Grand Committee

Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

Thursday 20 March 2025

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

Committee (3rd Day)

13:00

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

Good afternoon, my Lords. Welcome to the third day of the Grand Committee on the Holocaust Memorial Bill. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, which we are not expecting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.

Clause 2: Removal of restrictions in relation to certain land

Amendment 8

Moved by

[Lord Strathcarron]

8: Clause 2, page 1, line 18, at end insert “, subject to the total area used for such activities not exceeding either 1429 square metres or the area shown in the plan in appendix 4 of the letter sent by the Promoter to the House of Commons Holocaust Memorial Bill Select Committee on 5 February 2024, including in that total area any—
(a) entrance pavilion,(b) courtyard,(c) ramp,(d) associated hard standing,(e) service access,(f) ticketing and security facilities,(g) access paths,(h) areas enclosed to ensure the security of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, and(i) areas not accessible to the public.”

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 8 simply seeks to ensure that the area taken up by the Holocaust memorial and learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens will not occupy an area any greater than is required, should it go ahead as currently proposed. One thousand four hundred and twenty-nine square metres has been accepted as the area required. I note that the Government have further provided assurances that this will be the case.

In January 2024, the Government gave the Select Committee in the House of Commons the following assurance:

“the Promoter will only site the permanent buildings and other … structures comprising a Holocaust memorial and learning centre and its ancillary facilities … on, under and over … land”

according to a plan submitted to that committee on 5 February 2024, citing once again the 1,429 square metre figure.

The proportion of the park to be taken up by the Holocaust memorial has long been disputed. The planning inspector’s report stated that “the area directly affected by the proposals would in my view be likely to be greater than the 7.5% calculation”. The proposed design of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre is so dominant and disproportionate that, as the inspector’s report also stated, “its role as the setting for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre inevitably becomes the more substantial element of its identity as a public space.” Thankfully, he did not go on to repeat the architect’s desire that it should also disrupt the peace of the park, although one could draw that conclusion from the planning inspector’s remarks.

Confusion concerning the precise square metreage in question has arisen because of a Written Answer given by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, to this House in March and April 2023, in response to a Written Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, about the total area needed. The noble Baroness’s answer said that the area was intended to cover

“both the size of Victoria Tower Gardens and the area taken by the Holocaust Memorial above ground within the park.”

However, inadvertently, the noble Baroness then stated in the subsequent text of her answer that the area of 1,429 square metres also included the enclosed Holocaust memorial courtyard with its ramp and entrance pavilion, its fence, and the associated hard-standing items A to D, as per my amendment; but also, five other areas specified in the amendment as E, F, G, H and I—all of these within the 1,429 square-metre area. At the same time, it provided a plan of the area which excludes the five areas, E, F, G, H and I. This plan was repeated in the letter addressed by the promoter’s lawyers to the Commons Select Committee on 5 February, and has been repeated since then.

Given these official inconsistencies concerning the actual area affected by the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, I propose that Clause 2 of the Bill should be amended to include a clear limit in terms of square metreage—1,429 square metres, as previously claimed—or to include an appropriate amendment to the plan submitted by the Government to the Commons Select Committee on 5 February 2024.

This is all fundamental, and we really must sort this out. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 14 says that the proposed monument must not be extended or altered in any “replacement scheme”. On this occasion, I shall be relatively brief.

It was my experience as a constituency MP that developers would get planning permission for, say, 20 houses, and then a few months later bung in a revised application for 30 or 40 houses, or one to convert bungalows into two-storey houses. It is a well-known planning racket, and it works because local councils conclude that they would have to spend a fortune on planning appeals which they might not win, on the grounds that they had already given permission for some sort of development, so how could they resist additional development? This is what we must prevent happening here.

We know that the department is considering tweaks to the plans, and many of us have been hypercritical of the inadequacy of the so-called learning centre in the bunker. We have amendments down later on the need for new planning permission, but what is to stop the department saying that the planning rejection was called in already and that the inspector ruled in favour, so no new planning permission is needed—and then use its own powers to alter the plans on the ground that they are just minor tweaks?

The original planning application is six years old and a new application to Westminster City Council is essential, in the view of most of us on this side of the argument. We know that the department wants to avoid that public scrutiny and refused to submit the new application, saying that nothing has changed, but it cannot be trusted. After the Commons Select Committee reported, I met its chairman, who has since lost his seat in the election last year. He said that he and most of the committee were appalled at the lies and disinformation about the project. Nothing that the department or its lawyers produced could be trusted, but their hands were tied by the resolution passed by the Government in the Commons: that they were forbidden to look at any of the flaws, inadequacies, misinformation or downright lies that they had been told.

The Government gave assurances following the Lords Select Committee report, and these two assurances are relevant here. Assurance 7 is about the exact location of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre within Victoria Tower Gardens. It basically relies on the as yet unspecified planning process to deliver an acceptable proposal. Assurance 8 focuses on a redesign of the area around the Buxton memorial. They promised to give detailed consideration and claim that they had already gone back to their design team. What does that prove? They are going to have to go back to get detailed designs anyway, and there is no indication that they will increase the gap between the two memorials.

There is no one, other than at planning, to opine on whether the calibre of the new design delivers insignificant adjustments which count, since the only way to do that is to redesign the whole memorial and learning centre, or to move the Buxton memorial so that they are further apart. I also support the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lord Strathcarron and Lord Robathan.

We can all guess what will happen: the department will use the figure of 1,429 square metres for the building but will then have some fairly wide paths for people to queue, or for admission and searches. Then a police or security box will be added—and how could one possibly complain about that? Then there will be hard-standing areas at the back for vehicles to load and unload, and probably maintenance trucks. If there will be vehicles, will there be vehicle access from Millbank? We will be told that it will be essential to let in fire engines—and if there is a fire, how could we possibly oppose letting those in? They will inevitably build some facility above ground for what they will call essential maintenance support, or electrical power sheds. Has anyone ever heard of or seen an underground visitor centre without some fairly large above-ground support facility? Of course not.

I simply want an assurance from the Government that if this Bill passes, there will not be the slightest change in the design or location, and that they will not seek to make it larger by claiming that the 1,429 square metres relates only to the space below ground. All the items in my noble friend’s Amendment 8 are essential accoutrements, for which planning permission is not required or they say are taken as read.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to say a word or two in support of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the amendments on size. I will then move on to my Clause 2 stand part notice.

On size, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has said pretty much all that can be said. The precise measurements do not allow for what I call “milling around”—that is, all the ancillaries, with people moving around and queuing for this and that. Clause 1(1)(b) is also a slippery slope because it allows for “work ancillary to” the construction of the memorial. There will be no holding back because Clause 1(3) allows for “extension, alteration and re-erection”. In other words, unless we limit this, there will be no holding back; the whole of the park will be taken over.

I want to say a word about the kiosk, which will take up some space. I am amazed that anyone would support a little wooden hut selling Coke and crisps. It will not even have tables, I believe—just benches and maybe chairs, which will simply generate litter. One can hardly imagine being in the middle of Whitehall during a remembrance ceremony, or at Westminster Abbey when there is a memorial service, and there being allowed a wooden kiosk with people queuing up, distributing litter and so on. It just shows the insensitivity that pervades this whole project.

I now turn to Clause 2 stand part. If the clause were removed, we would have a good Bill. The removal of restrictions in relation to certain land, as set out in Section 8 of the London County Council (Improvements) Act, does not prevent

“the carrying out of any of the activities described in paragraphs (a) to (c) of section 1(1) on, over, under or otherwise in relation to the land”.

We would be left with Clause 1, which permits expenditure

“on, over or under any land”

for a memorial and learning centre. This would enable the Government to go out and talk to experts in the field and to ask whether there is a need for another memorial and learning centre; what they would add to the existing six memorials and 21 learning centres that people seem so unaware of; what impact another might have; how to promote learning in a digital age; and what one is supposed to learn, and from what events.

Dropping Clause 2 would enable the Government to take into account the views of the late Lord Sacks, of blessed memory, who wanted the Holocaust to be set in context. It would enable the Government to take account of scholars who understand that the teaching of the Jewish genocide, known as the Shoah, must not be presented alongside other genocides because that obfuscates whatever lessons are to be learned and diverts attention away from centuries of antisemitism in this country and across the world. It also opens the door to the dilution of the words “Holocaust” and “genocide”, which we see today when they are used casually to describe anything that people find abhorrent; they can even be turned against the Jewish people themselves. The aims of Lord Sacks would be met by building a new Jewish museum, which would incorporate the Holocaust as experienced here but in the context of a thousand years of Jewish life in this country—its triumphs, tragedies, contribution and dispossession.

I do not understand the thinking behind the initial decision, described by Mr Ed Balls at the public inquiry as a “moment of genius”, to site the memorial and learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens. No studies, research or consultation went into the choice of the site before it was decided to place it there. Objectors noted the prohibition in the 1900 Act, the breaking of the promises to the park’s benefactor, WH Smith, and what the consequences would be. Only this week, Victoria Tower Gardens was listed as one of Europe’s most endangered heritage sites by European organisations.

The results of the decision, probably made for reasons of economy, are dire and will have two profoundly undermining consequences. First, the promoters have had to justify the choice by specious and vague references to democracy; this has turned the project from a memorial to the victims of Nazism into a reassuring and political project about British values. Secondly, the physical constraint of VTG has resulted in the promised world-class learning centre being converted into a visitors’ centre.

13:15

Clause 2 is vandalising clause. It removes the protection afforded to the green space of VTG for more than a century, and wrecks the aspirations of the Prime Minister's Holocaust Commission report in 2015, which recommended a large campus with room for a lecture hall, classrooms, an online hub, the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust exhibition, offices for all the Holocaust education bodies and a professorship dedicated to transforming Holocaust education. This has virtually all been abandoned because the site chosen is too small and too difficult to encompass any of that. The use of technology has rendered the need for space smaller but, indeed, so great is the advance of technology that, frankly, from what we have seen of the underground learning centre it does not need a building at all. The whole thing could be contained in a set of slides and made available on every computer in every school and home in the land.

The survivors’ remembrances have already been achieved by the recordings of their experiences in the British Library and the new Holocaust portal, created in no small measure due to the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, to whom we are grateful, and the many excellent films on the Holocaust. An uninformed visitor would learn more from watching two good movies on the Holocaust than from a 45-minute walk through the underground learning centre. One has to ask what remains to be achieved. The only thing that we need to achieve these days is the destruction of antisemitism, a topic not addressed in this project.

