Historical Forced Adoption

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The evidence that the Education Committee heard from mothers and adult adoptees was utterly devastating. I thank Diana Defries, Ann Lloyd Keen, Sally Ells and Debbie Iromlou for courageously reliving their trauma so that we could shine a light on the extent of the injustice they suffered and the urgent need for a meaningful response. They should not have had to work so hard for so long just to be heard and to have their experiences recognised.

I also thank the academics who gave evidence, and especially Professor Gordon Harold and Dr Michael Lambert, whose painstaking and rigorous research helped to prove what mothers and adult adoptees have long known: that the state was culpable for the wrongs they suffered by presiding over, funding and facilitating a system that dehumanised unmarried pregnant women and their babies, and inflicted horrific cruelty upon them.

I thank the Prime Minister for this apology today. It is long overdue and much needed. I thank him for the breadth of the apology and for the Government’s work with survivors to get to this point. Women whose babies were forcibly adopted and who endured cruelty and humiliation in mother and baby homes and in the NHS should know today that the shame of this period in our history rests on the Government and on the religious and community and healthcare organisations who presided over, facilitated and sustained the system; it is not, and never was, theirs to carry.

This apology is a watershed, but it must be only the beginning of putting right the disgraceful wrongs of this shameful period of our history. May I ask the Prime Minister to set out how progress on delivering the support he has announced will be monitored and how survivors will continue to be involved in it? Will he ensure that as the Government progress this work, information on how to access that support will be made widely available?

So many families have a story, and there are so many stories that are still untold with so many still feeling ashamed to speak about this period in their lives and its lifelong impact. They must no longer feel ashamed; they must feel that they can come forward and access the help and support they need.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that she has done and led through the Education Committee, and I also thank all the members of that Committee. I heard about the testimony to the Committee and how difficult and harrowing it was for all concerned. She is absolutely right to thank those who gave their testimony and those who supported its work.

My hon. Friend used the word “dehumanised”. That is the right word, although it hardly feels strong enough to me. To break the bond between a mother and a child is nothing less than dehumanising. It goes to an intense feeling that we all have as human beings. To break that bond is indescribably painful—even to describe, let alone to have gone through—so “dehumanising” is the right word.

As I heard this morning from those in the Gallery, it is about not just the initial act and all the pain and anguish, but the everyday reminders, like when people ask, “Do you have children?” What a difficult and awful question to answer over and over again, and they have all had to come to terms with how they answer that question. It is a question that we might all hear or pose on a daily or weekly basis—it is such a simple, everyday thing, but it is so painful. That really struck me this morning, and there will be thousands of things like that across all the testimonies and stories.

To my hon. Friend’s question about monitoring, that will be done by the Department for Education, and we will, of course, involve survivors as we go forward. I have no doubt that the Education Committee will want to monitor that itself and be updated on it regularly.

My hon. Friend’s point about making sure it is widely known that support is available is so important. Many thousands of people will need the support, and they must know that it is available. As I said in my statement, I am acutely conscious that there are some who to this day have still not been able to speak about this. I hope that by making it widely known that support is available, some may feel able to come forward and get the support that they need.