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PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Church Assets: Historical Link to Slavery - 22 May 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Debate Detail

Contributions from Marsha De Cordova, are highlighted with a yellow border.
Lab
Ms Diane Abbott
Hackney North and Stoke Newington
10. Whether the commissioners have made an estimate of the proportion of the Church’s assets that may have a link to historical involvement with slavery.
Marsha De Cordova
The Second Church Estates Commissioner
The forensic accounting research published in 2023 revealed that Queen Anne’s Bounty was linked with African chattel enslavement in two main ways: significant investments in the South Sea Company; and benefactions received from individuals whose income may have derived from slavery. The fund for healing, repair and justice is the Church Commissioners’ response to these findings.
  10:35:08
Ms Abbott
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?
Marsha De Cordova
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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