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The UK government has apologised for decades of stress caused to parents whose stillborn babies were buried in mass graves without their knowledge. The scandal affected more than 1,000 families.
The government has apologised for decades of distress caused to parents whose stillborn babies were buried in mass graves without their knowledge.
Health Secretary Yvette Cooper issued what she called a "profound apology" for the "unthinkable pain" caused by the historic practice, as reported by The Guardian. The scandal saw stillborn babies taken from mothers in NHS hospitals and buried in communal graves between the 1930s and early 1980s.
Bereaved parents had no say in what happened to their babies' remains and no information on where they had been buried. This continued for decades.
A Wirral woman's four-year campaign
Gina Jacobs from Wirral, who lives in Greasby and is now in her eighties, has been at the forefront of the campaign for government recognition. Her son Robert was stillborn in 1969, and she did not discover where he had been buried for 53 years. She found out in 2022 her son was buried in Landican Cemetery in Woodchurch, Wirral.
More than 1,000 stillborn babies were interred at Frankby, Plymyard and Landican cemeteries in Wirral between 1935 and 1981.
Speaking in the House of Commons during a baby loss awareness debate, Cooper said: "On behalf of the government, I want to issue a profound apology to them. I have issued that apology to Gina today, but to so many more like Gina who have sought answers over many years, I'm sorry for the unthinkable pain caused by those historic practices, because what happened to those parents should never have happened and we need to ensure it can never happen again."
Jacobs told ITV News the apology was like "a lottery win" after four years of campaigning. "It didn't kind of sink in at first. I've wanted this, I've campaigned for this, I've begged for this, anyone who would listen," she said.
"This brings dignity and respect to these babies, because they never got it at the time. And it brings it even to our missing babies."
Calls for further action
In July 2026, Liverpool City Council passed a cross-party motion urging the government to apologise. They described the handling of the stillborn babies "a cruel violation of human dignity that has caused decades of unresolved trauma, grief and anger."
The motion was proposed by Liverpool councillor Kris Brown. The Guardian reports he said the words "go a long way", because the government are acknowledging it. He added that he hopes " the secretary of state, along with the prime minister, issues a written apology and sets out a national framework on how families affected by the scandal can get support."
Liverpool City Council has also requested the government provide funding to retrieve the burial records of the babies, and conduct a review into the mass burials.
Gina's role in the campaign
Ms. Jacobs, who is now a great grandmother, has been campaigning for an apology since 2022. She set up a group online to support others affected by the tragedy. The group, called Gina's Sleeping Babies Reunited, allowed women to speak about their baby loss openly. Former Wirral West MP Margaret Greenwood also helped Ms. Jacobs, as she helped raise the case in Parliament. Ms. Greenwood remained an MP until May 2024.
"It's a place for people to be able to come and speak to other people who've been through it," Gina told The BBC in 2025.
Back in 2024, she started calling for the government to apologise for the mishandling of the babies, saying to The BBC then: " It has to be, I think, our government to apologise for what happened with previous governments, which is someone to just say, ‘we’re sorry’".
