Historical Stillbirth Burials and Cremations

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ms Nadine Dorries)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered historical stillbirth burials and cremations.

Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing the debate, which was also supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes).

It is a fact that anyone can be a Member of Parliament and anyone can be a Minister, but only someone who really cares can get things done, and it is without doubt that the hon. Lady has achieved much in the time she has been in the House because she cares. I have the utmost respect for her. She has done a fantastic job, and I think that her compassion has been demonstrated by the fact that she called for this debate.

Over the past few years, debates in this House have successfully raised awareness of the importance of supporting families bereaved through a stillbirth and other types of baby loss. By speaking openly and sharing their personal experiences, Members of this House have helped to stimulate improvements in bereavement care, including the development of the national bereavement care pathway for pregnancy and baby loss.

Unfortunately, in the not so distant past, people thought differently. Until the 1980s and 1990s, bereaved families of stillborn children were kept in the dark by doctors and midwives, ostensibly for their own protection. It was assumed that if a mother or father was allowed to see their stillborn baby and establish any kind of connection with it, this would only prolong and worsen their grief.

When I was preparing for this debate, I was reminded of my own experience as a nurse. In 1976, I was working on a gynae ward, and I was asked to take receipt of a cot that was coming up from the labour ward. In the cot was a baby that was still alive, which I was told was to be returned to “Rose Cottage” and put in the sluice room. The baby went there until it died a few hours later. Remembering that experience of years ago and the work I undertake now on maternity safety show just how far we have come in the way we treat maternity incidents, newborn safety and mothers.

Many parents were never consulted over funeral arrangements for babies lost through stillbirth, with individual hospitals having to set their own procedures and their own means of disposing of bodies. That makes this difficult, because it means that there is not just one answer across the country. There is not a clear picture as the situation is very piecemeal. Many parents were never told what happened to the body of their baby or the location of any burial or cremation. People thought they were doing the right thing for the parents by not inflicting more trauma on them.

That is a generous interpretation. There was a slight culture in those days in which women were not regarded with the esteem that they are today. It was almost as though this was not just about protecting them, and that they were not worthy of being given the information, either. There are question marks over the explanation, and that has a lot to do with the status of women at the time and again today.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Minister is making an excellent point about the culture and about how women were treated. With families now coming forward wanting information about what happened, does she feel that those women and families are being treated better now? Are they, for example, being given the opportunity to find out where ashes have been strewn without their knowledge or permission?

[Ms Dorries]

I certainly hope so. In fact, those parents and women who are coming forward now are enabling us to move along the pathway to women being given the full, correct information about what happens when a maternity incident takes place. We still have a long way to go, but, as I said at the beginning, the hon. Member for Swansea East is part of that process. The debates that we have here about baby loss are also part of that process. There is not one answer, one sledgehammer, that comes from the Department of Health and Social Care. Everybody has a role to play, because this is an issue that is spread over decades. It is about culture, and it is about the culture in hospitals today. It is about the esteem in which women and mothers are held within society. It is a complex picture with many parts, and everybody has an opportunity to play their part, as do those women who are now coming forward to ask where their babies’ ashes are.

Some hospitals arranged for stillborn babies to be cremated and told the parents that, because the baby was small, it would not be possible to recover any ashes. Even if ashes were recovered, their parents were not told. The ashes might have been spread in a dedicated garden of remembrance, but in other cases they might simply have been disposed of or kept in storage at the crematorium.

Over the past 20 years, we have heard about the discovery of mass graves containing the remains of stillborn babies in, among other places, Lancashire, Devon, Middlesbrough and Huddersfield. The 2015 review of infant cremations at Emstrey commercial crematorium in Shrewsbury found that, by using appropriate equipment and cremation techniques, it is normally possible to preserve ashes from infant cremations.

