Health Minister suggests special museum in Wales to house statues of people who don't deserve to be celebrated in public spaces

Answering questions from the media at today's Welsh Government briefing in Cardiff, Vaughan Gethin said he supports the removal of statues to figures linked to slavery and imperialism.

It comes after a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Bristol on Sunday, which saw a statue of slave trader Edward Colston pulled down and thrown into Bristol Harbour by protesters.

Mr Gething said Welsh councils and institutions faced a choice whether to remove such statues or to explain them more clearly.

He said: "I actually think that having museums where you collect statues of people whose past we now recognise is shameful and not something to be celebrated, you still need to explain those people are and what they did and why there's been a change into how those monuments are preserved and put into the public realm.

"The alternative is you maintain them but you explain who they are more clearly.

"I don't support the way the statue was torn down but I absolutely do support the removal of a statue like that.

"You heard what the mayor of Bristol said, there's someone who made his fortune on the backs of people that looked like me and him, either being transported to another part of the world to become slaves or thrown off those ships if they passed away on the way. And he's now at present at the bottom of the water.

"I'd rather see leadership within our democratic institutions to reconsider properly how to reflect what's in our public space, what that tells about our past, but importantly what it tells us about our future.

"The Black Lives Matter movement is not just about replacing statues, its about addressing the structual and continuing diffeences that exist that cannot be justified by the colour of our skin."

People turning their backs on the HM Stanley statue in Denbigh on Saturday. Photo: Alexandra Grace Derwen

In Wales, calls have been made to remove statures of slave-owner of Sir Thomas Picton in Cardiff's City Hall and explorer Sir Henry Morton (H.M.) Stanley that was installed by Denbigh Town Council in March 2010.

Mr Gething said he could not see a time in the near future where the Welsh Government would give out guidance to councils and other bodies as to who they can and cannot erect statues of.

He added: "I think there is a bit of a crossover between my responsibilities as a member of the government and, of course, my own view being the person that I am. I think it's much better for me to make clear that we don't have a Welsh Government policy and I don't expect us to have one anytime soon on giving that sort of national guidance.

"My personal view is that local authorities across Wales should understand perfectly well there are parts of the public realm that celebrate people who should never have been celebrated. It is part of confronting our past and there's a really good example here in the city of Cardiff where the leader of the city has made clear that he wants to see the stature of Mr Picton removed from city hall and he wants to do that with the council formally agreeing to do so. When you've got leadership like that, where they clearly want to see a change, I think that's what we want to see.

"It is much more important that we don't just say that the Black Lives Matter movement and all the causes and injustices that underpin it will be resolved by putting statues into a museum or putting more explanatory plaques up amongst those that may remain."

In England a petition has been launched to remove the statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes from Oxford University's Oriel College and in London a statue of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill was daubed with graffiti.

Signs by the empty plinth where the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol once stood after it was taken down during a Black Lives Matter protest on Sunday. Photo: Ben Birchall/PA Wire

London's mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that the city's landmarks would be reviewed in order to reflect the city's diversity while questioning which legacies are celebrated.

"The Black Lives Matter protests have rightly brought this to the public's attention, but it's important that we take the right steps to work together to bring change and ensure that we can all be proud of our public landscape," he said.

After police stood by while the statue of Edward Colston was pulled down, Downing Street says police must make their own decisions on whether to intervene if anti-racism protesters try to pull down further statues as part of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

Police form up around the Sir Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square, London, ahead of a rally at the Nelson Mandela statue in the square, to commemorate George Floyd, as his funeral takes place in the US following his death on May 25 while in police custody in the US city of Minneapolis. Photo: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire

Boris Johnson told his Cabinet on Tuesday that protesters who break social distancing or attack public property or police "will face the full force of the law", as the killing of George Floyd in the US continued to provoke demonstrations against inequality.

"Police will have to make their own operational decisions based on individual circumstances but I think the PM is very clear that people should not be desecrating public monuments and where they do so they should face the full force of the law," the Prime Minister's official spokesman said.