Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has issued a "profound apology" on behalf of the government for the historic practice of burying stillborn babies in mass graves. This practice, which occurred between the 1930s and early 1980s, caused "unthinkable pain" to parents.
During this period, stillborn babies were taken from mothers in hospitals and buried in communal graves, often without parents being informed or having a say in what happened to their remains. Many parents spent decades not knowing where their babies were buried.
More than 1,000 stillborn babies were interred in Wirral cemeteries, including Frankby, Plymyard, and Landican, between 1935 and 1981. Another mass burial ground in Royton, Oldham, is believed to hold over 270 babies.
The apology follows campaigning by individuals such as Gina Jacobs from the Wirral, whose son Robert was stillborn in 1969 and whose burial place was unknown for 53 years. Ms Jacobs described the apology as bringing "dignity and respect to these babies."
Liverpool city council had previously passed a motion in July calling for a parliamentary apology and urged the government to allocate national funding for retrieving burial records and conducting a comprehensive review of the mass burials.