We now recognise that parents are committed and connected to their children long before birth—I think we knew that back then—perhaps at the point of conception or even earlier, when women imagine themselves being mothers for the first time. I am happy to say that, nowadays, parents of stillborn babies are able to be as involved in decisions about what happens to their baby as they choose to be. New regulations were introduced in 2016 to ensure that parents’ wishes for the cremation of their children are respected. The regulations introduced include a new statutory definition of what constitutes ashes or remains and require cremation request forms to be amended so that family’s wishes are explicitly recorded prior to any cremation.

Thanks to tireless campaigning by the hon. Member for Swansea East, the Government launched the children’s funeral fund last July so that bereaved parents do not have to worry about meeting the cost of burying or cremating their child or stillborn baby. The fund is available regardless of a family’s income and also includes a contribution towards the cost of the coffin. We have received over 1,000 claims to date, and I am sure that the hon. Lady must be incredibly proud.

The hon. Member for Swansea East called for this debate to consider what we in Parliament can do to help bereaved parents who did not have the opportunity to bury their stillborn babies and now wish to trace their final resting places. We know that parents never forget their babies, no matter how long ago their death occurred. Unfortunately, tracing a baby’s grave or a record of cremation may not be easy, and it can be a difficult time for people, both mentally and emotionally.

Records containing information about the locations of the remains of stillborn babies are not held centrally. Parents therefore need to start their search by contacting the hospital where the baby was stillborn, as I am sure the hon. Lady knows. If records are still available, the hospital should be able to tell parents whether the baby was buried or cremated and the name of the funeral director who made the arrangements at the time—if, indeed, a funeral director was involved. Hospitals do not keep records indefinitely, and some records may not contain enough detail to be helpful. The hospital where the baby was stillborn may have closed or the funeral director involved—if one was—may no longer be in business.

Cemeteries and crematoriums, though, are legally obliged to keep permanent records. If neither the hospital nor the funeral director has a record of which cemetery or crematorium was used, parents can contact local cemeteries and crematoriums, starting with those nearest to the hospital where their baby was stillborn. As I mentioned, in many cases stillborn babies were and may still be buried in a shared grave with other babies. These graves are usually unmarked, although they do have a plot number and can be located on a cemetery plan. In many cases, several babies were cremated together. The crematorium should have a record of where the ashes are scattered or buried, but I am afraid the emphasis is on the word “should”.

My sympathies lie with families who have had to deal with the pain of not knowing what happened to their children’s remains for so many years. It is hard for many of us to imagine how long that pain must last. The Department of Health and Social Care expects all hospitals to provide as much information as they have available to any parents who inquire about what happened to their stillborn babies, no matter how long ago they died.

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[Justin Madders]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention, as he raises the very point: the support is not consistent across the piece. We rightly raise that issue when we discuss these matters, because we need better support, better funding and better delivery of these specialist services. As he says, this is a difficult issue and support is needed at the right time.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to hear what our Front Bencher is saying about this important subject, but I want to develop this point about mental health support. For families who have suffered and do not know where their baby’s ashes have been strewn, asking the local council to make inquiries, as happened in Shrewsbury with the Emstrey inquiry, goes some way to seeing whether there are answers to the questions they still have. Will the shadow Minister commit his support to local authorities that want to carry out these independent inquiries, to give whatever closure they can to families by trying to get the information they seek?

[Justin Madders]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I know about the work she has been doing in Hull. She has articulated in the past why it is clearly important for such inquiries to take place and how it is the most effective way for families to achieve closure on these difficult issues. I am certainly in support of what she says.

The availability of talking therapies for bereaved parents is not how it should be. Nearly nine out of 10 clinical commissioning groups do not currently commission talking therapies specifically for parents, and where the services do exist they are usually only for mothers. We need to do better than that. Of course, I acknowledge that there is much good practice out there, but Members will know that it is often reliant on charitable grants and third parties. That is one of the main reasons why provision is patchy and at risk from wider funding decisions. I therefore ask the Minister to undertake a review of the current provision, including an evaluation of the models of best practice. Will she ensure that parents and professionals are involved in that exercise? The Minister was absolutely right to identify that when she talked about the culture in the past.