The green space is going, leaving the residents in blocks of flats around here, many of which are social housing Peabody buildings, high and dry. They have nowhere else to go. They do not have their own gardens. They have nowhere else to take their children. It is contrary to the Government’s policy. The Government’s environmental improvement plan contains a commitment for every household to be within a 15-minute walk of green space, and that is going. In addition, it will soon all be cluttered up with restoration and renewal building materials for 20 or 30 years to come. That same green space was used extensively when the late Queen had her lying-in-state and then for the coronation, and those are not one-off events. The World Heritage status is threatened, and we will come to that later. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority regards the building there as undeliverable and not, I emphasise, for planning permission reasons. The expense is eye-watering and unknown, and so far not even a spade has entered the soil. No contractors have been found and the designers, Adjaye Associates, are now suffering a loss.

Why was Victoria Tower Gardens chosen? Because it was free. It is not free. It is a taxpayers’ burden. The only case for it, made by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, at the planning inquiry, was that visitors would emerge to a view of the Palace of Westminster and think that it could not happen here. The exhibition, however, as far as we know, is not about the death camps, but more about refugees and Britain, and their sad stories, such as the parents of the kinder in the Kindertransport being refused entry and the barring of what might have been a refuge in Palestine. Those decisions took place right here in Whitehall, and every week now the anti-Jewish marches proceed unhindered close to Westminster. Our students are persecuted on campus without redress from Parliament. The siting argument based on democracy is false, to put it mildly. It is virtue signalling at others’ expense. It was not in the published Labour manifesto of 2024, on which the population voted, but in the King’s Speech. I have gone through the online manifesto repeatedly and not found it.

Clause 2 is a betrayal of the trust placed in the Government by the original donors of VPG, and a betrayal of those who have relied on the statute for more than a century. The destruction of greenery is contrary to Jewish values. It is a provocation to protesters. They are, of course, not a reason not to build, but one has to be prepared for the vandalism, the security, the armed guards and the bag checking. It will be an obstacle to the best way forward for R&R. It is unduly expensive because of the need to build down two storeys, leaving a mound which will further obscure a large chunk of the garden.

There is plenty of room elsewhere in central London for another memorial, says the 2015 commission, which drew a map of a large area. Vast sums could be saved by placing a memorial in VCG, with the learning centre elsewhere—for example, Richmond House, which has an ideal forecourt, or the former Museum of London site.

There is no hurry. It is the Government’s own fault if this is delayed because of the choice of VCG. They can swiftly put a better memorial in VCG and search for a proper learning centre elsewhere. In saying this, I am supported by several Holocaust survivors, including the formidable Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who survived Auschwitz because she could play the cello, which was needed, ironically, for the camp orchestra—the Germans being such a cultured people. She called these plans “rubbish” in her evidence to the Commons Select Committee. If she has called them rubbish and has asked what could possibly be learned, we should respect her judgment. No one other than her could be more informed, and no one more upset by this ill-judged Bill.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

I just remind the Committee of the normal time limits for speaking.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

They are advisory only.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I just say a few words in support of my noble friend Lord Strathcarron’s Amendments 8 and 17. Projects such as this are always liable to mission creep. This has already had quite a lot of mission creep attached to it, and I can see many reasons why there might be further mission creep in future. My noble friend has undertaken a valuable role in drawing attention to the areas where this might happen and, therefore, bringing in the agreements and undertakings so far given by the Government and the promoters of the Bill. That relates to Amendment 8, and my noble friend Lord Blencathra has also underlined many of the words and excuses that will be used for wishing to go wider than originally anticipated.

Amendment 17 would help guarantee that this does not become a way for creep in the future. We can stop mission creep as far as this project is concerned, but there may be subsequent creep thereafter. The amendment is therefore very valuable, because this is controversial and all sides are entitled to know exactly what is proposed. I honestly cannot see how the Government and promoters—if they are being honest—can refuse to accept an invitation that lays everything out clearly and precisely so that we know where we are from the beginning.

These two amendments therefore have my support.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I am pleased that the Government have allocated additional days to discuss the Bill, but I am slightly concerned that we are becoming repetitious and are in danger of spending more time on it than we are spending in Committee on reform of the House of Lords.

I have a couple of points. If I am honest, I do not entirely understand Amendment 17. My reading of the Bill is that we are not repealing the 1900 Act, we are just disapplying it. Anyone wishing to build outside the area that has planning permission would have to go through this process again and would require a special Act of Parliament to disapply the 1900 Act.

We should also be clear about Mr WH Smith—a name that looks like it is about to disappear from our high streets. His principal concern was to prevent wharfs being built next to the House because of the risks that would have in terms of industrial activity, and the risk of fire it posed to the House. I am sure that his wishes are not in any way being diminished by the various statues that have gone up in the intervening period.

I am sorry to repeat this, but Parliament has long decided how to deal with matters such as this, and it is through the planning Acts. They have a process whereby objectors can object and ideas are tested. That seems the most appropriate way of doing it, not setting up a separate system where the House of Lords is judge and jury in its own case.

I recognise that people have strong views, but I am disappointed that we are hearing repeats of things that are plainly untrue. There is no suggestion that this will be anything other than something that commemorates the Holocaust—the Shoah. Any references to other genocides are peripheral and probably will occur under two circumstances. One of the outcomes of that terrible event was the creation of crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide. They give the lie to “never again”. It is important that this memorial is not celebratory of British involvement but is “warts and all”, to use Mr Cromwell’s phrase.

The question is: who supports this? It is unseemly to play Top Trumps with Holocaust survivors. I could reel off a whole bunch of Holocaust survivors who have been supportive of this from the very beginning.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go with the Minister to Ron Arad’s headquarters up in Chalk Farm, where there is a beautiful model laid out, which I hope the Committee will get an opportunity to look at—certainly, the House should do so—as many of the worries would disappear. Far from this memorial dominating the Buxton memorial, it would lie considerably below the very top of it. Far from it dominating the park, it would enhance it, and it seems very sensible. The Minister and I were fortunate to be joined by the Chief Rabbi, who has taken a great interest in this matter, as did the late Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory. I can remember lots of discussions with Rabbi Sacks on this.

The Chief Rabbi is entirely happy with the design, the purpose and the like. I am not Jewish; I cannot make a judgment, but I think I am entitled to take the views of the Chief Rabbi in preference to those of others in this Committee. I hope, now that we are close to the possibility of coming to a decision on this, we will not drag our feet and repeat points that we made earlier, interesting though they are. Can we just get on with the job?

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I was not planning to speak on this group, but I want to respond to some of the points that have been made. I agree completely with what the noble Baroness said about antisemitism and the marches in London—I think she knows that. She, the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and I were all at a briefing by the historians working on the contents for this, who assured us that it would be specifically and only about the Holocaust, not about genocides generally, and that it would not relativise or compare the Holocaust to other genocides. We have been assured about that repeatedly by the Minister and the people working on the content, and we should accept that assurance.

On the question of the location, the Holocaust Commission recommended a new national memorial in central London

“to attract the largest possible number of visitors and to make a bold statement about the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust”.

Victoria Tower Gardens was chosen as the right setting because it would be a permanent reminder, as we have said before, to people next door in Parliament, to UK citizens and to visitors from all over the world of what can happen when politics is poisoned by racism and extremism.

If you go to Berlin, you will see its Holocaust memorial and learning centre right at the centre of its national life. If you go to Paris, you will struggle to find it, and in Vienna, it is a bizarre concrete block tucked away in a square, miles from anywhere. It would be much better to have this right at the centre of our national life, too.

There are serious voices in the Jewish community who do not support this, not least the noble Baroness, and I respect them, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of Holocaust survivors and refugees, their families and the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community support this project. As we heard a moment ago, the Chief Rabbi is not only happy about this project but described the venue as inspirational—his word—and said,

“it is in a prime place of … prominence and it is at the heart of our democracy”.

13:30

Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich asked:

“What better symbol to remind our parliamentarians and the wider public of where apathy as well as prejudice and hate can ultimately lead?”

Her brother, the late Sir Ben Helfgott, was one of the driving forces behind this project, and its location. Manfred Goldberg said just last year that:

“I was 84 when Prime Minister David Cameron first promised us survivors a national Holocaust Memorial in close proximity to the Houses of Parliament. Last month I celebrated my 93rd birthday and I pray to be able to attend the opening of this important project”.

I could quote lots of other Holocaust survivors making exactly the same points.

On the size of the thing, given that we have had many assurances—from Ministers of the current Government, and the last Government—and every opportunity to look at it, we have reached the point where we ought to accept that it is just going to take up 7.5% of the park. I have looked at the plans and the data, and it seems to me to be completely accurate.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. As I understand it—and I am prepared to be corrected—neither of these amendments amend the plan. They just say that the plan must be stuck to, so all they are concerned about is what I describe as mission creep. Secondly, vanishingly few of us—certainly not me, and, I think, nobody else here—object to the idea of a memorial. Thirdly, he will understand that no Minister, of any party, can bind their successors. Assurances are fine, but circumstances change and so can the arrangements and the background to which assurances were given. All these amendments are seeking to do, I think, is to make sure that the assurances given by my party’s Front Bench—and, no doubt, by the noble Lord, Lord Khan, in due course—can be put into legislation, into statutory form, so we have assurances that it will not go any further than that.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

People have argued against this proposal from day one. They have argued against not just the location but the idea of having a memorial and it being in Victoria Tower Gardens. I accept and understand that the tactics now are to say, “Well, look, we are not against the memorial being in Victoria Tower Gardens, but we do not like the design or the size”, or some other spurious reason, and to drag this whole process out for as long as possible and make it as controversial as possible in the hope that, in the end, the Government will change their plans or drop the whole thing in its entirety.

I say this to noble Lords: people can table all the amendments they like, and we can have all the lengthy debates they want. I think there is cross-party support for this project. There is majority support in both Houses and, as I have said, widespread support in the Jewish community, too. It is about time we stopped tabling amendments and having lengthy, repetitive debates on the same points week after week. I can see that the noble Lord is about to get up and make all the same points once again, but we will respond to them, and we can drag this out for as long as he wants.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I cannot speak for my noble friends, but I deeply resent the suggestion that our suggestions for a proper memorial are somehow a tactic to delay and destroy the Bill. All of us on this side of the argument are deeply committed to a proper memorial, the memorial the Holocaust Commission recommended: one which is appropriately British and which recognises the killing of 6 million Jews, not the thing that was accepted by the last Government. I exempt the Minister from most of the blame for this; he is carrying on the vanity proposals of the Cameron Government.

