I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the potential merits of disregarding payments received under the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme operated by the government of Ireland for the purposes of taxation, means-tested social security payments and social care capital limits; and for connected purposes.
Philomena Lee was 18 years old when she became pregnant in 1952 and was sent to the Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby home in Roscrea, County Tipperary, in Ireland. There Philomena gave birth to her son Anthony, and there they both lived until Anthony reached the age of three and Philomena was cruelly forced to give him up for adoption. Anthony was sold to a couple in the United States. Philomena would never see him again. Almost 60 years on, Philomena’s story reached a global audience when it was made into the Oscar-nominated film “Philomena”, starring Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. The film chronicled the time Philomena spent in Sean Ross Abbey and her painstaking search for her long-lost son decades later, with the help of author Martin Sixsmith.
I wish Philomena’s story was an isolated one. Sadly, it is not. Philomena is one of tens of thousands of women and their infant children who spent time in mother and baby homes across Ireland for the perceived sin of becoming pregnant outside of marriage. The women were regularly used as unpaid labour, and infant mortality was alarmingly high. They experienced harsh conditions, mistreatment and abuse, both physical and psychological. In certain homes, women were routinely separated from their children, with some being adopted against the wishes or even without the knowledge of their mothers, as happened to Philomena Lee and her son Anthony.
As a direct result of the abuse and trauma they experienced, many mother and baby home survivors moved to England. In some cases, they came here because they thought that disappearing from their home country was the only way to protect their family’s reputations, and so for decades thousands of survivors lived in secrecy and shame, including here in Britain. It was not until 2021 that they finally received an apology from the then Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, for what he described as a
“profound generational wrong visited upon Irish mothers and their children”.
That was followed by the mother and baby institutions payment scheme, which opened to applications last March. The scheme represents a measure of accountability for what happened, recognising the lifelong impact that time spent in those institutions will have had. The impact will be felt in all corners of a survivor’s life, from earning potential and financial security to physical and mental health and wellbeing.
Ultimately, the scheme aims to acknowledge the suffering and improve the circumstances of former residents of mother and baby homes, which is why it is wrong that up to 13,000 survivors living here in Britain today risk losing their benefits if they accept this compensation. Under our current rules, any money accepted through this payment scheme would be considered savings and could see them lose means-tested benefits and financial support for social care. For some, it is deterring them from making any application at all. It is one of the reasons that only 5% of survivors in Britain have applied so far.
For others, having received a compensation offer, they are now having to weigh up whether it is worth accepting the money, or whether to do so would sink them into a worse financial situation overall. Among them is a survivor from the north of England who has shared her story with me. This woman, who experienced harrowing abuse over several years, applied to the payment scheme in September last year and received an offer soon after. She told me:
“When I first heard about the payment scheme, I thought that it was marvellous and I was excited. I couldn’t take it in—I had never had money at any point in my life. I was going to use this money to visit a half-brother in America—he had been born less than 16 miles away, but I did not know that him or his brother and sister existed until we did some family tracing. It would have been lovely to meet him, but I do not feel that I can use the money for this as my benefits would be affected.”
The whole point of the payment scheme was to recognise the suffering that survivors experienced while resident, but for many it has become an additional burden, a process that has forced them to revisit their most traumatic experiences, seemingly to no avail.
Fortunately, there is a solution and it is a relatively simple one. The introduction of an indefinite capital disregard, which my Bill proposes, would remove any risk to an applicant’s benefits. There is strong precedent for such a disregard; the same arrangements have been applied to similar special compensation schemes in the recent past, including those introduced for the victims of the 7/7 London bombings and for payments made under the Windrush compensation scheme.
I want to pay tribute to some of the many incredible organisations in Britain that continue to support mother and baby home survivors. They include: Rosa and the team at Irish in Britain; Séan and the team at the London Irish Centre in Camden; the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith; the Fréa network supporting the Irish community in Leeds, Manchester, Merseyside and beyond; Coventry Irish Society; Luton Irish Forum; Irish Network Stevenage; and many more.
I would also like to pay tribute to the mother and baby home survivors here in Britain, in Ireland and elsewhere, who summoned the courage to share their personal experiences and to recount their most traumatic years in the name of justice. Their bravery not only secured the apology from the Irish Government and subsequently brought about the payment scheme, but perhaps more importantly contributed enormously to the hard and crucial work of dismantling the stigma and secrecy that has long been associated with time spent in mother and baby homes. That, of course, includes Philomena Lee, whose own story brought this injustice to a global audience. I am delighted that Philomena’s daughter Jane and her grandson Joshua are here in the Gallery with us today.
Ireland’s mother and baby homes were cruel institutions. Over seven decades, tens of thousands of Irish women were sent there for the perceived sin of becoming pregnant outside of marriage. They were subjected to the most horrific mistreatment and abuse, physical and psychological. Women were used as unpaid labour. They had their children forcibly adopted, sometimes overseas, never to be seen again. The women and children fortunate enough to leave the institutions often came here to Britain. They came here to escape the stigma and shame and build a new life, and there are more than 13,000 survivors living here today.
Last year, the Irish Government opened a long-awaited compensation scheme for those survivors. It is a small but important mark of accountability and redress for what happened to them, but thousands of survivors in Britain today cannot access this compensation without being penalised for it. If they access it, they lose any means-tested benefits or financial support for social care. Just as we did for the Windrush families, we must now change the law to ensure that compensation payments for victims and survivors are ringfenced. This Bill, Philomena’s law, named after the inspirational and courageous Philomena Lee, will achieve that. I am proud to bring it to the House today, and I hope in the months ahead we will see a change in the law so that we can deliver justice for survivors and show them the kindness and respect they have so often been denied in life.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Liam Conlon, Claire Hanna, Colum Eastwood, Deirdre Costigan, Lola McEvoy, Damien Egan, Uma Kumaran, Sarah Coombes, Helena Dollimore, Florence Eshalomi, Rachel Hopkins and Tom Rutland present the Bill.
Liam Conlon accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 28 March, and to be printed (Bill 198).