Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced he is "open" to the UK formally apologizing for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, but drew a firm line at financial reparations. In a statement that manages to be both historically conscious and fiscally conservative, Burnham said he wanted a "dialogue with those affected" and was open to "calls for an apology," but insisted reparations were "not the right answer."

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Afrikan Reparations welcomed the apology opening, with chair Bell Ribeiro-Addy telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the issue was not just about money. "Acknowledgment is not the same as understanding," she said, adding: "Until we apologise, we are never going to be on equal footing… it's meant to be a family of nations - a Commonwealth - and it's simply not the case." Ribeiro-Addy, MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill, noted that to her knowledge, no invoice for financial reparations has been handed to the UK, so focusing on money misses the point. "My worry is the focus on financial reparations, and I think that is deeply problematic and has not quite listened to what people have said," she said.

The timing is hardly coincidental: next week's Commonwealth leaders summit in the Caribbean looms, and King Charles III is currently touring the region, where calls for an apology have been renewed. During the first leg in the Bahamas, the King referenced the "suffering of the past." Later, in Guyana, he visited the site of a rebellion of enslaved people against British authorities. Burnham, for his part, described the transatlantic slave trade - when Africans were trafficked to the Americas - as a "brutal and barbaric violation" and said Britain must "face up to the past."

But the British government has never formally apologized for slavery or offered reparations, and Burnham is sticking with his predecessors' policy. In a piece for the Guardian, he wrote: "I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part." He did, however, propose a "structured dialogue," adding: "Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process. I am open to them." A government source told the BBC this was "morally the right thing to do."

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has sought reparations, welcomed Burnham's statement and said she would engage in good faith while still seeking reparatory justice. Not everyone was so conciliatory. Denis O'Brien, founder of The Repair Campaign, called the statement disappointing and said it did not go far enough. "The British Government must stop obfuscating and give a full and formal apology now," he said. "This would be a significant and symbolic first step towards reparatory justice."

Downing Street apparently believes strengthening the Commonwealth is in the UK's interest, especially with China and Russia seeking influence - President Vladimir Putin hosted a Russia-Africa summit in Moscow only this week. The historical context is stark: from the 16th Century, English authorities and the monarchy were prominent participants in the centuries-long slave trade. Britain also played a key role in ending it, through Parliament's passage of a law to abolish slavery in 1833. As part of that law, British plantation owners were paid for the loss of people they had enslaved. The UK only finished paying off the debt it incurred to cover those payments in 2015. A UN judge recently described the UK's £18tn slavery debt as an underestimation - a figure that presumably makes even a symbolic apology look like the cheaper option.