I want to get to the bottom of a comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Austin, and my noble friend Lord Pickles: that it is purely for the Shoah, and no other genocides will be there. But paragraph 3 of the Explanatory Notes refers to

“the persecution … of other groups … subsequently”.

On Second Reading, the Minister said:

“The learning centre will also address subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur”.—[Official Report, 4/9/24; col. GC 1224.]


Is the noble Lord saying that the Minister was lying when he told the House on Second Reading that it would commemorate other genocides? Was he telling the truth, was he misguided, or was it a lie? [Interruption.]

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Let me respond to that point; it is a valid question, and I want to answer it. Every single Member of this House and the other place had the opportunity to sit down with the historian responsible for the content. As far as I am aware, the only three people who have bothered to take part in any of these debates are myself, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Pickles. I think it fair to say that all three of us were impressed by what we were told by the historian, who assured us—we have also had this assurance from the Minister and the relevant officials—that this will be a memorial to the Holocaust, not to genocides in general. It may be the case that, as people leave, there is a board saying, “Since then, there have been atrocities in Cambodia and Darfur, so clearly, we have not yet learned the lessons”. But this is specifically and solely about the Holocaust.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

In his argumentum ad historian, is the noble Lord suggesting that the rest of us do not know our history of the Holocaust? If so, that is extremely insulting.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Of course I am not suggesting that; I would never do so.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

That is what the noble Lord just suggested.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Hold on. Let me be really clear about this. Of course I am not suggesting that—not for one moment. What I said, very specifically—the noble Lord should concede this—was about the historian responsible for the content of the memorial. I was speaking about that specifically and not about anybody else’s knowledge of the history of the Holocaust. I would never do that. I would not presume to do that—certainly not to the noble Lord; I really would not.

I offer this right now: let us ask that historian to come back to Parliament before our next session. I hope that everybody here who is concerned about this matter will attend. They can sit down with him, listen to his assurances, and look at the plans and the content in detail.

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Austin, says that he wants to move things on in this Committee; I completely agree with him. So why does not he let the Minister answer the direct question about the assurances—or non-assurances—he gave about the content, rather than wasting our time with talk about historians, very interesting though it is? I attended an online seminar, and it is nonsense to say that no other noble Lords listened to what the historian had to propose. Instead of the noble Lord speaking for the Government, it would be interesting if, in due course, we moved on and let the Minister answer the charge that has been made by my noble friend Lord Blencathra and others.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord seems to have no objection to people making lengthy speeches on all sorts of points and tabling a million amendments that support his argument, but he objects now. This is a debate: people make points and others are allowed to respond to them. That is how it works. I offer the noble Lord this: if he can get everybody else not to make lengthy, repetitive speeches on spurious points, I will be very happy not to respond to them.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

What about the consultation’s representation of the Jewish community? That has never happened. There is a saying in the Jewish community: when you have two Jews, there are three opinions, and if you have one synagogue you have to have another one because someone has to have a synagogue they will not go to. A Rabbi of the Orthodox persuasion, which is about one-third of the community—he is a leader there—is opposed to this project, as is Rabbi Dr Romain, the recent leader of the Reform Judaism element. There is no one view. There has been no proper consultation, and most people have no idea what the design is or what will be in the learning centre.

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, we are having a civilised discussion about this matter, but it is quite clear how controversial it is. It is also quite clear that, once the building begins, and as it proceeds, the traffic is disrupted and the Victoria Tower Gardens become a building site, there will be a less civilised discussion outside this House.

My fear is—I expressed this at Second Reading and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has expressed the same fear—that this project will become a focus for antisemitism. People will blame it on the Jews, it will become a focus and the underlying message of the Holocaust memorial will be lost. It will be lost in controversy about the present day, not the past. It will become, I fear, a focus for demonstrations in the way that the American embassy was back in the 1960s over the Vietnam War.

All kinds of authorities are being quoted and all kinds of theories have been put forward, but as Members of this House we owe it to the House and to the public to express our views and fears. My warning is that proceeding along the lines that we are doing is going to do very great harm. It is going to promote antisemitism and it is going to be the reverse of everything that a Holocaust memorial should be.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to, in the nicest possible way, challenge the noble Lord, Lord Austin, again. I am not sure whether he was here when we had our discussion on how the project would be managed. He quotes the advice of historians. The historians are advisory only. They are utterly irrelevant in deciding the end output of the learning centre. We discussed it last week and I produced the chart from the National Audit Office showing the hierarchy and structure. We have a foundation advisory board and an academic advisory board, but they sit under the ultimate direction of the Secretary of State and the Minister, who make the decision, so the historians can have any view they like. I prefer to believe the view of the Minister. It was a Minister who said at Second Reading that subsequent generations of genocides will be commemorated as well. I think that is terribly important, and we take the Minister at his word. If the Minister cares to say afterwards that he was wrong or that that is not the case and no other genocides will be considered in this memorial centre, then, again, I will take the word of the Minister for that, but the Committee needs to know. Is it still the Government’s view, which they expressed at Second Reading, that these subsequent genocides will be commemorated?

I neglected to comment on Clause 2 stand part. I shall do so briefly. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that Clause 2 should not stand part of the Bill only for the underground learning centre. We are all happy to have a proper memorial that is relevant to the 6 million murdered Jews, but the underground learning centre fails to fulfil any of the Holocaust Commission’s requirements that it should be a large campus with a conference centre and facilities for debates and meetings, a place where Jewish organisations could have rooms and offices to continue Jewish education. The Holocaust Commission recommended three sites: Potter’s Field, a site further down Millbank that the Reuben brothers were willing to donate and, of course, the Imperial War Museum, which was gagging to build a huge new learning centre attached to its museum. We have not heard a single reason why those sites were rejected. I think my noble friend Lord Finkelstein or my noble friend Lord Pickles or the Minister said earlier in our debates that 50 other sites were considered. Okay, 50 other sites were considered, but we have not had a single reason why the three sites recommended by the Holocaust Commission were rejected. So I think that Clause 2 should not stand part of the Bill, particularly the part about the underground learning centre. We need to have a proper one that will do all the things that the Holocaust Commission recommended. Note that no one in the Government or the previous Government or my noble friends talk about the Holocaust Commission now, because we know that this project has completely ditched everything that it called for. Just as they never mention the name of the discredited architect Adjaye, they never mention the Holocaust Commission, which is now regarded as out of date and whose proposals are no longer relevant. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that Clause 2 should not stand part of the Bill.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, I support what my noble friend has just said. I very much admire the commission’s report and I think that the way that it is being treated now shows a degree of disrespect that is little short of appalling. The debate that we have just heard from my noble friend Lord Pickles and the noble Lord, Lord Austin, is completely irrelevant to the actuality of what is being proposed and the difference between it and what the commission recommended.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

I am sorry that my noble friend sees this in such personal terms. I do not see people objecting to this at all in a personal way; they are expressing a perfectly reasonable right. I apologise if my intervention earlier rather excited one or two colleagues to some rather verbose interjections.

13:45

All I can say is that there has not been a single Holocaust memorial anywhere in the world on which this kind of debate has not taken place. It is a good thing. It is a good thing that we are not a compliant nation; it is a good thing that we have regular ways of sorting these things out, which is through the planning process. That will give people the opportunity to make these points to an independent person. That seems reasonable.

While I am on my feet, I just say that one addition to the memorial will be a permanent memorial to the British citizens who died in the camps. There is a surprisingly large number of them who were trapped on the continent.

I hope that we can address these points in a collegiate way. I was trying to address them by noting that, given that the 1900 Act still applies, quite a lot of these amendments are simply not necessary.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 17 in my name, which I do not think has been particularly addressed. I reply, in part, to my noble friend Lord Pickles: this tries to stop any ambiguity that might be there, and which I think still is there. The amendment is intended to clarify that there is a defined limit to the area for which the 1900 Act is being disapplied and that it relates only to the areas on which the Holocaust memorial and learning centre will be built.

The Government have been at pains not to repeal Section 8 of the 1900 Act, only to disapply it in a limited manner. It will obviously be the source of even greater later confusion than it is now if it is not made totally clear at this stage exactly what the area is, on what criteria that is based and what precisely the defined area will be used for.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Strathcarron for introducing this group, which is primarily focused on design. I would like to make it clear to my noble friend that, in relation to the accusation that he made about my inconsistencies in figures relating to the amount of the park that would be required for the memorial, I will look into it and respond to him personally.

Clearly, the planning process will, as we have heard numerous times from my noble friend Lord Pickles, take into account concerns about the design of the memorial and learning centre. I hope that the Minister—I will ask him once again—can give the Committee more detail on how these concerns can be raised in an appropriate way, at an appropriate time. It is crucial that the Government bring people with them when pressing ahead with these plans, as we know how strongly people feel. We feel it would be helpful if the Minister could take this opportunity to set out the next stages of progress after the passage of this Bill, particularly the processes for the planning stage. If he is unable to do so this afternoon, it would be helpful for the Committee to have these details in writing well before Report.

I will speak to Amendments 8 and 14. The principle behind Amendment 8 is very sensible: it seeks to protect the interests of existing users of Victoria Tower Gardens while construction is under way. Perhaps this need not be set down in legislation, but I am pleased that my noble friend has brought this amendment forward. This should certainly be addressed during the planning process.

Amendment 14, in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, seeks to extend any limit to the size of the memorial and learning centre to any replacement memorial and centre in the future. We are not sure that this Bill is the right place to put a limit on the size of the centre, but we accept that my noble friend has legitimate and deeply felt concerns about the impact that the memorial and centre will have on Victoria Tower Gardens.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

If this Bill is not the appropriate vehicle to put a limit on the size, what would be?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The appropriate vehicle for all these issues, apart from what is in the simple Bill before us, is the planning process. I sometimes feel quite uncomfortable discussing the issues that we discuss, because they can pre-empt planning decisions. We have to be very cautious about what we say in this Committee.

I regret that I cannot support the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, in her Clause 2 stand part notice, which seeks to leave in place the existing legal prohibitions on the development of Victoria Tower Gardens. I have spoken previously about, and will repeat, the importance of the symbolism of establishing the Holocaust memorial here in Westminster, in the shadow of the mother of all Parliaments. I believe that this is an important statement of how important we consider Holocaust education to be. After all, it is our duty, as a Parliament, to protect the rights of minorities and learn the lessons of the Holocaust ourselves so that this never happens again.

