Around 4,000 children were sent to different institutions in the Commonwealth between 1945 and 1970, where many of them say they were sexually, physically and mentally abused.

The Department for Health has accepted the scheme was “fundamentally flawed”.

The Independent Inquiry Into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) said in March that 2,000 people should be compensated within a year. Their lawyer said the government “has a legal responsibility for the harm suffered by those children”.

Children were sent abroad to ease the strain on orphanages and increase the British population abroad.

Rex Wade was sent from Cornwall to Tasmania at the age of 10, where he was treated “cruelly for any misdemeanour”, with those in charge setting a dog on the children when they misbehaved.

He told the BBC earlier this year: “It was physical, verbal and mental abuse. I lost everything I ever had; the relationships I had with my family. It’s a lot to deal with and you just don’t get over it.”