The Prime Minister has issued a formal apology for the historic forced adoption of tens of thousands of babies, following a campaign in which a Lancaster University academic played a significant role.
How Lancashire research contributed to apology
Lancaster University's Dr Michael Lambert, a lecturer in medical humanities, has spent the last five years researching historic forced adoption and providing expert evidence to MPs and the media.
His research through the university's Centre for Child and Family Justice Research informed two parliamentary inquiries into how unmarried mothers and their children were treated between the late 1940s and early 1970s.
According to government estimates, around 185,000 mostly young, unmarried girls and women in England and Wales had their children removed because they were unmarried.
Many were sent to mother-and-baby homes and pressured or coerced into giving up their children, often with little support and no meaningful choice.
Committees urged 'unqualified' apology
In 2021, Dr Lambert gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry which led to the 2022 report The Violation of Family Life: Adoption of Children of Unmarried Women 1949–1976.
Earlier this year he appeared before the House of Commons Education Committee as it examined historic forced adoption.
Those inquiries heard from academics, adoption organisations, adoptees, birth mothers and ministers.
The Education Committee's report, published in March 2026, stressed the urgency of action as many of those affected are now elderly.
It called for an "unqualified, formal apology" from the Government to all those affected, including unmarried mothers, adult adoptees, birth fathers, siblings and wider family members.
The recommendation echoed an earlier call from the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Starmer: 'A stain on our history'
On June 17, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced that ministers would issue a full apology, to be delivered by the Prime Minister.
In his statement on July 2, Sir Keir Starmer described historic forced adoptions as "a stain on our history".
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He said many mothers – "young, vulnerable, and without support" – were "coerced, bullied or misled into feeling they had no choice but to have their children taken from them".
Dr Lambert welcomed the apology, calling it "a tentative but vital first step towards truth and justice for the thousands of mothers, adoptees, and their extended families who are affected by this scandal".
He added that research shows "notions of choice for mothers placed in such a position was illusory at best, meaningless at worst", having told MPs that "coercion was baked into the entire system".
North West links through St Monica's case
As part of his work, Dr Lambert has also unearthed archival evidence relating to Stephen Holt, who was born at St Monica's maternity home in Kendal in 1964.
His report on the circumstances surrounding Holt's birth, life and death, which is available in a redacted form to the public, formed a key part of a recent BBC documentary on mother-and-baby homes.
The case is one of many used to illustrate how institutions across the North West became part of wider policies which separated mothers and babies and shaped families' lives for generations.
Recognition in Parliament
Following the Prime Minister's apology, Education Committee chair Helen Hayes MP publicly thanked Dr Lambert in the House of Commons.
She praised his "painstaking and rigorous research", which she said "helped to prove what mothers and adult adoptees have long known, that the state was culpable for the wrongs they suffered".
Dr Lambert, who specialises in the history of the welfare state, inequality and social and health policy in 20th-century Britain, has carried out extensive research into mother-and-baby homes and historic forced adoption.
His work has helped bring historical evidence into ongoing debates about how the state should respond to those affected and what support may still be needed in the future.
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