Amendment 17 is very good, and I thank my noble friend Lord Strathcarron. I do not quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, on this. When the Conservatives were in government, we put plans in place to limit the impact of construction on the rest of Victoria Tower Gardens, and we agree that the gardens should be protected for their existing use as far as possible. I urge the Government to listen to my noble friend Lord Strathcarron’s argument and ensure that protection for the rest of the gardens is put on a statutory footing, as the gardens as a whole are currently protected in law.

That said, I hope the Minister will listen carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who has long taken such a keen and passionate interest in this Bill. I know how deeply she feels about this legislation. The Government should take her concerns seriously and provide her and the rest of the Committee with reassurances, where possible.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been another passionate debate showing the strength of feeling on different sides. Yesterday, I was at the Ron Arad Studio alongside the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and I saw the 3D model for the first time, in person. I will bring the model into Parliament, into this House, and book a space for all noble Lords to have the opportunity to look at it and question a representative of the architects’ firm, who can talk through the model. On the back of the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Austin, I will also invite the historian Martin Winstone back into the House and give noble Lords another opportunity to engage with him, ask him questions and listen to his perspective. I start today by giving those two assurances.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Strathcarron and Lord Blencathra, for tabling their amendments. It would be appropriate, alongside these amendments, to argue that Clause 2 should stand part of the Bill.

This group of amendments takes us to the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900. The Act led to the creation of Victoria Tower Gardens in broadly its current form. The 1900 Act was then at the heart of the High Court case in 2022 that led to the removal of planning consent for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. The previous Government, with cross-party support, introduced this Bill to remove the obstacle identified by the High Court. That was the right way to proceed. Parliament passed the Act in 1900, extending Victoria Tower Gardens and making them available for the public. It is right that Parliament should be asked to consider whether, in all the circumstances of the modern world, the 1900 Act should continue to prevent construction of a Holocaust memorial and learning centre in these gardens.

The Bill is short. It does not seek powers to bypass the proper procedures for seeking planning consent. With this one simple clause—Clause 2—the obstacle of the 1900 Act is lifted. No part of the 1900 Act is repealed. No general permission is sought for development. The only relaxation of restrictions concerns the creation of a memorial recalling an event that challenged the foundations of civilisation. That is the question posed to Parliament by Clause 2. It does not require hair-splitting over the number of square metres that should be allowed for a path or a hard standing; those are proper and important matters for the planning system, which is far better equipped to handle them than a Grand Committee of your Lordships’ House.

I would like to say a brief word about why Victoria Tower Gardens were chosen as the location for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, an issue of concern raised by a number of noble Lords. After an extensive search for suitable sites, Victoria Tower Gardens were identified as the site uniquely capable of meeting the Government’s vision for the memorial; its historical, emotional and political significance substantially outweighed all other locations. The Holocaust memorial and learning centre was also seen to be in keeping with other memorials sited in the gardens representing struggles for equality and justice.

The 1900 Act requires that Victoria Tower Gardens should remain a garden that is open to the public. We absolutely agree with that. Clause 2 simply provides that the relevant sections of the 1900 Act, requiring that the gardens shall be maintained as a garden open to the public, do not prevent the construction, subsequent use and maintenance of a Holocaust memorial and learning centre.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I am so sorry to interrupt the Minister again. He said that, after looking at 50 sites, Victoria Tower Gardens was decided to be the best of them. He has not explained what was wrong with the three sites recommended by the Holocaust Commission. Why did the Government reject the Imperial War Museum, Reuben Brothers’ offer of a site off Millbank, and Potters Fields?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

That is an issue for the competition and planning process subsequently. I cannot comment on planning matters.

Victoria Tower Gardens will remain open to the public and be home to an inspiring Holocaust memorial that will also be open to the public. Indeed, the design of the memorial was chosen because it met an essential challenge of the brief by being visually arresting yet showing sensitivity to its location and context. The winning design was further developed to meet the requirements of the chosen site and to ensure that the new features and landscaping improvements will benefit all users of the gardens. The gardens themselves will benefit from landscaping improvements that will enhance them for all visitors.

This clause will enable the Government to make progress on delivering the commitment that successive Administrations have made since 2015. Every Prime Minister since 2015 has supported this project. The current Prime Minister has restated that commitment clearly, including in his speech to the Holocaust Educational Trust last September—I was there—when he said:

“We will build that national Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre and build it next to Parliament, boldly, proudly, unapologetically … Not as a Jewish community initiative, but as a national initiative—a national statement of the truth of the Holocaust and its place in our national consciousness, and a permanent reminder of where hatred and prejudice can lead”.


I turn now to Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, which is intended to set a physical limitation on the size of any Holocaust memorial and learning centre that could be constructed at Victoria Tower Gardens. I acknowledge the desire among noble Lords to be reassured about the size of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre but, by setting a square metreage, this amendment does not provide certainty. Instead, it would open further avenues for litigation and make the proposed scheme undeliverable. The amendment would conflict with Clause 1(3) specifically, which allows alterations and extensions. More fundamentally, it would act as an obstacle to the creation of the specific scheme that this Government and previous Administrations have proposed to construct.

14:00

These matters were, of course, considered carefully by the Select Committees in both Houses. The House of Lords Select Committee accepted the assurance from the Government that the area of land to be taken would be as set out in the planning application, which is currently under consideration. Our assurance reflects the fundamentally important point that, notwithstanding the Bill we are debating, a Holocaust memorial and learning centre can be constructed at Victoria Tower Gardens only if planning consent is obtained. The planning process is the right forum for considering matters such as the scale, design and wider impact of any proposed scheme.

For the current proposal, the planning inspector considered a great deal of evidence from all sides and looked in detail at matters such as the impact on the gardens and on existing memorials. The planning inspector concluded that any harms to heritage assets were outweighed by the public benefit of the scheme. The planning inspector’s report still stands as a robust assessment of the proposals. Any further development in Victoria Tower Gardens would have to be permitted by the granting of planning permission, with all the detailed scrutiny and consultation that that would entail. I therefore respectfully request that noble Lords allow the planning system to do its job and that the noble Lord withdraw his amendment.

Amendment 14 from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is intended to prevent any future modifications to the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, after it is built, that would increase its size. Let me reassure the Committee that we have no plans to extend or modify the design we have proposed and seek to take forward, but it would be unwise to say that no modification would ever be necessary. We simply need to reflect on the changes that have taken place in Victoria Tower Gardens over the years, with new monuments added, the layout of paths changed and the playground remodelled, to see that practical and aesthetic reasons can lead to sensible modifications which need not be hugely controversial.

Of course, modifications to the Holocaust memorial and learning centre must be considered within the context of planning law. No significant changes could take place without planning consent, and the process of seeking planning consent would entail consultation and careful assessment of any impacts on the gardens and on any nearby monuments. This amendment is not necessary as a safeguard against significant future expansion of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. It would, however, be an unnecessary and unhelpful impediment to sensible future modifications should they be needed. I respectfully ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.

Amendment 17 from the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, seeks to stop any developments on parts of Victoria Tower Gardens not already occupied by the Holocaust memorial and learning centre once it is built. The Holocaust Memorial Bill does not repeal the provisions of the 1900 Act, which will continue to require that Victoria Tower Gardens be maintained as a garden open to the public. The Bill is intended to deal with a very specific matter which arises in a precise location. The Bill seeks to remove restrictions only in relation to the construction, use, operation, maintenance or improvement of a Holocaust memorial and learning centre. Lifting the restriction that the 1900 Act currently provides will not remove the need for planning permission before the memorial and learning centre can be constructed. Similarly, any extension to the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, or any proposal for another structure of whatever kind, would be subject to a fresh planning application. This new clause is therefore unnecessary, and I respectfully ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.

I hope that I have been able to provide further clarity and assurance on the purpose of Clause 2, enabling all noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, to agree that the clause stand part of the Bill.

In conclusion—and this is a very important point—I remind the Committee that I have said previously that content for the learning centre is being developed by a leading international curator, Yehudit Shendar, formerly of Yad Vashem, supported by an academic advisory group, to ensure that the content is robust and credible and reflects the current state of historical investigation into and interpretation of the Holocaust. As the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, said, that should also be seen in the context of “never again”.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords, and the Minister in particular—I would like to take up his offer of letting us see a model. That would be a very good idea, because the basic problem behind a lot of our amendments on this side of the argument is a complete lack of trust. This saga has been going for so long, with so many twists and turns. We have managed to spend £21 million so far on professional fees, and it seems to just be drifting on and on. To stop uncertainty, particularly about dimensions and sizes, and to see everything at scale would be really helpful.

Let me reassure my noble friend Lady Scott on the answers given: I do not for a moment suspect that she was doing anything other than reading them out, so please do not spend any time checking. They are all there. In summarising the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Austin and Lord Pickles, and all of us who joined in, I am reminded that at Second Reading, a noble Baroness on the Cross Benches—I apologise; I have rather ungallantly forgotten who—said that the expert opinions, whether of Jewish dignitaries or of historians, are really divided along geographical lines as much as anything else. Those of us who live and work near here are completely against the learning centre in particular, and those who live a long way away are, naturally, far more relaxed about it, because they are not going to be affected and it all sounds like a really good idea. That rang true at the time as being a very good dividing line.

We now await the planning stage. We are very suspicious. I remember Robert Jenrick MP called it in last time, and as my noble friend Lord Blencathra said, many further twists and turns are possible, with government manoeuvres to get round it. It has been six years since it last went to planning—it has happened before, and it can happen again. Those are the reasons behind the suspicion, and I respectfully ask the Minister to bear them in mind.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord has just made a point about the basis on which people support or object to this proposal. First, it is not true. I used to live a few hundred yards away from the proposed location—my kids played in the playground—and I supported it all the way through. It is an extraordinary admission to say that the reason we are against it is that we live nearby. If members of this Committee were on a local council planning committee, or even a parish council, they would not be allowed to take part in a discussion about a proposal with an interest like that—on the basis that this is where they live.

