Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade

It is a pleasure to be able to take part in this debate, which I congratulate the Government on holding. I particularly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on an absolutely brilliant speech that brought home to everyone in the House, and I hope in wider British society, not only the whole significance of the defeat of the slave trade 200 years ago but the existence of the prejudices that allowed it to develop and to continue. She put the case incredibly well, and I congratulate her on that. On 23 May, an exhibition will open in Westminster Hall called ““The British Slave Trade: Abolition, Parliament and People””; it has been my pleasure to sit on the committee that has been organising it. It tries to emphasise not only the importance of what happened in Parliament but the influences that came from outside Parliament to make it happen in the way that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) very adequately pointed out in his speech.