Andy Burnham said on Saturday that he is "open" to Britain issuing a formal apology for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, but ruled out paying financial reparations, days before he attends a Commonwealth summit in the Caribbean.

Writing in The Guardian, the prime minister argued that "we need to face up to the past" and described the slave trade as a "brutal and barbaric violation" of enslaved people's rights. He said he wanted to "express my sorrow and regret for the pain and suffering of so many millions and to recognise the way it still shapes our world today".

But he rejected the case for compensation. "I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part," Burnham wrote.

What he offered instead

Burnham said he wanted a "structured dialogue with those affected", adding that "listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process and I am open to them".

He also revealed plans for a new debt restructuring drive for the poorest Commonwealth countries, to be led by the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, with the aim of helping them repay "over a longer time period and with better rates".

The government has never formally apologised for slavery or offered reparations. Burnham's position keeps him in line with his predecessors: Tony Blair expressed "deep sorrow and regret" in 2007, David Cameron ruled out reparations in 2015 and told Caribbean countries to "move on", and Rishi Sunak said "no" to an apology and reparations in 2023. Sir Keir Starmer ruled out compensation in 2024.

A tour and a summit

The statement lands in the middle of a delicate royal visit. King Charles III is on a nine-day tour of three Caribbean countries that will include an address to the Commonwealth summit, which runs from Sunday to Wednesday in St John's, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda.

During the first leg in the Bahamas, the King referred to the "suffering of the past", and in Guyana he visited the site of a rebellion of enslaved people against British authorities. The 56-member Commonwealth is mainly composed of former British colonies, and the UK's central role in slavery has long been contentious within it.

Downing Street believes it is in Britain's interest to strengthen the Commonwealth at a time when China and Russia are seeking influence; only this week, Vladimir Putin hosted a Russia-Africa summit in Moscow.

The reaction

Chancellor John Healey told the BBC that Burnham was "open to a discussion" about an apology because it was "the right thing, particularly ahead of the Commonwealth heads conference". He said the prime minister did not think reparations were the right approach, and that a formal apology did not mean British people should now "accept the financial liability for any part in things that happened hundreds of years ago in which they had no role".

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said there was "no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born". In a post on X, she wrote that Labour was "already spending too much on Britain's welfare state, now is not the time for Andy Burnham to be providing global welfare".

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey took a different view. "I do think we have a duty there and saying sorry is always quite a good thing," he said.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations welcomed the government's acceptance of the role Britain played, but its chairwoman, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, said it had "still fallen short of a formal state apology and that actually costs nothing". "Acknowledgement is not the same as understanding," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, adding: "Until we apologise, we are never going to be on equal footing."

Ribeiro-Addy also pushed back on the terms of the debate, saying that, to her knowledge, an invoice for financial reparations has not been given to the UK. "My worry is the focus on financial reparations, and I think that is deeply problematic and has not quite listened to what people have said," she said.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has campaigned for reparatory justice, welcomed Burnham's statement and said she would engage in good faith. Denis O'Brien, founder of The Repair Campaign, was less impressed, calling the statement disappointing and saying: "The British government must stop obfuscating and give a full and formal apology now."

The history behind the argument

Britain abolished slavery across most of its empire in 1833. As part of that law, British plantation owners were compensated for the loss of the people they had enslaved, and the government only finished paying off the debt it incurred to cover those payments in 2015.

That asymmetry — money for owners, not for the enslaved — is at the centre of the reparations case that Caribbean governments have pressed for years. Burnham's answer is an apology without a cheque, offered alongside debt relief that he can present as practical help rather than liability.

What to watch

The summit in Antigua will show whether that formula holds. Caribbean leaders have been asking for an "honest conversation" for years, and Burnham says he wants to have one. Whether "structured dialogue" is enough will be tested in St John's this week, with the King in the room and a 56-country organisation watching.

The wider context is not just historical. Britain is trying to keep the Commonwealth relevant while other alliances form and European politics turns inward, and the summit has already drawn protests over exactly this question.