Yvette Cooper says sorry for mass graves, but campaigners want an inquiry

Health Secretary Yvette Cooper stood in the House of Commons on Monday evening and issued what she called a "profound apology" to parents whose stillborn babies were buried in communal graves without their knowledge.

The apology came during a baby loss awareness debate. It was directed at families who, before the 1980s, had their babies taken from them by hospital staff and interred in mass graves, with no say and no information about where the children were taken.

The scale is documented in part. More than 1,000 stillborn babies were buried at Frankby, Plymyard and Landican cemeteries in Wirral between 1935 and 1981. A separate mass burial ground in Royton, Oldham, is believed to hold more than 270 babies.

Gina Jacobs, from Wirral, did not learn where her son Robert had been buried for 53 years. Robert was stillborn in February 1969. She was not allowed to see or hold him, and believed he had been buried with an adult whose funeral took place at about the same time.

Liverpool councillors had called on the government to apologise in parliament. The Department of Health and Social Care had already described the historical practices as "appalling" and said a dedicated government team had been established to look into the matter, with an update to follow.

What the apology does not do is answer the questions that campaigners have been asking. Jacobs has called for the government to do more to investigate how such burials were allowed to happen. It is not clear how many other mass burial sites exist beyond Wirral and Oldham. The scope and remit of the dedicated government team have not been set out publicly.

An apology is a formal acknowledgment. It is not an investigation, and it is not a finding. The record so far establishes that the practice was widespread, that it was concealed from parents, and that the government has now said sorry for it. What remains unknown is how it was permitted, how far it extended, and what practical recognition affected families will receive.