As King Charles tours the Caribbean, I find myself wondering what has been discussed behind closed doors between him and Andy Burnham.

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We can only speculate, of course. But we know the King and the Prime Minister meet every week. They always have. I would be very surprised if they had not discussed reparatory justice and, more importantly, how to approach it.

The King has played this well so far. He is a brilliant statesman. We saw that in his extraordinary address to the US Congress earlier this year. He knows how to handle difficult conversations, and I think he understands the significance of this moment.

Burnham's announcement that he is open to a formal apology, coming just before the Commonwealth summit in Antigua and Barbuda, was very well timed. Now the King is in the Caribbean, and I will be watching very closely to see what the two of them say next. I rather hope we are going to be surprised.

There is a reason this matters so much to me. I am descended from six members of the Trevelyan family who, in 1835, shared £29,000 in compensation for owning 1,004 enslaved people on the island of Grenada.

When slavery was abolished, the British government........

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