We also need to acknowledge that although the culture today has definitely improved, it is still not where we would like it to be. As we know, most of the time those whose loved one has been involved in a tragedy in the health service just want to know why it has happened and how it can be prevented from happening again. The former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), has on several occasions addressed the need for us to move away from a blame culture and towards a learning culture, so that when things go wrong there is proper analysis of why things have happened and we understand how we can prevent those things from happening again.

Only this week, I have heard from a constituent who has lost a lot of faith in the system in terms of getting to the truth about what happened to one of their family. They commented that the trust seemed to spend more money on lawyers than on actually uncovering the truth, and that should not be happening. We need to move away from the defensive culture that we see on occasions. I hope that we can look at that issue, possibly through the Select Committee, because there is still a temptation for trusts to lawyer-up at the first sign of concern. Most of the time, parents and family members want answers.

Back in October we heard that the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch annual report would share some of the learning about the more than 1,500 individual cases in which something has gone wrong in one trust. I hope that report will be available shortly. I think the quote was that it was going to be available in “early 2020”, so when she responds will the Minister update us as to when we can expect to see it?

Finally, although we rightly focus on the families in this debate, we must also not forget the impact on staff, some of whom will regularly have to deal with tragedies. The Minister set out clearly what that looks like. It is important that their voice is heard in this debate as well.

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[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am very pleased to participate in this debate today. I echo the thanks that have been expressed to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this debate and for all the work that she has done in this area.

The death of a baby is an extremely traumatic event, which impacts on both parents and the wider family for many years, if not forever. It is not something that can simply be got over. It is an event that families and individuals simply learn to live with. The burial of a child is also very traumatic, but it can, for many bereaved parents and their families, form a very important part of the grieving process, and yet it was only in the mid to late 1980s that the death of a baby was truly starting to be recognised as a major bereavement. Until then, as we have heard some Members mention, any baby who died before birth, regardless of the gestation period, was swiftly removed from the labour ward, and parents were not given an opportunity to see or hold them. Some mothers were sedated after the birth because it was thought that this would help them to forget. It was a generally held view among professionals and, indeed, society that parents should forget their babies and that it was best to carry on as though nothing had happened. Grieving was actively discouraged.

Stillbirth truly was a huge taboo, and we are now gradually starting to break down that taboo and deal with these matters with more compassion and sensitivity. I agree with what the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) said about the role of fathers in such events. Until fairly recently, fathers of babies who died before birth were pretty much ignored, and their role was considered to be one of merely supporting his wife or partner in her attempts to forget about the lost child and to have another child as quickly as possible. It is genuinely hard to believe that, until very recently, that was how we as a society dealt with stillbirth.

Some parents did not even give their baby a name, because they were not advised that they could or should do so. Some did not even know the gender of their baby, and many had no idea about what had happened to their child’s body. As a result, the grief felt at this traumatic life event was silenced and frowned upon, leading to unnecessary isolation, family breakdowns and poor mental health. It is down in great part to the work of charitable groups such as Sands—the stillbirth and neonatal death charity—that these appalling practices and attitudes, which, these days, are hard to believe, began to change.

Recent years have taught us that, although things are better these days, there can be no room for complacency. We have also learned that there are very different practices in baby cremations across the UK, with some parents receiving ashes from some crematoriums, while others are not. The availability of ashes after cremations seems to have depended on the equipment and cremation techniques used and/or how the relevant authority defined ashes. It seems that there was no statutory definition of ashes in the UK. That has now been rectified in legislation, and we have had legislation in Scotland similar to that mentioned by the Minister.

There is also the issue of parents being told that there were no ashes to be recovered when, in fact, there were ashes, but they were sometimes disposed of without the parents’ knowledge. Indeed, such practices led to investigations in Scotland, going back some decades, at Mortonhall crematorium in Edinburgh.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am interested in asking the hon. Lady about the Mortonhall investigation inquiry. Does she feel that that helped parents who had questions about what had gone on and why things had happened in the way that they had? Was it something that she would support for other parts of the United Kingdom in cases where there are still questions that have not been answered?

