Chamber and committees

—the highest level of school spend per pupil anywhere in the UK; the highest number of teachers per head, with 8 per cent more teachers now than when I became First Minister; free tuition for higher education; and free bus travel for those under 22. I could go on and on, but I am not going to, because this is my last session of First Minister’s question time.

The evidence has never been clearer than it is now. We are fast running out of time to secure a liveable and sustainable future for the generations to come. The IPCC report must lead to an acceleration of global action to tackle the climate emergency.

Scotland is making long-term progress towards net zero, but we are now entering the most challenging part of that journey, which requires truly transformational action across society and our economy. That cannot and will not happen without all of us, including everyone across this Parliament, supporting bold steps as part of a national effort to tackle the climate emergency.

At the 27th UN climate change conference of the parties—COP27—Scotland pledged an additional £5 million to address loss and damage, and we will continue to advocate for practical action and finance to support the global south, where the effects of climate change are already being experienced.

I thank Paul McLennan for that question. Again—this may be the last opportunity that I have to point it out—it is really obvious how uncomfortable the Conservatives in the chamber become when we talk about poverty. That should be noted.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies rightly acknowledges the impact that progressive choices are having for low-income families. To quote the IFS briefly, it highlighted that the Scottish Government

“has made clearly a distributional choice ... to channel a lot more money towards low-income families with children in particular and that has a meaningful impact on incomes.”

If I had to single out the thing of which I am most proud, it is that—helping to lift children out of poverty, in marked contrast to the approach of the UK Government’s welfare system, which pushes children into poverty. That is the difference—that is the contrast.

The only character that is being revealed in the chamber today is that of Douglas Ross.

Douglas Ross will, no doubt, be a long-standing leader of the Opposition—well, unless his party has something to say about that. As such, he chooses the topics that he raises, which is absolutely right and proper. However, for the people who are watching, let it be noted that, on this, my last appearance as First Minister at First Minister’s question time, Douglas Ross is not asking me about the national health service, education, the economy or climate justice. Instead, the topic that he has chosen is party membership figures. That is fine, but if we are to have a proper interaction—

Earlier this year, we allocated an additional £8 million to support health and social care partnerships to secure extra provision of 300 interim care home beds. To date, that has enabled 408 people to be discharged from hospitals to those placements, with a total of 633 people currently benefiting from an interim care placement.

As part of the work of the ministerial advisory group on health and social care pressures, we continue to work tirelessly with health boards and health and social care partnerships to ensure that we are doing everything possible to support people out of acute settings and back into the community when it is clinically safe to do so.

Delayed discharge figures have improved substantially under this Government, and it is welcome that more than 96 per cent of all people leaving hospital are discharged without any delay whatsoever.

I thank Beatrice Wishart for her question and for associating the Scottish Liberal Democrats with the apology that was offered. Her question goes to the heart of the issue. Those practices were able to happen because of the inequality of women in our society. Therefore, part of making sure that injustices such as that never happen again is continuing to progress, advance and secure women’s equality. That is a responsibility for us all, but it is a fundamental part of what we must do to recognise what happened in the past and ensure that it can never happen again in the future.

The issuing of a formal apology is an action reserved by Governments as a response to the worst injustices in our history. Without doubt, the adoption practices that prevailed in this country for decades during the twentieth century fit that description. For the people affected by those practices, I appreciate that an apology has been a very long time coming.

One of the most ardent campaigners for it has been Marion McMillan. In the mid-1960s, Marion was a teenager living in Stranraer. When she became pregnant, she was sent to a mother and baby home in the north of England. Marion has described the horror of having her son taken away from her.

“I remember crying and telling them, ‘but I’m his mummy’, and begging them not to take my son. I was told not to be silly. I’d get over it—and I could always have other babies when I was married.”

Elspeth Ross faced her own ordeal. In 1962, she gave birth to her son in a mother and baby home in Glasgow.

“After I had my son, I was in the nursery for six weeks looking after him but nobody told me they were taking him away.

I was upstairs the very last day and told to pack my bags and go, not knowing that I was never seeing my son again”.

In 1979, Jeannot Farmer gave birth at the age of 22. She has recounted the moment in the hospital when she was told that her baby was being adopted.

“I was treated in quite humiliating ways from the outset ... I didn’t understand at that time that I had lost the decision—that the decision had been made for me. I didn't understand that until the social worker appeared after the birth.”

