Prime Minister Andy Burnham says helium is "open" to the anticipation of the UK formally apologising for its relation successful the transatlantic enslaved trade, but has ruled retired fiscal reparations.
He said helium wanted a "dialogue with those affected" and was unfastened to "calls for an apology", but said reparations were "not the close answer".
The connection was welcomed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Afrikan Reparations, with its seat Bell Ribeiro-Adday telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme the contented was not conscionable astir money.
It comes up of adjacent week's Commonwealth leaders acme successful the Caribbean. As King Charles III tours the region, determination person been renewed calls for an apology.
During the archetypal limb of his circuit successful the Bahamas, the King made notation to the "suffering of the past". Later, successful Guyana, helium visited the tract of a rebellion of enslaved radical against British authorities.
On Saturday, Burnham described the transatlantic enslaved trade, erstwhile Africans were trafficked to the Americas, arsenic a "brutal and barbaric violation" and said Britain indispensable "face up to the past".
The British authorities has ne'er formally apologised for slavery oregon offered to wage reparations. Burnham has stuck with the argumentation of his predecessors, and has stopped abbreviated of offering immoderate information of reparation payments.
"I bash not deliberation that British radical contiguous tin beryllium held liable for humanities wrongs, nevertheless heinous, that happened successful a antithetic property nether antithetic laws and successful which they played nary idiosyncratic part," Burnham wrote successful a portion for the Guardian, external.
He said Commonwealth countries had for years been asking for an "honest conversation".
He said helium wanted to connection a "structured dialogue", adding: "Listening to calls for a ceremonial apology connected behalf of the British authorities volition signifier an important portion of this process. I americium unfastened to them."
Chancellor John Healey told the BBC that Burnham was "open to a discussion" astir an apology due to the fact that it was "the close thing, peculiarly up of the Commonwealth heads conference".
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting starts connected 1 November successful Antigua, and volition beryllium opened by the King arsenic portion of his tour.
Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg, Healey said the premier curate does not deliberation reparations are the close approach.
He added that a ceremonial apology doesn't mean British radical should present "accept the fiscal liability for immoderate portion successful things that happened hundreds of years agone successful which they had nary role".
But APPG for Afrikan Reparations Ribeiro-Addy said portion the government's acceptance of the relation it played was welcomed, it had "still fallen abbreviated of a ceremonial authorities apology and that really costs nothing".
"Acknowledgment is not the aforesaid arsenic understanding," she told Today, adding: "Until we apologise, we are ne'er going to beryllium connected adjacent footing… it's meant to beryllium a household of nations - a Commonwealth - and it's simply not the case."
The MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill said that, to her knowledge, an invoice for fiscal reparations has not been fixed to the UK, and truthful discussing "reparative justice" connected those ends, was missing the point.
"My interest is the absorption connected fiscal reparations, and I deliberation that is profoundly problematic and has not rather listened to what radical person said," Ribeiro-Addy said.
Downing Street believes it is successful the UK's involvement to fortify the Commonwealth, successful a satellite wherever China and Russia are seeking to exert influence.
Only this week, President Vladimir Putin hosted a Russia-Africa acme successful Moscow.
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