In his opinion piece ( 30 October ), Andy Burnham argues that British people today cannot be held liable for historical wrongs “in which they played no personal part”. On one level, he is right. But he confuses two very different things: personal liability and the continuing responsibility of the state.

When slavery was abolished in the British empire in 1833, the government borrowed £20m – an extraordinary sum then – to compensate enslavers for the loss of their supposed property. Some 40,000 claims were made. The British taxpayer carried the cost, and the resulting public debt was not finally cleared until 2015.

Around 3,000 people in Britain received about half of the compensation fund.…