Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme: Capital Disregard Debate
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Steve Darling
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Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme: Capital Disregard
Steve Darling Excerpts(3 days, 13 hours ago)
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Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) not just on obtaining this debate here today, but on the extremely important campaign that he has led the charge on. When we get elected as an MP we think, “What am I here for?”. It is about agency, and it is about seeking justice for our communities. The community of 13,000 women across the United Kingdom deserve that justice.
I will reflect on what we have heard in the debate and the forced adoption that was inflicted on those youngsters. I was not aware that Philomena had had her son Tony for three years before being forced to give up her child.
Steve Darling
Just before the Division, I was looking to talk about trauma and the significant impact that it has had on those young women’s lives. We know it may have impacted them for their whole lives, and as Liberal Democrats we feel that justice must be served, and without delay. I look forward to the Minister giving some hope to those who could benefit from this system concerning how it could be put into action—hopefully in a matter of months, rather than years.
I have an admission to make: I have never seen the film “Philomena”—probably because I would find it too upsetting, having been adopted myself. Between 1949 and 1976, 185,000 children went through a system within the UK where a culture of adoption existed around certain mother and baby units up and down England and Wales. Jon Holmes, who many of us will know from Radio 4 comedy, did a very good “File on 4” programme on the impact on those individuals, particularly the mothers. Although he was adopted, he never found his birth mother.
I was very fortunate: although I was adopted in Birmingham, my parents, Eric and Penny, who were outstanding adoptive parents, moved down to Torquay. About 15 years ago I found my birth mother, Pam, living only nine miles from Torquay. We meet regularly and have had Christmas dinner together, but it is evident how what she went through with losing me has left her with trauma and an emotional scar throughout her life. I am sure that that was also the case, if not amplified to a large extent, in the mother and baby units in Ireland, where there were significantly more state-sponsored institutions involved in the forced adoption and forced labour, and a sense of shame on individuals.
We need to see that justice is brought to bear on this situation. We need to see Philomena’s law enacted. Capital disregard was applied in relation to the 7/7 terrorist attacks and the institutional sexual abuse of children. In recent months, the same principle has been applied in respect of tainted blood; that measure has only recently gone through the Commons. I implore the Minister to ensure that we drive Philomena’s law, as a matter of urgency, and let it take flight.