Why Keir Starmer's historic apology over forced adoptions must be just the start – Christine Jardine

Keir Starmer meets forced adoption campaigners at Downing Street (Picture: Isabel Infantes/pool) | AFP via Getty Images

It was one of the most emotional, and difficult, moments I have experienced in nine years in parliament. There was not a member present on the green benches who was finding it easy to cope with the significance of what the Prime Minister had to say.

This was the moment, the apology for historic forced adoption, that generations of British mothers and the children taken forcibly from them had fought for. There are few families in this country who have not been touched, in some way, by a practice which, for those who have known the joy of holding your child for the first time, defies comprehension.

I do not know how you begin to cope with the sort of treatment described in that apology and to so many of us by constituents who had their newborns taken from them by strangers, without even the most perfunctory apology, explanation or personal introduction.

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A comfort for any wrong that was done

As the Prime Minister spoke, I felt myself overcome with the sense of responsibility as I thought about my own family. Of the newborn I’d welcomed as my new wee cousin so many years ago. Assured by my family then that her birth parents hadn’t been able to look after her in their explanation to this curious five-year-old.

Hoping now that she, her mother, and father were not among those victims to whom we should long ago have offered the profoundest of apologies. And that the love we tried to offer, and which I know was heaped upon her by her adoptive parents, is somehow now a comfort for any wrong she was done.

I am also aware that not every child had the sort of ‘better life’ society proffered as its excuse for the inexcusable.

But it is simply not enough now to say that the Prime Minister adding his voice to those of the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales in apologising and recognising the harm that was done has put the matter to rest. Nor is it acceptable to say that mothers who were made to feel shame, fathers who were denied access to or even knowledge of the children who themselves had all knowledge of their heritage, background or culture stolen, should be satisfied by our government’s response.

Financial compensation must be considered

No. An apology is only words. Welcome, but insufficient and only the beginning of what must be done. There must now be dedicated support services, particularly in mental health, and improved access to historical adoption records for survivors of this injustice.

Ireland and Australia have already introduced financial compensation schemes for survivors and here too we should give this careful consideration in the light of the tragic nature of so many cases.

The Prime Minister’s gesture will no doubt be criticised by some for taking too long, or being prompted primarily by the need to ensure a legacy as his departure from Downing Street approaches. For now, none of that matters, or should.

What I believe we should all commit to is his declaration to those affected: “The shame is not yours. The shame was never yours. The shame is ours. I say that on behalf of the whole country and I say it to every single person impacted. We are deeply and profoundly sorry.”

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West