MP condemns probe linking slave trade to 343 Commons works of art

A TORY MP last night hit out at a ‘ludicrous’ review of Parliament’s art collection that has identified 68 politicians and 343 works linked to slavery.

The project has named eminent figures such as Robert Peel, William Gladstone and Edmund Burke, despite all of them speaking out against slavery.

Former Tory minister David Jones said Mr Peel was a ‘noted anti-slavery activist’. ‘It’s just extraordinary,’ he added. ‘Frankly, we have got to the stage where the thing is becoming quite ludicrous.

‘Slavery is part of the history of the world. It’s a very sad, regrettable, and frankly appalling part of the history of the world. But nevertheless, it is. It is hard to think of any aspect of the lives of any Western nation that was not touched by slavery.’

Mr Jones said it would be ‘ridiculous’ to have a label on an artwork saying that someone inherited money that had been built up partly through slavery.

‘You visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. It is really, really worrying,’ he said.

Mr Peel, a former prime minister known as the founder of the modern police service, was a noted opponent of slavery and his family were not owners. But he has been tagged because his father made money from cotton-spinning.

Mr Burke, an MP and renowned political thinker regarded as the father of modern Conservatism, was a critic of slavery, but his younger brother apparently speculated on Caribbean plantations.

A total of 343 items have been tagged as featuring people linked to slavery or representations of it in the first 18 months of the review.

One of them is the Speaker’s State Coach, which is said to ‘depict enslaved people’.

The cross-party Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art is considering whether the labelling of the collection or how it is presented should be changed.

The review of 9,000 artefacts was launched in 2020 amid a wave of antiracism protests worldwide that saw the toppling of a statue of merchant Edward Colston in Bristol.

The committee said at the time: ‘In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, the parliamentary art collection is being reviewed to identify depictions of individuals and activities related to the British slave trade and the use of forced labour of enslaved Africans and others in British colonies and beyond.’

A spokesman for the Speaker’s committee said: ‘The purpose of the list – which is under continuous review – is to ensure accuracy within Parliament’s collections and to catalogue items which relate to the transatlantic slave trade.’

‘This is becoming quite ludicrous’