Commemoration of Henry Dundas

That this House notes with shame that Henry Dundas is commemorated in various monuments, statues and street-names throughout Midlothian and Edinburgh; unreservedly condemns his influential role in obstructing the abolition of the slave trade in Britain; notes that, due to the actions of ‘the Great Tyrant’, more than 630,000 slaves were forced to wait more than a decade for their freedom; agrees with Professor Sir Geoff Palmer’s calls for new wording beneath to be added to the Melville Monument in St Andrew Square to explain Dundas’ actions and attitudes towards the slave trade; and recognises that a more honest narrative is needed about memorialised figures in the slave trade as a crucial step on our journey to becoming a more inclusive and fair society.