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		</div><p>David Cameron has been pressed to consider making reparations to Caribbean countries for Britain’s role in the slave trade as he arrived for a two-day visit.</p>
<p>The UK Prime Minister flew into Jamaica promising a £200m infrastructure aid boost to “reinvigorate” ties with the region – with UK firms set to compete to build roads, ports and bridges.</p>
<p>He said the cash would make the UK the largest individual donor to the region and that he wanted to concentrate on future relations between the countries not on centuries-old issues.</p>
<p>But his mission was at risk of being overshadowed by a row over whether the former colonial power should apologise and make financial amends for historic slavery.</p>
<p>Jamaican prime minister Portia Simpson Miller said she had raised the controversial question during one-to-one talks with the PM at her official residence in Kingston.</p>
<p>She said she told him that while she was “aware of the obvious sensitivities”, Jamaica was “involved in a process under the auspices of the Caribbean Community to engage the UK on the matter”.</p>
<p>Mr Cameron made no mention of the issue after the talks – but Number 10 said he had made clear to his opposite number that he “understood it was an issue for some people”.</p>
<p>However he “reiterated the long-standing position of the United Kingdom that we do not believe reparations is the right approach”.</p>
<p>Speaking to reporters on the flight to the Caribbean, Mr Cameron made clear he did not want to focus on the issue.</p>
<p>“This is about the future relationship and about what we should be doing together economically in terms of trade and investment and this significant infrastructure fund I am announcing,” he said.</p>
<p>“So that is what the visit is about, it’s talking about the future.”</p>
<p>One Jamaican MP has threatened to boycott the PM’s speech at the country’s parliament if he does not engage on the issue.</p>
<p>Critics have pointed to compensation paid to one of Mr Cameron’s own ancestors for the loss of his slaves at the time of abolition in 1834 as a reason he should personally apologise.</p>
<p>Bert Samuels, a member of Jamaica’s National Commission on Reparations, told Television Jamaica: “His lineage has been traced and his forefathers were slave-owners and benefited from slavery. Therefore he needs to atone, to apologise personally and on behalf of his country.”</p>
<p>He said his countrymen had been “left behind because of racism” and should now be compensated.</p>
<p>The issue of slave-owning nations compensating former colonies for the trade is a hot one in the Caribbean, where national commissions have calculated the sums could run into trillions of dollars.</p>
<p>One suggestion has been that the money could be provided in the form of debt relief.</p>
<p>Mrs Simpson Miller told the United Nations in 2013 there should be “an international discussion in a non-confrontational manner” and its parliament had passed a motion backing reparations.</p>
<p>Jamaican MP Mike Henry told The Gleaner newspaper “If it is not on the agenda, I will not attend any functions involving the visiting prime minister, and I will cry shame on those who do, considering that there was not a dissenting voice in the debate in parliament.”</p>
<p>Records show General James Duff, a first cousin six times removed of the PM who was also an MP, was awarded compensation worth around £3m in today’s terms.</p>
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