Keir Starmer has ruled out paying reparations for the UK’s role in the slave trade.
Calls from campaigners for compensation payments to be made to the countries affected have increased ahead of next week’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHoGM) in Samoa.
They have also pointed to comments made by foreign secretary David Lammy in 2018, when he was a backbench opposition MP.
He said: “As Caribbean people we are not going to forget our history – we don’t just want to hear an apology, we want reparation.”
Estimates have put the potential British liabilities at around £200 billion.
Sir Hilary Beckles, the chairman of the Caribbean Community Reparations Commission, said: “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.
“[Mr 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.”
But the prime minister’s official spokesman today insisted that “reparations are not on the agenda” at CHoGM.
He added: “The government’s positions on this hasn’t changed. We do not pay reparations.
“The prime minister is attending the summit to discuss the shared challenges faced by the Commonwealth, including driving growth across our economies.”