[Patricia Gibson]

The answer to her question is yes. There is no room for complacency. That investigation led to a whole swath of measures to make sure that nothing like this could ever happen again to parents and that the law would indeed be on their side when similar events occurred in the future. That, I think, is something in which the Minister will take an interest.

The investigation, the Infant Cremation Commission report, and the report of the National Cremation Investigation led to positive change. Now, in almost every circumstance, parents should receive the ashes from their baby’s cremation. A code of practice has been established by a national committee on infant cremation, setting out key principles and minimum standards for all organisations conducting infant cremations.

In March 2015, the Scottish Government announced the appointment of an inspector of crematoriums for Scotland to ensure that all crematoriums were adhering to the current legislation and best practice following the national investigation into circumstances surrounding historical infant cremation practices in Scotland. A criminal sanction was introduced to prohibit the cremation of a foetus, a stillborn baby, or an infant with an unrelated person. Indeed, legislation was brought forward to overhaul policy and practice in the burial and cremation sector, with improved staff training.

We also know that, until fairly recently, the parents of stillborn children were never told where or how their baby had been buried. To us today, that seems almost too cruel to be true and utterly beyond comprehension. I had a stillbirth at full term, and I cannot imagine a situation in which my baby would have been removed from me with no information about how or where he was buried. For the parents affected, that must have made the grieving process much more difficult and much more traumatic. We know that some parents who endured this decades ago can perhaps trace their babies’ graves now, but it is something that they should never have to do. It is probably worse if those parents who seek to trace their child’s remains simply cannot find where they are. Imagine the years passing and the questions growing in their head about where their baby is. I can scarcely believe the attitudes of the recent past that thought this was an appropriate way to deal with the lost babies and grieving parents and families.

We know that some of the babies were buried with other babies, or sometimes with other random adults who had recently died in hospital. Parents trying to trace the burial place of their babies years later are therefore not always successful, which simply adds to the torture and pain despite the passing of years. What is clear is that everything that can be done must be done to assist the parents looking for their lost babies.

These parents were not usually informed that their babies’ loss was officially documented and that they could obtain a certification of the baby’s stillbirth. Such certification can bring some comfort because it is an acknowledgement—a recognition—that their baby existed. Most had not even known that they could name their baby.

Patients in all circumstances were kept in the dark for their own protection. It was assumed that if a mother or father were allowed to see their stillborn baby and establish any kind of connection, it would only prolong their grief, but, of course, we know that parents are committed and connected to their children long before their birth—perhaps at the point of conception, or perhaps even earlier, when they imagine themselves as parents for the first time. We recognise that to lose a baby at any point in pregnancy can be profoundly traumatic.

Today, parents are encouraged to see, hold or even dress their stillborn baby if they choose to do so. They can take photographs, handprints, footprints, and a lock of hair. They are encouraged to collect mementos of their baby and grieve for them, as any parent would grieve for a child, no matter how long their life was. To know that so many couples and families have been denied that chance is heartbreaking and, frankly, difficult to comprehend. Parents who lost babies decades ago still speak of the terrible guilt that they feel about not knowing anything about what happened to their baby, or where they are buried. Sadly, though, they had very little choice in these matters, as, still in the fresh bewilderment of their grief, their babies were simply taken from them and nothing more was said. It is hard to believe that, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, this was, if not mandatory, certainly extremely commonplace, and it sounds as though it was something that would have happened hundreds of years ago.

Thankfully, we are more informed and more enlightened about these matters now. I hope that the relevant authorities in all parts of the UK will do all they can, and continue to do all they can, to help such affected parents to find out where their babies are and give them the support that they need. I know that Sands has done some excellent work in this area. Finding a baby’s resting place will surely provide some peace for many of the bereaved parents and their families—peace that is much needed and to which these parents and their wider family members are entitled.

Thankfully, we all now recognise what a huge and traumatic event it is to have a baby that is stillborn and how it casts a lifelong shadow over parents and wider family members as they cope with the absent presence of a child. Whether we are talking about cremation practices or burials, all parents must be given respect and their babies must be given the dignity of a burial or cremation that involves their families and provides a ritual that can be so important when grappling with overwhelming grief.