The horror of what happened to those women is almost impossible to comprehend. It is the stuff of nightmares, yet those were not isolated cases—far from it.

Until the late 1970s, forced adoption was a relatively common practice in Scotland. Many thousands of children were subject to it. In most cases, their mothers were young or unmarried. They were stigmatised as a result, and they were forced or coerced into the adoption process by charities, churches, health professionals, or social services.

Some mothers suffered physical mistreatment or abuse. Some were denied appropriate healthcare. Up until the early 1970s, mothers in some cases were given stilbestrol—a drug that dried up their breast milk and that is potentially carcinogenic.

Virtually all of the mothers were made to feel worthless. Among many falsehoods, they were told that they had nothing to offer their child except state benefits. They were told that, without adoption, their child would grow up a delinquent, and that they were selfish for wanting to keep their baby, because they would be denying them a so-called better life.

Consistently, mothers were lied to about the adoption process. They were given no information about what was happening. When they did object, they were bullied or ignored. Some women were never even allowed to hold their babies. Most never got the chance to say a proper goodbye, and many were threatened with terrible consequences if they ever tried to make contact with their child.

For those mothers, it was a living nightmare—a nightmare from which they have never truly been able to wake. The grief, heartbreak and shame of what happened have been a constant throughout their lives, and many have had to bear that trauma in silence, for fear of other people’s judgment or pity. It has affected their relationships with subsequent children, with partners and with family and friends. For many, it has created serious mental health impacts that persist to this very day.

For the sons and daughters who were taken, of course, the impacts have also been profound. It is important to say—and to say very clearly—that many of them went to loving homes. Acknowledging the injustices should never be seen as a rejection of the deep bonds that people share with their adopted families. Nothing can ever invalidate the love that these families have for one another.

However, it is also clear that many of those affected—far too many—had a very, very different experience. We know that some will always have lacked a sense of belonging; some may even have suffered mistreatment or abuse; and all of them will have grown up believing that their mothers chose to put them up for adoption of their own free will. Understandably, that has affected them—and yet it was never true.

As adults, the practical difficulties of accessing adoption records have been a further torment. Even when families have been able to reconnect, that in itself has brought huge emotional challenges. Sometimes, the search has ended in further heartache, when the person being looked for is already deceased.

For the fathers affected, there has also been great suffering. They, too, lost a child. They, too, had their rights denied by a system that ignored and dehumanised them. There is good reason to believe that some mothers were not even allowed to put the father’s name on the birth certificate—a permanent obstacle to them reuniting with their son or daughter.

Of course, the impact of what happened has been felt more widely, by the loved ones of everyone involved. The legacy of those practices continues to affect generations of families, in this country and beyond. It is a level of injustice that is hard now for us to comprehend. So, today, how do we even begin to explain how such appalling acts could take place?

Obviously, they were the product of a society where women were regarded as second class citizens, where unmarried mothers were stigmatised, and where people in authority had too much power. We also know that similar practices happened in other countries, but that does not for a moment excuse the appalling mistreatment that people suffered, nor does it absolve the individuals and institutions involved.

After all, it is not just in hindsight that such practices are wrong. Mistreating women and forcing them to part with their babies was never right; it was always cruel, unjust and profoundly wrong.

There is a line of argument that says that, because the Government of the time did not support those practices, there is nothing to apologise for, and that, anyway, the events in question took place long ago, before the Scottish Parliament reconvened and before anyone in this chamber held public office, but those are not reasons to stay silent. Ultimately, it is the state that is morally responsible for setting standards and protecting people.

Therefore, as modern representatives of the state, I believe that we—among others—have a special responsibility to the people affected. First, we have a responsibility to do whatever we can to support them in dealing with the legacy of what happened. That is why, last year, the Scottish Government established specialist support and counselling services for people affected by historical adoption practices. At the same time, we launched a consultation, in which we asked people affected to share their experiences. I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who responded.

We have since commissioned a study, which will report later this summer, on how we can improve the support that people can access, from psychological support to help in reuniting with family members. We will continue to explore with the people affected the key challenges that they face with regard to adoption records and the lasting health impacts that are faced by mothers who were given stilbestrol. On that final point, I emphasise again today the importance of women attending routine breast and cervical screening appointments.

Another responsibility that we have to those people is to provide an assurance that the lessons of the period in question have been learned. There is no doubt that adoption practices, and our society in general, have come a long way in the decades since, but we can never allow ourselves to be complacent.