I gently make the point that we are here in the House of Lords to make decisions solely on the basis of the public interest; we are not supposed to take decisions on the basis of our personal or private interests, or where we might or might not live. That is not why we are here. In fact, I think I am correct in saying that when we are appointed to the House and the Letters Patent are read out before we take the oath, we are required to set aside all private interests. This is something I have long suspected. It has never been admitted before, but I think it is an extraordinary admission.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Before my noble friend replies, I point out to the noble Lord that the Lords Select Committee deliberately excluded anyone who did not have a personal local interest or live close enough to be affected by this. That is quite a different matter from noble Lords’ consideration in this Committee. The Select Committee was restricted to hearing only noble Lords who could show a personal interest that might be affected—their property, their use of the park or whatever. The noble Lord should probably get up to speed on the powers of a special Select Committee.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

To respond to—

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord has made a point directed to me and I want to respond to it. The public watching this will be pretty shocked, frankly, to discover that Members of your Lordships’ House think they have the right to intervene in committees such as this, on matters that affect them personally, on the basis of where they live, in a way they would never be able to do on a local authority planning committee or even a parish council. We cannot allow the public to get the impression that there is one rule for privileged Members of the House of Lords living in properties in Westminster, and another rule that affects every other member of the public sitting on any other committee in a parish or local council. We should not allow that.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

To reply to the noble Lord, Lord Austin, I was not for a moment suggesting that anybody here, on either side of the argument, is motivated by that. I was reporting on a summary at Second Reading, which was a generalisation. But time is marching on, and I wish to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

Amendment 9

Moved by

[Lord Russell of Liverpool]

9: Clause 2, page 1, line 18, at end insert “, provided that any such activities—
(a) would not cause the existing Spicer Memorial to be moved or the area of the playground on that site to be reduced, and(b) are carried out in such a way that access to any children’s playground on that site is maintained at level from the nearest entrance without requiring the use of steps.”

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to this group of amendments, in particular the four that have my name attached to them: Amendments 9, 18, 19 and 20. I hope that this group may prove slightly less contentious than the one we have just debated; indeed, given that it is about a playground, I hope we might be able to debate it in a slightly more adult manner.

It strikes me that the whole process we are going through is a rather uncomely poster child for the joys of the British planning system, which is, as we all know, not in a particularly good state. The discussions that we are having, and the decade-long process that we have gone through, seem to prove that it is not exactly fit for purpose.

I declare my interests as, first, a parent; secondly, a grandparent; and, thirdly, a governor of Coram, the oldest children’s charity in the United Kingdom. Where the Foundling Hospital used to stand—unfortunately, it was demolished in the 1930s—there is a wonderful playground called Coram’s Fields. At the entrance gate, there is a sign that says, “No adult may enter unless accompanied by a child”. It occurs to me that, as I, along with other noble Lords, struggle to get in through the new Peers’ Entrance, having a similar sort of sign—whether you are going in or going out—might be quite helpful to many of us because, usually, at least one of them ain’t working.

What I will try to demonstrate in talking about the playground is, first, why it is there; and, secondly, why it has real value and use. In 2019, the London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust produced a report about the significance of Victoria Tower Gardens. I will not go through it in detail, but it highlighted a particular point when it was talking about some of the risks that the gardens may face. It said that

“the park is affected by a range of external pressures and stresses. For example, the likely impacts of future piecemeal interventions such as buildings or structures imposed from outside sources”.

It occurs to some of us in this debate, I think, that that was a perfect description of what we are discussing.

Amendment 9 is a probing amendment, since it appears that the Spicer Memorial will need to be moved to the north from where it currently is to create approximately 193 square metres of new paved space around the proposed entrance pavilion. The amendment simply asks whether it will be possible to redesign the proposed route of entry to the entrance pavilion to avoid this, because the current design will reduce the size of the playground by about 370 square metres, or 31%—nearly one-third.

Alternatively—we dealt with this question previously in our debate on Amendment 26 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans—do we really need a kiosk? If we did not have the kiosk, that would enable the playground to regain quite a lot of the space that would otherwise be lost. I would be most grateful if the Minister could answer that question.

Amendment 9 also asks for continued ease of access to the playground. This is important to the many parents using prams and buggies. As noble Lords will see from some of the Underground stations that have staircases instead of escalators or whose escalators are not working, a lot of parents—particularly mothers—if they are by themselves, rely on the generosity of others around to help them up or down. I hope that will not need to be the case when it comes to using the playground.

Why does the playground matter and why is it there? It may not be obvious but it is quite a significant playground in that it is one of the earliest playgrounds developed in London. There was a growing need in the first half of the 20th century for children in particular to have open space, fresh air and exercise—particularly in areas of the city where those things were not easy to access.

In 2018, Westminster City Council did a detailed profile of the inhabitants of its various wards. The two most relevant to what we are talking about are the two closest to Victoria Tower Gardens. One is St James’s Ward and the other is Vincent Square Ward. These wards have a very high percentage of social housing estates. In the 2010 census data, 28% of Vincent Square Ward children and 30% of St James’s Ward children were classified as obese. Also from that data, 28% and 30% of year 6 children were children of lone parents with dependent children, which is quite a high number. In addition, almost one-quarter of the children in each of those wards were receiving free school meals in 2017. That demonstrates that however affluent we may assume this part of London is, for many people who live here, it is not. In addition to parents who visit from those estates, there are parents who come from across the river, where there is also a paucity of playgrounds other than the one in the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury’s garden.

14:15

The Royal Parks estimates that there are about 72,000 visits to the playground per annum. In the course of research for this, particularly when the weather is nice, like today, I have on several mornings gone to the playground and just talked at random to parents who are there with their children. While this is not exactly a detailed piece of opinion polling, everybody I have spoken to obviously greatly values the fact that it is there and they are able to use it. Secondly, without exception, not a single parent I have spoken to had absolutely any idea of what is planned for Victoria Tower Gardens.

There was a consultation process. The Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government asked a company called Four Communications to carry out a programme of what is rather inelegantly called “stakeholder engagement”. It was conducted in the latter half of 2018. The company talked to a variety of local residents and businesses and got some feedback. I suppose all I would say is that the combined population of those two wards is 21,100 people, and the total number of people, either individuals or businesses, who were consulted was 3,657, a slightly different figure from the 21,000 residents, so I am not sure how exhaustive that consultation process was.

Turning quickly to the other amendments, Amendments 18, 19 and 20, I put on record my thanks to those who put their names to these amendments, and to the Select Committee on this Bill for persuading the promoter to give a series of assurances summarised in the promoter’s response to the Select Committee’s special report of the 2024-25 Session, which was published last month. Amendment 18 simply proposes to insert the undertakings made in the promoter’s first assurance about access to the playground during construction into the Bill. An assurance has already been given; it would be rather nice if it could be made flesh in the Bill. Amendment 20 would insert into the Bill the undertakings made in the promoter’s fourth assurance about arrangements to ensure appropriate separation of the playground from the Holocaust memorial as it is being constructed, and from its visitors after it has been constructed. Amendment 19 proposes that a report on the safeguarding measures that will be put in place to protect the playground and its users should be laid before Parliament within three months of the Bill becoming law. I beg to move.

Amendment 10 (to Amendment 9)

Moved by

[Baroness Fookes]

10: After paragraph (b) insert—
“(c) would not cause damage to the roots of existing trees.”

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment in my name adds a third condition to Amendment 9, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I should perhaps explain why I think this is so important. I start from the view that this little park, which has been protected hitherto by an Act of Parliament, remains very valuable and should not be tampered with to its great detriment.

I will not rehearse here the arguments so eloquently put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I simply want to put on record that I heartily endorse what they have both said—they make a great deal of sense. I will not inflict on the Committee a repetition of those arguments, save in one regard. I find it very distasteful that the Government who want to go ahead with this—which I believe will damage the park—at the same time issued that Statement back in July 2024, explaining that they wanted every person to be within 15 minutes of a green or blue space. There seems to be something of a contradiction here, or, as the old adage has it, “Fine words butter no parsnips”.

I want to demonstrate the significant damage that I think will be done to the trees in the park. Currently, there is a magnificent avenue of no fewer than 51 London planes, which are mature, very fine and well looked after by Royal Parks, together with several smaller ornamental trees. They provide a wonderful setting for a world heritage site, which also has special protection in planning law. I am not going to act on my own authority in this; I will draw heavily on a report in the public domain, commissioned by Westminster City Council to advise it after the decision had been taken out of its hands and in preparation for the other details that were to follow. It used as an expert witness a gentleman called Mark Mackworth-Praed, a chartered agriculturalist and a member of the Expert Witness Institute working for Archer Associates, a major tree and ecology consultancy. I should now like to draw attention—

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. She is talking about the value of this green space, which I think everybody now agrees on. Is she aware that it is the only green space that marches next to the river without a road in between for something like seven miles on the north bank of the river?

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

I was seeking to curtail my remarks in the interests of brevity. I notice that a little bit has been taken out of my time now, unless I go over the allotted amount.

I draw the attention of the Committee to British Standard 5837. I do not expect noble Lords to be immediately thrilled by this announcement, but it is a widely used and accepted measure of the viability of a tree by assessing the minimum area around it deemed sufficient to contain sufficient roots to enable it to live and survive well. It is a calculation of a circle with a radius 12 times the diameter of the tree’s trunk. When you look at the smallness of this park and the number of trees, it does not take a mathematical genius to work out that, somewhere, roots will be damaged.

Let me give specific examples from this independently produced report. First, it is reckoned that digging out the enormous amount of soil to provide the underground learning centre will cause 11 trees to have their roots severed on the western boundary within the amount of the British Standard, so they would be damaged. The Spicer Memorial, already referred to in another amendment, and possibly replacing a refreshment kiosk would risk real damage to three trees. Then there is the creation of two service routes carrying various underground utilities and drainage runs: it is reckoned that 10 trees there would be affected adversely, either directly or in conjunction with other hazards. That seems to me a pretty worrying description of what might happen, particularly bearing in mind that when you have avenues of trees, the loss of even one tree can shatter the visual image. If there are several, we might have an even worse result, but that is not the only damage to trees that can be caused by the direct severing of roots.

Another real worry is that soil compaction can have a major impact on the health of trees. I am sure those of us who are amateur gardeners will have been told about not walking on wet beds, because of the possible danger to plants, which will be damaged by compaction. As I understand it, the proposal is for the formation of a slope up to the fins of the memorial, which would involve a lot of soil being sited on top of the existing level. That would have the effect of asphyxiating the soil; in other words, it cannot breathe. Worse than that, soil compaction during works with heavy machinery would also have a very damaging effect, to say nothing of digging out all the soil to form the underground learning centre. One can see that moving great piles of soil will, in itself, cause considerable damage.

