A long-bubbling story that may boil over in 2026 concerns the Church of England’s plan to make reparations for slavery, to the tune of £100 million. This money would come out of the investments maintained by the Church of England which are supposed to support poorer parishes. Diverting these resources away from parishes would, indeed, require an Act of Parliament.
The historical justification for this proposed scheme depends on a study commissioned by the Church of England itself, whose conclusions have been fiercely contested, notably by Professor Nigel Biggar. I am not going to explore the details of this dispute, not least because their importance is surprisingly unclear. On social media, a common response to Professor Biggar’s arguments seems to be that it does not really matter if, for example, a brief investment by Queen Anne’s Bounty in the South Sea Company was profitable. Rather, the response continues, the very fact that the Church of England existed in the years before Britain abolished slavery in 1833 means that it is tainted and needs to make amends, because the entire British economy benefitted from slavery. The fact that the entire British economy also paid the price of ending slavery does not, apparently, have the same salience.
