Miliband says slavery apology will not bring cost for UK taxpayers

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has insisted the government's willingness to consider formally apologising for the UK's role in the transatlantic slave trade will not lead to higher costs for the British taxpayer. The prime minister has said the UK will not pay reparations to affected countries, but declined to say whether his new approach could involve additional taxpayer money.

"Tony Blair did sort of do a kind of sorry not sorry situation. He kind of expressed sorrow, and then said sorry, and then it was walked back by number 10," Miliband said.

Miliband said the former prime minister's approach was still referred to and came up in a recent conversation between Andy Burnham and the Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley. In addition, Miliband claimed, he and Burnham inherited a more recent mess, which is how the last Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) played out in Samoa two years ago.