On top of that, we have all the building works that will be associated with carrying out the work of producing the memorial and the underground space for the learning centre. Storing heavy materials also compacts the soil and heavy machinery running over it has the same effect, so over time this would have a major, damaging effect on the park as a whole. I know that the Minister has referred to enhancing the value of the park, but I fear that in practice it will be greatly damaged.

Finally, when all this is done—at some unspecified period in the future—there will be much heavier footfall if it is all successful and thousands of people are coming in, rather than the people who use the park now. Through footfall, they too can have a tremendous impact on the soil and its compaction. I do not see a happy future for these trees in the circumstances I have described.

I conclude by referring to the views of Westminster City Council’s sub-committee. As we all know, it was not allowed to make the decision but it resolved that, had it come to that committee, it would on various grounds have refused the application. I want to deal with only one that relates to trees. It said:

“Inadequate and conflicting information has been submitted which is not sufficient to permit a proper assessment of the impact of the proposed development on trees within Victoria Tower Gardens, together with the effectiveness of suggested mitigation. As such it has not been satisfactorily demonstrated that unacceptable harm to, and/or loss of, trees would not arise as a result of the proposed development”.


Finally, the sub-committee said that

“damage and/or loss to trees would be detrimental to the visual amenities of the area, and would have a further adverse effect on the significance of heritage assets”.

I think we all know about the importance of this little park as a backdrop for the Houses of Parliament and the abbey. On that basis, I beg to move.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 19 and 20, to which I have added my name. Victoria Tower Gardens is not just any green space; it is the home of a playground that has served generations of children. It is one of the few places in this area where children can play safely. As mentioned several times before, the proposed centre will mangle the playground beyond recognition. It will shrink by over 31%, wiping out the open grass that connects it to the rest of the park.

14:30

As also mentioned before, the Spicer memorial is being moved to create 193 square metres of new paved space, shrinking the playground. This is unnecessary. But much worse than all this, visitors will queue and walk past the northern end, forcing children and their families to mix with memorial visitors. A high-profile tourist site packed with visitors in one of the most politically sensitive areas of London is a bull’s-eye for trouble.

The UK Home Office reported 185 terror-related arrests in the last year alone—a stark reminder that the threat is real. In today’s unsettling climate, the risk will only increase. As we have experienced today in the Chamber, it will also be an attraction for disruption. Then there is the issue of fencing—or lack of it. It was agreed that some separation is needed between the playground and the memorial queues, but no clear plan has been provided. How will children be kept safe? Do we know?

What about the proposed kiosk, mentioned before, plonked at the edge of the playground? It would eat up more space and draw in more crowds. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, pointed out, it raises serious safeguarding concerns. Yet the Government have said nothing about how they will safeguard children. There is no plan to prevent overcrowding and no security measures to stop predators exploiting a crowded and chaotic space close to where children play.

This is not speculation; it is reality. According to the UK Missing Persons Unit, 112,853 children went missing last year—that is 309 children per day. Many are taken by estranged parents in bitter custody battles; others fall prey to predators who know exactly how to operate unnoticed in a crowded space. Having run a charity for missing and abducted children for 17 years, I have first-hand experience of how these tragedies unfold. Every second matters. Once a child is gone, the chances of recovering them diminish by the minute.

This is not about whether we should have a memorial; it is about where it should be. In my opinion and that of several others in this Room, this is absolutely the wrong location. It would shrink a cherished playground, create security risks, cause traffic chaos and endanger children—all while needlessly disturbing one of London’s last remaining green spaces. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said many times, there are plenty of other locations in London where this memorial could be built without compromising safety, security or public spaces. The Government need to listen and rethink some of those issues.

Will the Minister agree to lay before Parliament a report on the measures the Government will take to safeguard children, as called for by Amendment 19?

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I did not sign these amendments because I was leaving it to others with kiddies and grandchildren to speak with much more authority, but I am prompted to speak by the Minister saying last week that the main path used by mums, nannies and children will be closed. Also, I have a question for my noble friend Lady Fookes, which we may want to reflect on, on the effect on the water table if a big hole is dug. I am not sure whether a hydrological engineer has commented on this, but my experience with Natural England was that if you want to destroy peatland, you just dig a trench and all the water drains from the rest of the soil and the peat into the trench. There is probably a level water plain in this park. If one digs a ruddy great big hole, does it not act as a sump, so that water from the surrounding area moves into it?

Of course, the bunker will have to be completely waterproof so that there is no water ingress, but it will still act as a sump and there may have to be pumps to pump out the water surrounding the bunker in order to maintain its water integrity. It is a question that I am not sure my noble friend will have the answer to, but there could be a more serious effect on the trees she is concerned about, in that they will suffer a huge moisture lack, more than London often does in summer, if the bunker acts as a sump.

As for the children’s playground, I believe that there are only two ways into it. The level access one is the southern gate, which we all use and which gives access to the Buxton memorial, the playground and the kiosk. The other access, I think, is down the steep set of steps off Lambeth Bridge, which is no good whatever for mums with baby buggies and so on. The playground now assumes a much greater importance because the Government confirmed last week that the main path used by everyone, adjacent to Millbank, will be closed or partially closed. That is where, every morning when I go through the park, I see the nannies with the little kiddies.

Yesterday was a reasonably warm day in London. The park was not full, and I took some wonderful photographs—of the bins overflowing and garbage everywhere. That was just on a nice day in London. Obviously, I would not take photographs of little kiddies with their nannies and so on—one does not want to be arrested on the spot—but I can assure the Committee that I see lot of them going through there every day. They are tiny little things: I do not know what ages they are, but none of them are higher than 18 inches. Sometimes they are on a pole or in a croc, and they are all walking along with their nannies, using that main path. If they have no access to the park, the playground becomes even more important. How will they access it?

From the plans, I assume that the main entrance for the builders and contractors will be the southern gate, and that will block access to the children’s playground and to the main footpath that lots of little kiddies, nannies and mums, as well as other users of the park, use every day. I say to the Government that if they are determined to go ahead with this, they should leave the southern gate alone for mums and dads and everyone else to use, and create some other construction access between the southern gate and Lambeth Bridge where they can get their trucks in. If they are going to remove the kiosk and the children’s playground, and move it elsewhere, that would allow the construction of a new gate. I leave that point for the Minister and his planning process to consider.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on a very ingenious argument. I am always distressed to be on the opposite side from him on these matters, because he is such a persuasive speaker. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, made an enormous amount of sense and said nothing that I disagree with. It occurs to me that if I had followed his advice and attended more playgrounds and eaten fewer buns, I would be in a better state today than I am.

The noble Lord said that the planning system is not fit for purpose. That is generally said by people who think that we are not passing enough: it is not fit for purpose because we need to build more houses. One thing that I think is fit for purpose is that, as is pretty well established, we are able to look at the regulations, apply those to playgrounds and do some negotiating to get the right alternative through the planning system. That also applies to trees. If there is anything well established, tree preservation orders are at the very centre of the planning system. We know that, should there be a grant of planning permission, each tree will be considered and negotiated between the council and the department, and an enormous amount of work will go into this. If we are to pass this, are we saying that Parliament should decide on the conditions of every playground next to a new development, or every tree preservation order?

With a cursory look at the planning inquiry and the independent inspector’s finding, noble Lords will see that an enormous amount of thought has gone into the preservation of the trees. The current situation is not helpful. As I said a couple of Committee days ago, those paths are, in essence, strangling the roots of the trees because they are not permeable to water. We will put in new paths that ensure that water goes to the roots of the trees.

I recognise and sympathise with the noble Baroness’s dilemma and great passion with regard to abduction, but one of the reasons why that is not likely to happen—in, as she described, a situation where there will be lots of queuing—is that there will not be any queuing. It will be ticket only. People will have to obtain the tickets in advance; they will not be able to obtain a ticket at the memorial site. Only people with tickets will be able to come in, and only within a particular time frame. That was designed specifically—

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

But will there not be people queuing for the kiosk? That is very close to the playground.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a reasonable point. I very much support the Minister’s point. I think that, once the noble Baroness sees the model, many of her worries and concerns will disappear.

If there is one thing that has become clear to me in these interesting debates, it is that the fiction about the memorial does not last very long under public scrutiny and questioning. Noble Lords will be surprised but, again, we cannot create two planning systems, with one for the rest of the country and another for noble Lords, particularly—I say this in a very gentle way—when those noble Lords have a financial interest close to the site.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, since we have absolutely no guarantee that there will be a proper planning application, we have to set those remarks to one side.

I just want to add that this is not about nimbyism or selfishness. For those of us who have a real, deep family interest in this project, it is of a low quality. It will not do for my grandmothers and all the other members of my family whom I lost. Many others agree with me. Those who are not so affected may not completely understand our deep feelings about the quality and message of this project.

On the playground, I will just say that this is a social justice issue because of the mixed demographic area here, with children from ethnic-minority backgrounds who have low levels of activity apart from in this garden. The poverty, lack of access to safe spaces and poor local natural resources that are inevitable in this area contribute to this inequality. Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says:

“States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child … States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in”


those activities

“and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for … recreational … activity”.

We ratified that in 1991.

This Government are committed to upholding international law, as they say repeatedly. Every day we hear from Minister David Lammy and others about its importance. In damaging the playground, not just reducing its size but exposing its users to risk, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, so eloquently pointed out, we are in danger of breaching that United Nations convention. If I were a parent or carer of a child, I would not want to take them to a park where there were armed guards, strangers, coaches, protests and so on, and no longer a happy atmosphere.

14:45

These amendments, all of which I support, call for safeguarding, barriers and access. Visitors to the memorial must not be allowed to cross the playground. Best of all would be to maintain the size of the playground, which is more important than the other issues around the space surrounding it. I support all these amendments.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, for introducing this group. The object of his Amendment 9 is an important one, as we have discussed in an earlier group, and I understand why my noble friend Lady Fookes has tabled her Amendment 10 to strengthen protections for existing trees in Victoria Tower Gardens. While this issue should be addressed through the planning process, I agree with my noble friend and the noble Lord that this is an opportunity for the Government to update the Committee on the steps they intend to take to protect the existing monuments and trees in the gardens.

