Succession star Brian Cox's powerful U-turn call on adopted kids therapy fund cuts

Enduring the loss of his dad at the age of only eight, Brian Cox is no stranger to childhood hardship. Now the acclaimed actor, whose sisters rallied to care for him as a boy before big-screen fame, is backing a campaignto help vulnerable kids. Succession star Brian has thrown his weight behind a call to reverse cuts to a therapy fund.

The scheme, helping adopted kids and those in kinship care like Brian as a child, has had support for individuals slashed by 40%. Emmy award-winning Brian has added his name to the U-turn call on government cuts to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund.

One-time Labour supporter Brian, 79, whose mum suffered nervous breakdowns, described the fund as a “special lifeline”. The Scot – who rose from poverty to star in Braveheart, Churchill and the Bourne Identity – is supporting the call after Motherland’s Anne Maxwell Martin’s plea last month. In a powerful video for campaign group, Action Against ASGSF Changes, Brian said: “All children have the right to feel safe, thrive and reach their potential.

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“Adopted and kinship children and those under special guardianship orders are no different. The Labour government has cut a vital fund that supported these children. The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund is a lifeline that allows adopted and kinship children and young adults to access specialist assessments and therapy. Therapy that cannot be accessed in any other way. No matter your start in life we have, as a nation, a moral obligation to individuals and society as a whole to ensure that we have the best chances to be happy and healthy.

“I am supporting the urgent call for the government to reverse all cuts made to the ASGSF, conduct an independent and robust consultation with the families and, finally, make the ASGSF a permanent ringfenced fund. I urge you all to support the campaign against the cuts and sign the open letter to the minister for children and families, Josh MacAlister.”

Brian, from Dundee, shared a two-bed flat with his parents and four siblings. He and his brother slept in the living room alcove, he once said. But his dad — who had a grocer’s shop — died and his mum had nervous breakdowns. Brian, whose “traumatised” brother joined the army aged 16, told the Mirror: “I was totally dependent on my three sisters. They looked out for me as much as they looked after me.”

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He described his eldest sister, Bette, who died aged 92 in 2023, as “my absolute rock”. Brian said: “She was the one who was Dundee-based… she gave me a key… to my flat where we lived. I used to go home on my own and stuff and then I’d spend a lot of time with her as well. So she was fantastic to me.”

Explaining further where he stayed as a child after his dad’s death and mum’s breakdowns, the actor said: “She [Bette] gave me a key and I would stay in our flat which was still there. Not all the time but I would occasionally go back to the flat and spend the night there, so I had a key to my mother’s flat who wasn’t there. And I also stayed with my youngest sister for quite a lot of the time until she emigrated to Canada, [she]... was also in that flat.”

Asked what his message was to PM Keir Starmer on the therapy fund: “What he should realise is that the fund is so more important because there is much more kinship around now than there is family. And that’s the sad thing about the state of the family. We have to think about kinship because of the crisis that goes on within working-class lives. Because of heroin addiction… because of alcoholism."

The £50 million 2025-6 Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) pays for therapy, supporting vulnerable children and young people in England. But the government’s changes announced in April cut the per child funding from £5,000 to £3,000 each year – a 40% drop. And the separate £2,500 per child sum for specialist assessments was scrapped. Meanwhile, the ASGSF no longer match-funds support for kids with exceptional need.

Campaigners met with minister MacAlister on Wednesday but came away unimpressed. A spokesperson for Action Against ASGSF Changes said: “The cuts to the ASGSF were made without warning, evidence or consultation. The Minister offered no credible explanation for this, and showed no willingness to engage with the impact of those cuts.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We know how important this support is to families – and through our Plan for Change, we’re committed to ensuring adopted and kinship families continue to receive the help they need to thrive. In September, we committed to continuing the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund for another year, until April 2027. The difficult decisions we have taken this year will support the financial sustainability of the fund, allowing more vulnerable children to access targeted therapeutic support. We will conduct a public engagement process in the new year to understand how children and families can be supported most effectively. An update on this process will be provided in due course.”