‘Now is the time’ for King Charles to apologise for the British monarchy’s role in the slave trade, with campaigners from Caribbean nations calling for reparations to be paid this year.

The demands are being made by reparation campaigners as well as aristocratic families who have made public apologies for their family’s historic ownership of the enslaved.

Eric Phillips, who is vice chair for the Caricom Reparations Commission group that represents 20 Caribbean nations and states, said ‘now is the time’ for the King to ‘not only apologise’ but become ‘the architect of change’.