Amendments 18, 19 and 20 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, seek to deliver protections for the playground at the south end of the gardens. Given the relatively limited access to green spaces in this part of Westminster, the playground is an important facility in the area and I believe it should be possible for the works to go ahead without preventing access to the playground. We know that the design of the project seeks to preserve 100% of the play area when the works are complete, but the noble Lord makes an important point about continued access to the play area during the progress of the works. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government have plans to protect the playground during as well as after the construction of the memorial and learning centre? This is an important issue for local residents and regular users of the gardens, so I hope it can be addressed fully in the planning process, if the Minister is unable to satisfy the Committee today.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lord, before the Minister replies, I ask my noble friend Lord Pickles one little point. He said that we cannot have Parliament decide on planning applications and that they are better left to the planning process. As I understand it, the planning process is a Minister in the department deciding either to have a round-table discussion, to submit a plan to Westminster Council or to call for written representations. That is the planning process. Does he think that a better process than Parliament deciding?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, for tabling Amendments 9, 18, 19 and 20 and the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, for tabling Amendment 10. This group of amendments covers matters relating to the Spicer memorial, the magnificent trees in Victoria Tower Gardens and the children’s playground.

Amendment 9 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, draws attention to the Spicer memorial and to the children’s playground, both of which are very important features of Victoria Tower Gardens. If noble Lords will permit, I will come to the playground in just a moment and address that part of Amendment 9 alongside Amendments 18, 19 and 20, which also concern the playground.

The Government fully agree with noble Lords who wish to ensure that the Spicer memorial is protected and should continue to hold a prominent place in the gardens. Our proposals for Victoria Tower Gardens have been carefully developed to achieve these objectives. The Spicer memorial commemorates the philanthropist Mr Henry Gage Spicer, who contributed to the creation of the playground in the 1920s. Though not listed, the memorial is important, commemorating a generous donation and lending a degree of dignity to the gardens. Under our proposals, the Spicer memorial will be moved a short distance to the south—rather less than the changes experienced when it was relocated in 2014. It currently marks the northern end of the playground. Under our proposals for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, it will continue to fulfil that role.

The Select Committee, having considered petitions against the Bill, accepted an assurance from the Government that a review would be carried out of the arrangements proposed for the southern end of the gardens, with a view to ensuring an appropriate separation of the playground from other visitors to Victoria Tower Gardens. That review is now under way and further information on this matter will be published when it is complete.

The impact of our proposals on the Spicer memorial, and on all the memorials in Victoria Tower Gardens, was of course considered very carefully by the independent planning inspector. Once the process of redetermining the planning application is restarted, the Spicer memorial, and other memorials, will no doubt be considered again, as they should be. There is therefore no need to include the proposed provision in the Bill. It would add nothing to the commitments that have been given and would simply open the door to potential legal challenges, which would delay still further the construction of the Holocaust memorial. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw Amendment 9.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, for her Amendment 10. I recognise her great contribution to horticulture, landscaping and gardening. I fully support her commitment to protect the magnificent London plane trees in Victoria Tower Gardens. From the very beginning of the design process, protection of the two lines of trees on the eastern and western sides of the gardens has been a major consideration. The proposed design was selected from a very strong shortlist of contenders partly because of the way in which it respects Victoria Tower Gardens, including the London plane trees, which are today such an important and integral part of that place.

We have drawn heavily on expert advice to ensure that construction of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre can take place with as little impact on the trees as possible. As noble Lords may recall, a great deal of time was taken at the planning inquiry debating the likely impacts on tree roots, with several expert witnesses cross-examined. As the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, alluded to, the inspector considered very carefully what pruning of tree roots would be required, how this would be mitigated and what the impacts on the trees would be. He was then able to consider the risks of harm against the undoubted benefits that will arise from the creation of a national memorial to the Holocaust with an integrated learning centre. Introducing a new statutory provision to prevent any root pruning would take away any possibility of such a balanced judgment. The amendment as drafted would place a significant constraint on any possible scheme and would certainly prevent the proposed scheme from going ahead in its current form. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw Amendment 10.

I turn now to the children’s playground, which is the subject of Amendments 18, 19 and 20 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, and is partially covered by Amendment 9, which I addressed a moment ago. The Government fully agree with noble Lords who wish to ensure that children are provided with a high-quality playground at Victoria Tower Gardens. Our proposals for the gardens have been carefully developed to achieve this objective. The playground will be remodelled with a high standard of equipment and carefully designed for accessibility, with suitable separation from other users of the gardens.

The Lords Select Committee gave a great deal of attention to the playground, including matters relating to level access, which are covered by Amendment 18. The Select Committee accepted assurances from the Government that the playground would remain open, with level access at all times, during the construction process, when this is practicable and safe. A separate assurance accepted by the committee committed the Government to review arrangements for the southern end of Victoria Tower Gardens, with a view to ensuring an appropriate separation of the playground from other visitors. Amendments 18, 19 and 20 seek to put in the Bill assurances that the Government gave to the Lords Select Committee.

It was, of course, open to the Select Committee to amend the Bill. It did not do so, which I believe was a wise decision. Using primary legislation to impose detailed conditions on a development carries significant risks. It is a blunt instrument—an approach that takes away the scope for balanced judgment after hearing all the evidence, and that risks creating unintended consequences when statutory provisions are translated into practical steps on the ground. I repeat without embarrassment that the better approach is to rely on the planning system. The impacts of our proposals on the playground in Victoria Tower Gardens were of course considered very carefully by the independent planning inspector. Once the planning process is restarted, the playground will no doubt be considered again.

As for the assurances that we have given to the Lords Select Committee, the Government will be accountable to Parliament for ensuring that they are carried out. There is therefore no need to include these new clauses in the Bill. They would add nothing to the commitments that have been given and would simply open the door to potential legal challenges that would delay still further the construction of the Holocaust memorial.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, asked specifically about the planning process, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on the previous group. This application is subject to the passing of this Bill. The planning process would mean that the designated Planning Minister, Minister McMahon, would consider the options. It is up to him to decide which options he would want to take forward. One would be written representations, a second would be a public inquiry and a third would be a round table based on a consensus approach. These are options for the designated Minister to consider.

I hope I have clarified noble Lords’ concerns and issues, and I therefore ask the noble Lord, for whom I have great respect—I spent a lot of time in Bahrain as a student of his diplomacy—not to press his Amendments 18, 19 and 20 requiring new clauses.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, as my amendment was an amendment to an amendment, I am having the final bite of the cherry, so to speak. My noble friend Lord Blencathra asked me a very technical question. As I have relied very heavily on a report that was done by an extremely well-qualified person and I do not have the immediate answer, I think I might take refuge in something that is sometimes done by Ministers answering questions: I will write to my noble friend having found out the precise answer.

In general terms, I am sorry to say that, despite the kindness of the Minister in seeking to answer my queries, I am not in the least satisfied with the points that he has made—not only because he rather underplayed the importance of severing tree roots but because he did not deal at all with the severe matter of compaction, which is another major issue. I will not worry the Committee with anything much longer, save to say that I seek leave to withdraw only because I really have no other choice—but I am not in the least satisfied with the result.

Amendment 10 withdrawn.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I was about to say that I was slightly alarmed that this group of amendments is in danger of setting a precedent, in the sense that there seems to be a high degree of agreement and consensus—something this Committee does not seem to experience very often, until, of course, the trees spoke, as indeed they do in many children’s stories. That is another matter.

I thank the Minister for his response and everybody who took part. I should have given apologies on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who is unable to be here today and who has very kindly put her name to some of my amendments. I take on board what the Minister said. I again thank the Select Committee of this House for managing to get the undertakings from the promoter to safeguard the playground and the people who use it, for which I am most grateful. I accept that it should not be in the Bill. Committee is about probing amendments. Some probing amendments are forensic and some are slightly more blunt, but, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 9 withdrawn.

Amendments 11 to 14 not moved.

Clause 2 agreed.

Amendment 15

Moved by

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

15: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Report: effects of the construction, presence and use of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre on the security of the site and surrounding area(1) Within three months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out the predicted effects on the security of the site and surrounding area arising from the construction, presence and use of a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre on the chosen site.(2) The report under subsection (1) must include—(a) a list of those bodies and individuals consulted before construction of a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre (subject to redaction of names where necessitated by national security),(b) a summary of the advice provided by each body and individual consulted,(c) a full description with visual depictions of all road and traffic changes, at and near to the chosen site, proposed to be made during construction and following completion of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre,(d) proposals for the continuing assessment of the security of the site and nearby buildings, and(e) such other security information as the Secretary of State considers to be relevant.(3) The Secretary of State may delegate the preparation of the report referred to in subsection (1) to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.(4) The Secretary of State must arrange for the tabling of a motion for resolution in each House of Parliament within 56 days of laying the report before Parliament.”

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I apologised to the Minister before we started, as I am down to introduce the debate in the Chamber on the Crown Court. I came up in the ballot, so I am obliged to be there. If I am not here at the end of this part of the discussion this afternoon, I hope that I will be forgiven for a breach of normal order.

I hope that the Minister, and even the noble Lord, Lord Austin, will give me as much attention in what I am about to say as they have given to one outside historian. I believe that we should be prepared to stand up to terrorism, that we should not readily surrender to threats that come from elsewhere. However, in this instance, I believe on strong evidential grounds that the doubly iconic nature of the site in Victoria Tower Gardens, near Parliament and a memorial to the Shoah, could render the terrorism risk disproportionate. I do not wish to be the person saying “I told you so” in the foreseeable event of a terrorism outrage or attempt at this memorial and learning centre, if built.

15:00

In its report, the Select Committee on this Bill accepted a proposition that I had put forward, in which I had been supported by others: that it is imperative to recognise that the threat of terrorism activity here, in this case, is much greater than when the planning inspector wrote his report, and that much of what was said about security to the inspector will now be out of date. That was the view of the Select Committee.

At the request of the committee, I prepared an amendment—in effect, Amendments 15 and 39 in my name. The committee said:

“His draft amendments are important as, among other things, they will enable parliamentarians, who are extremely concerned about potential terrorist activities in or near to VTG, to see the security proposals (subject to removal from sight of matters which cannot be disclosed for reasons of confidentiality and sensitivity) before the Act is brought into force. We recommend (Recommendation 3) that the Secretary of State gives serious consideration to those amendments or something similar. The Promoter has agreed that will be done”.

That is the basis of my amendments today. Counsel for the promoter, Mr Katkowski KC, was emphatic that,

“on the revival of the planning application, the Promoter would be bound to take into account any changes in security considerations, especially the increase in terrorism threats”.