We are doing things better, but we must not be complacent on this issue, which is hugely significant for the families and parents left behind. It is right that this important debate has taken place, and I again applaud the hon. Member for Swansea East for securing it.

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[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Leader of the House for allocating time for this debate and to warmly thank everyone for their kind words about the work that I have done. This place is at its best when we show compassion and work together to resolve the issues that matter to people. The work that we have done on children’s funerals—on what I like to call Martin’s fund—is typical of the kind of things that we can achieve when we work together.

Decades ago, when a woman had a miscarriage or gave birth to a stillborn baby, she was usually urged to forget about what had happened and often to try just to move on and have another baby as soon as possible. Families were not given time to grieve or offered any form of counselling. There were no special rooms with cold “cuddle cots”. Rarely were there opportunities for parents to even hold their babies for just a few minutes, for the first and last time, let alone take any photographs or gather mementoes for a treasured memory box. Babies were simply taken away quickly and quietly by hospital staff, to be buried or cremated in an undisclosed place. Fathers were usually advised to hide baby products at home, to help with the healing process and avoid traumatising the mother further. They were sometimes asked to pay for the burial. I found it really painful to hear the story of a man who had kept the receipt of his child’s funeral as the only memento of that child. These little ones’ innocent bodies were either cremated, buried in a communal plot sometimes, or placed in a coffin with a woman who had recently passed away. In some military cemeteries, babies were given their own plot, but marked simply with a number, never with a name.

On 19 January 1958, my mother delivered a full-term baby girl. She was 8 lbs in weight, but she never took her breath. In those days, there were not endless antenatal appointments or scans, or reminders to pregnant women to count the kicks, so my sister’s death was totally unexpected for my mum. Until her dying day, my mother believed that my sister had been buried with an elderly woman, but I honestly do not know if that was a fact or if it was a story that she had invented to comfort herself and over the years had come to believe as the truth My mother never grieved for my sister properly. She put up a wall. She was always afraid to show emotion. She was the most wonderful, loving mother in the world, but she was pretty rubbish on hugs, because she was terrified that if she showed love, something bad would happen.

When I had a scan when I was having Martin, the date of birth they gave for him was 18 January 1981. It traumatised my mother that I was going to be having a baby on the day that she lost hers. Thankfully, Martin was born on 24 January, but my mother always believed that 19 January, the date on which Martin was due, was a bad omen and that we were to lose him in the way that we were. She carried her child for nine months. She prepared to be a mammy and then she left hospital without her baby, with no support and no idea of where her little girl’s final resting place would be. My mother never really grieved for my sister until the day I lost Martin, and then she grieved as a mother and as a grandmother. My mother’s life was destroyed on the day that we lost Martin, because she remembered Martin and she remembered the baby she had lost 30 years before.

The practice of taking stillborn babies’ bodies and burying them without disclosing the location to the parents continued right up until the late 1980s. In the years since, families have started to search for their little ones’ graves. One lady, Paula Jackson, dedicates her spare time, for free, to helping people to find their babies, and in the last 15 years has found 800 babies. Thanks to Paula and her group, Brief Lives Remembered, parents have been able to find peace after years of grief and uncertainty. They now have a place to visit and the opportunity to place a headstone or a flower, or something to commemorate the memory of their loved baby. But some women do not feel comfortable asking for help. They feel ashamed or at fault. They feel as if they deserted their children, even though they were never given a choice.

We should not be expecting these women to be asking; it should not be up to Paula. I commend her for the fantastic work that she has done, but she is spending her own time and her own money to help these families. Surely there must be a way of sharing information about where these babies are buried, whether from council records or hospital maternity units, undertakers, crematoriums or cemeteries. That has to be an easy way of finding out what happened to each of these babies. I am hoping that the words from the Chamber today will resonate more than any policy, and that those who have the information will allow us to see it and share it so that those families who want to know where their babies are buried or cremated will easily be able to find out.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend is making an incredible speech, and my heart goes out to the family circumstances that she has described. I want to ask her about institutions taking a proactive role by looking at the records they have and the information they can provide. It seems to me that lots of institutions—I am thinking of councils, in particular—do not do anything until someone asks a question, at which point it becomes a battle and is not the easiest thing to do. Does she agree?

