Church Assets Historical Link to Slavery 2025-05-22
2025-05-22
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Q1
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Context
The forensic accounting research published in 2023 revealed that Queen Anne’s Bounty was linked with African chattel enslavement through investments in the South Sea Company and benefactions from individuals who profited from slavery. The Church Commissioners have been investigating these links since 2019.
My hon. Friend will be aware that there is a lot of interest in the relationship between the Church and the slave trade. Is she able to say over what period the Church made profits from the slave trade? Is she able to specify the names of the companies that the Church invested in, or even the names of the slave plantations? Is she able to quantify exactly how much money the Church made over the period when it was involved in the slave trade? And is she able to say whether the Church’s profit from the slave trade is still part of its income today?
I thank the Mother of the House for the seven or eight questions that she has asked—she will forgive me if I write to her in response to many of those points. To reiterate, the Church received benefaction from individuals who profited from enslavement and invested in the South Sea Company, which was deeply linked with the slave trade. The Church Commissioners have been investigating the Church’s historical links in this area since 2019, and published a full and transparent report in January 2023. I am happy for that document to be shared with my right hon. Friend and it can be placed in the House of Commons Library, if that is helpful. I will write to her, but I am also very happy to meet her, because she shows a keen interest in this area.
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Assessment & feedback
The specific time period, names of companies and plantations, quantified profits from slave trade investments, and current use of those profits were not provided directly in the response.
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