,” said Ms Carey.

“I think many governments look at apologies in regards to what it might cost the state. And that becomes the measurement of how are we going to response to these people.”

Ms Carey told ITV News that she believed it "ultimately it comes to down money".

Patricia Carey, Ireland's Special Advocate for Survivors of Institutional Abuse, told ITV News that she believed it 'ultimately it comes to down money'

In the UK, the group MAA are now considering legal action "following the UK government’s failure to provide any sort of meaningful redress or a formal apology for the abhorrent practices which it oversaw".

The MAA recently instructed human rights and public interest litigation firm McCue Jury & Partners to explore legal options.

Dr Michael Lambert from Lancaster University has spent a decade examining these institutions including how they were funded and operated.

He described how unmarried mothers were treated as "second class" and weren’t entitled to the same level of health treatment, social security or housing as married women.

"Women in the homes were told ‘to put this shameful episode behind you and your life will continue. They had no autonomy, they had no voice," he said.

In 2021, an inquiry by the Joint Committee of Human Rights concluded that the state bore ultimate responsibility for the suffering inflicted on vulnerable women and their children, calling on the government to issue an official apology.

Those affected are still waiting.