[Carolyn Harris]

I certainly agree. I think the consensus in this Chamber—and some news channels, no doubt—will prompt local authorities, hospitals and other people to come forward and offer us the information we need.

Like my own mother, many have gone to their graves without knowing the locations of their babies. Many more are alive and still suffering from the grief and guilt, and very often from post-traumatic stress disorder. These mothers and fathers should be offered counselling and emotional support if they need it. They should be helped to manage their grief, to locate their baby and to live the rest of their lives with a sense of peace that they have not known for a long time.

This matter was raised this week by BBC journalist Frankie McCamley. Since the story was run on BBC News, I have been overwhelmed by communications from parents and other family members about their babies. Indeed, today the Doorkeeper sought me out because one lady has travelled here from the south coast just to hear us discussing the issue today, and she wants to tell me her mother’s story. People generations below the mums and dads who lost their babies are suffering, and are asking me to help them to find their babies; a lot of people out there need us to help them to get closure. I have received so many heart-breaking messages that I have suggested to some members of my staff that they do not read them, because I know they will be traumatised.

With everything that goes on in today’s world, this issue may seem relatively unimportant to some, but to anyone who has lost a child, memories and a grave visit are the things that bring an element of comfort. It took me a long time to stop visiting Martin’s grave. I would spend hours and hours and hours there. I would go to the grave, sit there and talk to Martin about everything I was feeling psychologically—all the questions I had, all the anger, all the guilt, and everything I wanted to communicate to him. I now know that Martin is in my heart, on my shoulder and in my head; he is everywhere. But until people get to the point in their grief where they understand that the person they have lost may not be here physically, but will always be with them, they need something to focus on.

I am asking that we find a way of helping the parents who want and need this closure to find their baby’s resting place, giving them the opportunity to have the peace so many of them seek, and—most importantly—a chance to say their final goodbye.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Let me start by paying a huge tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who is a force of nature. She said that we in this place are at our best when we are compassionate and work together, and she certainly embodies that—in this debate and in the many brilliant campaigns that she has run since becoming a Member of Parliament.

In Hull, we have higher levels of stillbirth and neonatal deaths than the national average. I pay tribute to the excellent work of the Hull and East Yorkshire branch of Sands and the Lullaby Trust, the campaigning organisation. In the last few years, huge steps have been taken to improve and make changes to this whole area. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) talked about the debates that we have had in the House since 2015, which I think have occurred because the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss has made it its mission to ensure that we have the Baby Loss Awareness Week debate every year. A huge amount has been done since 2015, and I pay tribute to all the officers and everyone else involved in that group.

Since 2015, I have been raising a particular case from Hull: I spoke on 8 July 2015, 13 October 2016 and 10 October 2017 about my constituents, Mike and Tina Trowhill. I want to explain why I have kept raising this case in the House of Commons and also to say that, very sadly, Michael died a short while ago, so it is now Tina, my constituent, on whose behalf I am raising this.

Tina and Michael had a baby boy, William Michael Brian Trowhill, who was born on 5 July 1994 at Beverley Westwood maternity hospital. Very sadly, he was stillborn and was cremated on 12 July 1994 at Chanterlands Avenue crematorium in Hull. Tina and Mike were told that there would be no ashes from the cremation. They also told me that they were not required to sign any forms. It appears that the forms that were required at the time were signed by an administrator at the hospital. It is quite shocking that the parents were not asked even to sign the form to give written permission for what should happen to their baby.

