Tor history persists despite set to "never"

Lubuntu 20.04
Tor 11.5.1 (64-bit)
Standard security settings
Private browsing mode
Use custom settings for history

Changed the history settings to “never remember”, clear everything in history (apart from site preferences). Then re-start Tor. History settings have reverted to “Custom”. Site history has not been erased.

Lookiing at Data/Browser/profile.default, can see the history in places.sqlite (5MB worth), last updated a few mins ago. Can I just remove this file? Why does history not get cleared?