At all times, we must ensure that the services that are meant to protect families fulfil that role as effectively and compassionately as possible. That is why the Government is so focused on delivering the conclusions of the independent care review—the Promise—which emphasised the importance, where possible, of keeping families together.

More generally, we need to continue to build a society where women and girls are treated equally, and where everyone’s human rights are respected. That has always been a central mission of this Government, and it is how we ensure that such injustices never happen again.

The final way in which we can keep faith with those affected is more symbolic, but it is no less meaningful for that. It is something that has been campaigned for tirelessly, over many years, by many of the people who are seated in our gallery today. It is a cause that I know has been championed by members across the chamber.

As a Government and a Parliament, we can set the record straight; we can acknowledge the terrible wrongs that were done; and we can say, with one voice, that we are sorry. So, today, as First Minister, on behalf of the Scottish Government, I say directly to the mothers who had their babies taken away from them, to the sons and the daughters who were separated from their parents, to the fathers who were denied their rights and to the families who have lived with the legacy: for the decades of pain that you have suffered, I offer a sincere, heartfelt and unreserved apology. We are sorry.

No words can ever make up for what has happened to you, but I hope that that apology will bring you some measure of solace. It is the very least that you deserve, and it is long overdue. [Applause.]

Yes. I whole-heartedly agree with that. We are talking about a historical practice, but we must never be complacent. We must make sure that, every single day, we guard against such injustices ever, ever happening again.

That is why some of the wider work that the Scottish Government is doing is so important. In my statement, I referenced the independent care review and the Promise that came from that. This Government is committed to keeping the Promise.

We must also continue our work to lift children out of poverty. Sadly, we know that children who are growing up in poverty are more likely to be removed from their families, which is why a package of support—not least the Scottish child payment—is important in that respect.

We must never be complacent. We must ensure that we do all that we can to tackle gender inequality and to protect the human rights of everyone. Only if we do all that can we build the better society that we all want.

I think that all of us have the utmost sympathy for any woman who had their child forcibly taken away. That is added to by the sympathy that we have for the women who were prescribed stilbestrol. It is important that they have access to the support and advice that they need.

The chief medical officer will offer such advice, always on an independent, clinical basis, and I am sure that he will be happy to correspond with members about any advice that he considers appropriate.

The most recent guidance, which the UK Health Security Agency produced, is that routine cervical screening is appropriate for those who believe that they were exposed to the drug. That applies in Scotland. On the lasting health impacts, I emphasise again, as I did in my statement, the importance of women attending routine breast appointments and routine cervical screening appointments.

There is no doubt whatever that the medical practices to which the member referred compounded the injustice that women faced and are one of the reasons why today’s apology is so important and so long overdue.

I thank Monica Lennon for the question and for all that she has done to bring us to where we are today. Miles Briggs and Neil Bibby have been referenced, too, and I thank them as well.

I very deliberately quoted some women in my statement, because their words can give an understanding of the horror of this much, much more than any words of mine can. However, I am conscious that, in quoting some women, there are many more who have not been quoted. I pay tribute to every woman who suffered this injustice, not only those here in the public gallery today.

Monica Lennon talks about what happened in 1982; we know that this was a routine practice up until the late 1970s, but that does not mean that it did not happen at all after that. It is important to recognise that. It is also important to recognise that, although we describe the practice as historical, it is recent history that we are talking about. Monica Lennon referenced a man who is with us from Australia but who was born here in 1970. I was born in 1970 to a young mother. This is not history that is way in the past—it is in our lifetimes, and that should underline the importance of not being complacent.

Unfortunately, across a range of issues, we frequently discover that injustices that we thought were long gone can reoccur if we are not vigilant and do not guard against that. We must continue to learn and to stand together—I hope that, on issues such as this, we can do that.

While trying to bring some closure for those who suffered, we must also find ways to remember. I have heard suggestions of a memorial in the Glasgow Women’s Library, an institution for which I have huge affection and respect. I cannot speak for the library, but we should be open to all suggestions in order to make sure that we deliver as much justice as possible, and that we never forget. We need to allow those horrendous experiences to stand as reminders of what happens if we do not remember the value of our common humanity and we do not protect what matters most in our society.

I gave a commitment today knowing that someone else will take it forward, but with confidence that the chamber will stay united in making sure that we learn the lessons and that we find the most appropriate ways of delivering support and always remembering.