Gordon Brown is to apologise for the UK's role in sending thousands of its children to former colonies in the 20th century, the BBC has learned.
Under the Child Migrants Programme - which ended just 40 years ago - poor children were sent to a "better life" in Australia, Canada and elsewhere.
But many were abused and ended up in institutions or as labourers on farms.
Officials are consulting survivors of the programme so that a statement can be made in the new year.
On Monday, Australia's prime minister will apologise to the 7,000 UK migrants living there for the mistreatment.
He will deliver a national apology to the "Forgotten Australians" and recognise the mistreatment and ongoing suffering of some 500,000 people held in orphanages or children's homes between 1930 and 1970.
As they were compulsorily shipped out of Britain, many of the children were told - wrongly - their parents were dead, and that a more abundant life awaited them.
Many parents did not know their children, aged as young as three, had been sent to Australia.
Care agencies worked with the government to send disadvantaged children to a rosy future and supply what was deemed "good white stock" to a former colony.
Read more @ BBC News
I am surprised at how recent history this is.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
I didn't know such thing as Child Migant Programme existed!
Under what conditions were they sent away?
No idea it suggests that they were lied to, and that they were promised a better life.
On the other hand, in the past there have been forced migrations too. America, a couple of centuries before people were willingly migrated, was being populated forcibly - the powers that be thought the poor, the children and delinquents living in London were fair game.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.