Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme: Capital Disregard

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of introducing a capital disregard for payments made to UK residents under the Republic of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, and to introduce this debate. I welcome the Minister and thank him for giving his time to this important matter. I thank Members from across the House who are present today and have been so supportive. Ahead of this debate, over 100 MPs and peers on a cross-party basis signed an open letter in support of Philomena’s law. That included nearly every mainstream party in Britain and Northern Ireland. In the Public Gallery, we are joined by Irish community organisations and survivors, as well as Philomena Lee’s family—her daughter Jane and grandson Joshua.

I will begin by reminding Members what happened to Philomena Lee. Philomena was 18 years old when she became pregnant, and as a result was sent to Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby home in Roscrea, County Tipperary, in Ireland. There, Philomena gave birth to her son, Anthony. They lived there for three years before she was forced to give him up for adoption. Anthony was sold to a couple in the United States; Philomena would never see him again.

Philomena’s story brought the scandal of Ireland’s mother and baby homes to a global audience through the Oscar-nominated film “Philomena”, where she is played by Dame Judi Dench. The film also stars Steve Coogan, who plays Martin Sixsmith, the BBC journalist who helped Philomena Lee in her heartbreaking search for her son. I am delighted that Philomena’s law has the support of Philomena Lee and her family, as well as the public backing of Steve Coogan. This campaign to change the law seeks justice for thousands of women like Philomena and their children, who were resident in Ireland’s mother and baby homes.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. I and many others have watched the film. Does he agree that although many of us are very critical of the media—I am among them—on this occasion, a matter was brought to wider attention that otherwise might not have been? We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who were involved in the broadcasting of such a film.

[Liam Conlon]

I completely agree, and it shows the power of film and culture to tell such stories.

Mother and baby homes were open in Ireland for more than seven decades until the 1990s. During that time, 56,000 so-called fallen women were sent to those cruel institutions, and 57,000 children were born or placed in them. The women’s only crime was the perceived sin of becoming pregnant outside of marriage. There they suffered the most horrific mistreatment and abuse. Women were used as unpaid labour. Others, like Philomena, had their children forcibly adopted, sometimes overseas, never to be seen again. Too many women died in these institutions, and infant mortality was shockingly high.

Many survivors who escaped moved to Britain as a direct result of the mistreatment they experienced in mother and baby homes. In some cases, they came because they thought that disappearing from Ireland was the only way to protect their families’ reputations. Thousands came to this country for a fresh start and to build a new life, but they carried with them a great deal of internalised shame as well as the secret of what had happened to them. For lots of survivors, including Philomena, it was not until much later in life that they felt able to confront what had happened to them and share the details of those traumatic years with their families, often revealing long-lost relatives in the process.

It was a significant day in 2021 when survivors finally received an apology from the then Taoiseach Micheál Martin for what he described as:

“the profound, generational wrong visited upon Irish mothers and their children”.

That was followed by the mother and baby institutions payment scheme to provide compensation for what happened to them. The scheme opened to applications in March 2021. It represents a measure of accountability for what happened and aims to acknowledge the suffering, and improve the circumstances, of former residents of mother and baby homes.

However, for more than 13,000 survivors living in Britain today, what was meant to be a token of acknowledgement and apology has ended up becoming an additional burden. That is because under our current rules, any money accepted through the payment scheme is considered to be savings, and it could see recipients lose any means-tested benefits—such as housing benefit, pension credit or financial support for social care—that they receive.