Downing Street has restated that Britain will not pay reparations for transatlantic slavery, hours after a Jamaican government delegation filed a petition at Buckingham Palace asking King Charles III to refer three questions about the legality of slavery to the UK's highest Commonwealth court.
The petition, lodged on Monday by Jamaica's culture minister, Olivia Grange, asks the King, who remains Jamaica's head of state, to refer to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council the questions of whether the enslavement of Africans in Jamaica was lawful under English law, whether it breached international law, and whether the UK is legally obliged to compensate for the harms caused. The delegation says it is the first time a Commonwealth state has used the route for reparatory justice, a claim that rests on Jamaica's own account.
Asked about the filing at the daily briefing, the Prime Minister's spokesperson said "the UK does not and will not pay reparations", while acknowledging that the transatlantic slave trade was "abhorrent", according to Reuters. Agence France-Presse reported the same briefing with the spokesperson saying: "Our position on reparations is clear, the UK does not and will not make reparations." The remarks were not attributed to Andy Burnham personally.
The petition does not name a sum. A figure of about US$10bn, or £7.6bn, has been attached to Jamaica's reparations campaign since a 2021 private member's motion by the MP Mike Henry, who estimated it as roughly equivalent in today's terms to the compensation Britain paid to slaveholders at abolition. The government took out a £20m loan to pay slave owners after the 1833 Act; the interest payments were completed only in 2015.
Buckingham Palace said it had been working closely with the Governor-General of Jamaica, the King's representative on the island, to ensure the petition was "properly lodged". A Palace spokesperson said the King "has on many occasions expressed his personal and wholehearted commitment to promoting greater understanding around the issue of slavery", in the wording carried by Reuters.
The King was not at the Palace to receive the document, and is on his late-summer break in Scotland. The Palace has made clear he has no personal say over the substance of the claim. Section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833 vests the referral power in the monarch, who may refer "any such other matters whatsoever as His Majesty shall think fit", but in constitutional practice the power is exercised on the advice of ministers.
Grange, who oversees Jamaica's reparations push, posted a photograph of herself holding the document with the caption "The petition has been filed." Speaking to the Associated Press on Sunday before a church service in south London, she said: "In relation to the wrongs that were done, we want answers," adding: "Once we get those answers, then our attorneys, our lawyers, will determine what the next move is."
Jamaica says the petition is endorsed by the Caribbean Community, and Reuters reports it is also backed by Ghana's president, John Dramani Mahama. The strategy was announced in July 2025 by the Jamaican Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, then chair of Caricom, who told a press conference there was "broad support for Jamaica moving forward with a petition to King Charles III".
The anti-monarchy group Republic criticised the King's absence. Its chief executive, Graham Smith, said: "Once again Charles ducks for cover when the issue of slavery and empire is raised."
Craig Prescott, a constitutional law specialist at Royal Holloway, University of London, told the Associated Press the move was "quite clever" because it used an obscure constitutional procedure, and said the justices were usually very cautious about granting such petitions.
The delegation is also due to meet the British Museum to press for the return of cultural artefacts taken from Jamaica.
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