Moving forward many years, Tina was alerted to the possible concerns about what had happened to baby William when the Mortonhall inquiry—which the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) spoke about—was taking place in Scotland. The report on that inquiry was published in April 2014. In October 2014, Mike and Tina contacted the bereavement service in Hull and asked to see what it could find out about the circumstances around William. Unfortunately, it took until 3 November for the service to return the call, and the parents were told that an investigation was under way. On 4 November, they were told that William’s ashes had been scattered in a children’s garden of remembrance near the crematorium. On 5 November, the parents were told by the funeral director at Frank Stephenson & Son that it was not normal to receive ashes from a child’s cremation. On 6 November, they were told that the funeral directors had a document that stated “cremate and strew”; it appears that at that time the funeral directors had a blanket contract with Beverley Westwood maternity hospital to undertake cremations of babies, and were given that instruction. On 6 November, Tina contacted the NHS complaints line, but given the many NHS reorganisations, copies of any procedures or policies in use at the time were not available.

My constituents came to see me just before the general election in 2015, and said that they would like to know what could be found out about what had happened in Hull and whether other families were affected. I thought that that seemed a very reasonable request, so I asked to see the leader of the council and took my constituents with me. Councillor Brady was very sympathetic. He understood that it was a sensitive issue, and said that he would have a think about what to do next.

Tina and Mike were very clear that they wanted a local independent inquiry. This was also at the time of the Emstrey crematorium inquiry in Shrewsbury. I understand that there were different circumstances there, but that the parents involved had similar concerns about what had happened at Emstrey crematorium, which was run by and accountable to the local council. Those parents had gone to see the leader of the council, who asked them, “What do you want”; they said, “We want a local independent inquiry. Let’s see what we can find out.”; and he readily agreed. I believe that that inquiry cost about £50,000, and was overseen by an independent local solicitor. And that is what my constituents in Hull asked Hull City Council for—a local independent inquiry. Sadly, we received a letter from the council saying that it did not really think that that would help in the circumstances and it did not see the need for such an inquiry. So I raised this with the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, and asked him how he felt about the situation where grieving parents who want to know the answer to questions about what has happened to their children’s ashes are being told by a council, “No, we don’t really need to do that.”

I think the Prime Minister was rather busy and occupied at that time, so I ended up going to see, with Tina, the then Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). I have to say that he was an excellent Minister in terms of how he got it straightaway: he understood how, for families, this needed to be addressed locally. I was very grateful to him and to the then Secretaries of State for Health and for Communities and Local Government—three very senior Ministers—for what they did. The Justice Secretary wrote a letter to Hull City Council saying:

“My fellow Secretaries of State at the Department of Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government have agreed with me that there is a need for a historic investigation into the practices relating to infant cremations in the Hull area, and we have jointly today written to the Chief Executive of Hull City Council asking him to commission this. We have suggested that the whole investigation should have terms of reference similar to those of the Emstrey inquiry.”

I am incredibly grateful for the compassion that he showed to my constituents and to the many other families who came forward. Tina, like the lady my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East referred to, had been finding out about and talking to other families, and she set up the Action for Ashes group in Hull, which has 420 members comprising about 100 families who have been affected. Tina has been working very hard to make sure that she provides support and help to other families in these circumstances.

Hull City Council received that letter in 2016. Unfortunately, there was a change in the Secretary of State’s role at that time because, as we know, other events were happening. Hull City Council basically said to the Government, “No, we think we have looked into this and the parents are now fine—there is no reason to have a local independent inquiry.” That was not the case. The parents still, to this day, would like to have that local independent inquiry. Hull City Council did carry out a limited internal investigation. When we compare and contrast that with the Emstrey report, we see that it is a pale imitation. The council did not proactively look through its records; it looked only where it was asked to by parents. I have some sympathy because I know there are parents who do not want to have all this talked about and looked at again. But clearly, for lessons to be learned that everything has been done, and so that we can reassure ourselves that this could never happen again, it would be right for all the records to be looked at by an independent person.

