Reparations for Britain’s role in the slave trade are “not on the agenda”, Downing Street has said in the run-up to a major summit.
Leaders of Commonwealth nations will meet later this month, and all three candidates vying to become the next secretary-general of the 56 nations headed by King Charles have supported making amends financially for transatlantic slavery and colonialism.
But No 10 said that reparations would not be paid, despite previous calls for them by David Lammy, the foreign secretary.
Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, and the King will meet with other leaders at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Samoa.
Starmer meeting Londoners on Windrush Day earlier this year
CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES
The King is the ceremonial head of the Commonwealth, whose members include west African and Caribbean countries affected by the slave trade. About ten million people were enslaved by Britain and European nations between the 15th and 19th centuries and sent to work on plantations across the Atlantic in the Caribbean and the Americas.
Lammy has previously said that “hard truths” need to be told about slavery and reparations should be paid to those in the Windrush generation.
“I’m afraid as Caribbean people we are not going to forget our history — we don’t just want to hear an apology, we want reparation,” Lammy can be heard saying in the clip from 2018.
He wrote on X in the same year: “As Caribbean people enslaved, colonised and invited to Britain as citizens, we remember our history. We don’t just want an apology, we want reparations and compensation.”
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Rev Dr Michael Banner, the Dean of Trinity College Cambridge, claimed earlier this year that Britain owes the Caribbean more than £200 billion in slavery reparations.
Asked what the prime minister’s view on paying reparations is, his official spokesman said on Monday: “We do not pay reparations.” The position is in line with that of the former Tory government, which repeatedly rejected calls for payouts.
Calls for reparations to address historical wrongs across what Queen Elizabeth II called the “family of nations” have gained momentum and several institutions and countries have acknowledged their past. With the exception of four recent admissions, all of the Commonwealth members are former British colonies.
Sir Hilary Beckles, chairman of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) group of countries, said that Lammy should be given the power to secure reparations.
Beckles told Reuters: “It is our intention to persist with this strategy of calling for a summit to work through what a reparatory justice model ought to look like in the case of the Caribbean. He [Lammy] has been a supporter of the discourse while he was in opposition. The question is whether he would be given a free hand in his government to take the matter to a higher level.”
Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, told LBC: “That was David Lammy long before he became foreign secretary. Now he speaks on behalf of the Labour government and this is a new Labour government. We are focused on the future and when we move forward as a country we are thinking globally as well.”
