Black Lives Matter: Protests

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Ribeiro

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I commend the noble Baroness on all that she has done in securing a Windrush Day and on the work she has done on the Windrush monument at Waterloo to commemorate those people who arrived here to rebuild this country after the war. On a national slavery monument, I do not know whether the noble Baroness knows the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool—I bet she does. I am racking my brains to remember whether there is actually a statue outside it, but positioned as it is, in the very heart of a city built in many ways on slavery, it is a reminder to us all of why black lives matter.

[Lord Ribeiro (Con) [V]]

My Lords, do not take down statues; take down racism. These were the words of Sir Geoff Palmer, Scotland’s first black professor and currently emeritus professor of life sciences at Heriot-Watt University. I agree with these sentiments and believe that the statues should remain, but they should have a clear description attached detailing the contributions made by the subjects and how they achieved their wealth and status. When I worked as a young surgeon in Ghana in the 1970s, I was struck by a bust of Queen Victoria on a pedestal in Victoria Park in Cape Coast—the very place where slaves left to go to America. Ghanaians may have many reasons for wanting to remove the bust of Queen Victoria—a queen who represented Britain at the height of its imperial power. That statue remains because it is part of Ghana’s history. We should leave the statues where they are but explain why they are there. Will my noble friend undertake to do this?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend. To take things down is to erase history, and erasing history is absolutely not what we should be about in educating our children about the misdemeanours of the past, as well as the great things of the past—the people who built our country. He is absolutely right: we should take down racism but not legacies of our history, which seek to educate us all. I pass many statues in and around Westminster. Some of them are offensive to me. I understand why others are there and they are a learning point for history.