In the meantime, despite Hull City Council saying that it would not pursue an independent inquiry, I, along with Tina, put together a coalition of people who did think that it was the right thing to do: Co-op Funeralcare, the largest, I think, funeral care company in the country; the National Association of Funeral Directors; the charity Cruse Bereavement Care; and Dignity, the largest operator of crematoriums in England. These organisations all came together to back what Tina and the 100 families in Hull were saying.

I was very pleased that last year the Minister’s predecessor came to Hull and met a group of families who had been affected by this. At that meeting we had the chief executive of Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, as well as local council representatives. This is many, many years on for a lot of these women and their families, but it was clear that the pain is still there and the questions are still there. They still feel that the institutions, be it the council or the NHS, are not properly recognising or understanding the real concerns that the families still have.

We had that meeting. I hope that, now that my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East has called this debate, we might have another opportunity to say that a local independent inquiry in Hull would be the right thing to do for these families. It would provide some closure. I know it will not provide all the answers that people need, but it would help them to feel that institutions of the state are taking the concerns of families properly in this incredibly sensitive and difficult area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Dorries]

I would like to begin by paying tribute to everybody who has spoken in the debate. The hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) is right: there are issues we discuss in this Chamber that transcend party politics. Indeed, party politics has no place in this Chamber when issues like this are discussed, and I hope that that has been demonstrated today.

I would like to pick up on a point that the hon. Member for Swansea East made about a lady who has come to the Public Gallery to watch the debate. If she would like to leave the Gallery after I have finished and make her way downstairs, I will meet her at the back of the Chamber and have a word with her.

I will comment on Members’ individual contributions before going on to my substantive response. I thank the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for the compassion he has shown today. It is not always easy when we discuss issues that are so emotive, but I thank him for his understanding and the points he made. He asked about HSIB’s annual report, which was published in December 2019. As he probably knows, HSIB is a particular passion of mine, and we hope to have more news about it. The thematic maternity investigation report is expected to be published soon, and I am pushing for it to be published as soon as possible.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) said that love lasts longer. I think that love lasts forever. When Martin and other babies are mentioned, they have their voices here. It is love that brings them into the Chamber, and that is why we remember them; may we continue to do so.

My right hon. Friend asked whether I could do more with local authorities, as they are responsible for this. Actually, this issue is the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice. I will raise this matter with my colleagues in the MOJ. Perhaps my counterpart in the MOJ and I could send a joint letter to local authorities asking them to assist parents who are trying to trace the remains of their lost babies. That might be a way to push local authorities to be more co-operative.

I turn to the comments made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). I have the notes from the meeting that she attended last July with my predecessor my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), the families, the chief executives of Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Hull City Council and Mrs Trowhill. I am informed that the trust and council agreed to give everyone affected as much information as they had available to them and that Mrs Trowhill agreed to share contact details. Following the promise that the trust made to set out exactly what processes are now in place to ensure that similar incidents cannot happen in the future, could the hon. Lady let me know whether Mrs Trowhill is happy with how far the trust has gone and the service she has had from it?

With regard to the independent local inquiry, I imagine that there may be a sensitivity around that, because some women or girls who had babies at the time may have done so without family members or other people knowing. That may be an issue that lawyers have considered. I have no idea why it costs so much, but that may be one way to help in a particular area where there has been a problem, such as the hon. Lady’s constituency.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

The issue raised with me as to why a local inquiry could not take place was that the local authority did not have jurisdiction over the NHS. Could the Minister say something about the co-operation that I am sure the NHS would want to extend to any local inquiry?

[Ms Dorries]

The hon. Lady is right; the NHS trust has the ability and the jurisdiction to conduct its own inquiry. I believe that NHS Improvement would have a similar responsibility. As a result of today’s debate, I am going to investigate a little more deeply within the Department how we can go about having an inquiry and what the terms of reference would be. It may be that such an inquiry is not possible, but I will certainly find out whether it is.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) asked for an update on the pregnancy loss review. I attended the APPG on baby loss a few weeks ago. We expect the report being done by Zoe Clark-Coates and Samantha Collinge to be published in spring/summer, and we expect to publish a Government response to the consultation in spring going into summer. Again, I will push and see how much longer that will take.