The noble Lord, Lord Pickles, has repeatedly said that there is only one planning system, but that is not correct in this case. If I apply for planning consent to build a garage next my house, I apply not to Parliament but to Hackney Borough Council. In this case, there is an Act of Parliament that is considered by both Houses of Parliament through all our procedures to determine whether this should go ahead. It stands alongside any question of planning consent. My view and my submission to this Committee is that, properly, and as recognised by the Select Committee, Parliament should be given the opportunity to receive a report on the security issues before this Bill can come into effect, given that we are dealing with a site of national infrastructure and national security which happens to be situated within yards of Parliament, where we sit now, with extremely significant government offices nearby, where much of our national security is guarded. It is my suggestion that a strategic view of the security aspect should be taken by us here in Parliament. It should not be left to a planning process which, as has been admitted by the Minister, who has always been very frank, might be reduced to a vestigial exchange of letters, not a proper planning hearing.

The dangers which I have referred to can be resolved easily. First, Parliament should be assured that if this Bill is passed, it cannot come into force until Parliament has decided that it is reassured about security. Secondly, and I would rather this was the outcome, we should establish something much better than is proposed—something to match the Polin centre in Warsaw, which has real and extensive learning resources.

What I am talking about is founded on threat and risk. Risk assessment is the least hyperbolic of disciplines, but it is also crucial when considering proposals of this kind. It includes mundane matters which present great dangers, like whether there can be little bins in the vicinity. Bombs have been placed in litter bins far and wide; Novichok was placed in a litter bin in Salisbury.

I believe that the siting of the learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens presents, as I have already said, a foreseeable terrorism risk. The site would be iconic and doubly tempting to both Islamist and right-wing extremists, given its proximity to this building, the lack of any secure or meaningful existing or proposed perimeter, and its close proximity to public highways and the river. I am astonished that this has not been seen to be a real problem, and I believe that this warning should be taken seriously.

Recent events in Israel and Palestine cannot be ignored. They have heightened the danger of action against Jewish interests in London. I believe that they have diluted support for placing the proposed centre so close to the Palace of Westminster. The recent climbing of the Elizabeth Tower—I say nothing about the case, because it is sub judice—and the hanging of a Palestinian flag from it is a warning, albeit non-violent, of how easily such events can occur. How easy it is that such an event might have been destructively disastrous. The local disruption that such an event can cause was well illustrated two weekends ago, when everything around this building was closed down for two days and visitors were not allowed in at all. The proposed learning centre would be far more accessible to someone wishing to climb upon it than the Elizabeth Tower. It would be accessible directly from a park which would be open to the public.

The opportunity to attack the centre and at the same time to cause damage to Parliament and parliamentarians will not be lost on potential terrorists, ranging from state actors to lone actors. I have spent the last 25 years studying how terrorists behave: how they plan what they do; how they can be lone actors, taught by the internet to do something that seems quite mad but actually happens in the real world. Those of us who have walked in and out of courtroom doors, as I have for the best part of 50 years, know that one should never be surprised by the actions of human beings.

There is extensive online activity and discussion concerning potential terrorist opportunities and their impact. That is aggravated by the very poor moderation by the online companies of what appears on their sites. One should also not forget last summer’s riots, in London and other places, as a warning of the undoubted potential for other extremist actions to be enhanced by the presence of the centre.

I beg to move my amendment, while emphasising that I am pointing out a real risk—a real threat and danger. It is one on which we, as parliamentarians, should have the right to decide, given that the choice has been made to use an Act of Parliament for the establishment of this centre.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 35 in my name. I declare interests: I have a house nearby, I have interests in a playground manufacturing company, and I am vice-president and a former chairman of Fields in Trust, formerly known as the National Playing Fields Association, which devotes itself to the preservation of playing fields and parks.

I do not think this project should go ahead without a risk assessment. This has been highlighted by our debate so far which has raised some of the risks that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, just mentioned. So as not to waste your Lordships’ time, I will mention very briefly some of the points. Can anyone not think that there is a risk in introducing 1 million visitors a year into a relatively small space? A risk assessment is essential, even more so when one considers that it is proposed that the memorial be in an area in central London that, because of its proximity to Parliament, is more sensitive than most, as a number of noble Lords have already mentioned. There will be a risk from the sheer numbers.

What risks will there be from demonstrations connected with the memorial? These have already been raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and others. There are bound to be demonstrations if the memorial is built, as it will be a prime target. Already demonstrations cause havoc in the area, with many streets being closed. How will the potentially more dangerous and aggressive demonstrations be dealt with? What about the risk to local inhabitants? What assessment of risk has there been of the memorial being a target for fanatics as well as for peaceful demonstrations? What about the risk of bombs, or the risk that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, highlighted at a previous meeting? What risk is there to those using Victoria Tower Gardens for the purpose it was set up for as a recreational park for peace and tranquil enjoyment? What about the risk during the restoration of the Palace of Westminster? Think of all the plant, machinery and building materials that will almost certainly need to be parked in Victoria Tower Gardens pending use. This is bad enough without the memorial, but with the memorial taking up the proposed space and with all the necessary security surrounding it, there will be a risk to the poor public squeezed between these two.

What about being squeezed between the Buxton memorial and the Holocaust memorial? What traffic risks will there be with the greater congestion caused by busloads arriving at the memorial, to say nothing of the increased vehicle traffic? What about the risk to covenants on other parks and green spaces? Will disapplying the 1900 Act covenant create a precedent? Will it be an example of what can be done? The National Playing Fields Association has covenants over 3,000 green spaces. Breaking the 1900 covenant may well create a precedent and encourage some of those other covenants to be challenged. What about the risk of flooding as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley? The idea of children being trapped there is unthinkable. What about the risk of no proper management structure or the convoluted management arrangement with 10 separate bodies but no one in overall charge, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra and others have highlighted?

There is also the risk of non-completion. Let me repeat the quote from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority that my noble friend Lord Blencathra mentioned earlier in this debate:

“Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable”.


There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need to be rescoped and/or its overall viability to be reassessed. There are many other areas of risk that I have not mentioned. The whole project is fraught with risk. A proper risk assessment will doubtless raise other problems. I imagine that, after our debate so far, the Minister is probably falling over himself to have a risk assessment that will pull together all the various strands of all the risks that have been debated and others that have not been mentioned.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 28 and 36. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is not just a House of Lords expert on security and terrorist threats; he is a national expert with many years’ experience. I submit that any person or Government who ignore his wise words are putting at risk fellow parliamentarians and all visitors who will be in the park either to go to the learning centre, to visit the gardens generally or to go through Black Rod’s security entrance to access House of Lords facilities.

15:15

It was noticeable that I gave evidence to the special Select Committee but I should say that I was invited to do so not because I would have a financial interest or a loss but because I use the gardens every day and the Lords Select Committee thought that I might have a valuable point to make about it. It struck me that, when the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, produced his evidence, the committee pounced immediately. Two former Supreme Court judges, among others, concluded that he had made a very serious point. While the committee kindly and respectfully listened to the rest of us, it was the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that it put into its report for very serious consideration. If we reject what he said, we will also be rejecting the conclusions of the eminent Lords Select Committee.

Coming to the Lords last week, I could not get out of the Emmeline Pankhurst gate at the northern end of the garden because there was a huge queue waiting to get in through the Black Rod security search point. I have no idea what the event was—I presume it was in the Cholmondeley Room—but the queue reached past the Emmeline Pankhurst gate entrance right down to the bus stop, and because the Corus barriers rightly constrain the pavement, the whole place was jammed solid. My observation of that is not to complain about the delay, nor the person who shouted, “Make way for the bloke in a wheelchair”, but to point out that, if queues for the House of Lords reach down to the learning centre, then terrorists get a double whammy: they can take out hundreds of people from both queues in one go.

Therefore, our Amendment 28 has never been more relevant. It is now obvious that a controversial monument in this garden is a potential terrorist threat, with the possibility to kill and injure visitors to the learning centre, parliamentarians, visitors traversing the garden and people queuing to get into the Lords. The amendment says,

“the applicant must consult with and have regard to the views of—(a) the Corporate Officer of the House of Commons, (b) the Corporate Officer of the House of Lords, (c) the Community Security Trust, (d) the Metropolitan Police, (e) the National Protective Security Authority, (f) Westminster City Council, and (g) any other person the applicant considers relevant, and will have regard to any comments they may make to the Applicant on security considerations”.

By “consult” and “have regard to” we mean “not ignore or reject without good cause”. We go on to say that the applicant must give a report to the Secretary of State on the results of the consultation, and the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament—excluding, naturally, any sensitive security matters.

There will of course have to be security searches at the entrance to the learning centre, and probably security officers and police watching the queues, but it is not special pleading to say that parliamentarians and our visitors at the northern end will be at greater risk of attack and injury. If that is the conclusion of the security experts listed in this amendment, then the answer is to not build the underground learning centre here, where we have established that the site and centre completely fail to satisfy the Holocaust Commission recommendations. Building a monument that people can wander around is not a risk; building an underground learning centre, where there will be large queues, is.

That leads on to our Amendment 36, which seeks to add a new clause entitled, “Security checks: constraints”. It says:

“In the event that a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre is constructed in Victoria Tower Gardens, security checks carried out on visitors to the Centre cannot have the effect of restricting access to the Gardens, other than via routes which enter the Centre”.

This amendment anticipates that, if a threat emerges to others, such as parliamentarians or other garden users, the reaction of the promoters will not be to say, “We must find somewhere better”. It is more likely that they will say, on police advice, that there will now be a security search of everyone entering the gardens, as the only way to guarantee security for some is to search everybody. That is the easy way out. We might find them demanding that there should be only one gate in and out, with security on it. They might want to construct some new pathway for other users to divert them away from the learning centre.

That is not fanciful. We know that some guy climbs up Big Ben and the whole place closes down for two days. If there is a security threat to the underground learning centre, the advice of the police and security services will be quite draconian. In order to protect one life, they will demand that parliamentarians be moved somewhere else or that we have a new entrance gate, or whatever.

We can be certain that nothing will be allowed to stop this project, no matter how flawed it may be. If the advice from the police and security says that there is a danger to other users, it will be the other users who will be made to suffer the new inconvenience, whatever it might be. I simply want cast-iron assurances that the security checks on visitors to the learning centre will not impinge on the rights of other users of the garden, nor restrict their access.

[Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support this group of amendments, in particular Amendments 15 and 28. I can be very brief because the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has already said everything that I would like to say. I agree with every word he said, as, indeed, did my noble friends Lord Howard and Lord Blencathra.

It is astonishing that this Bill seeks to ignore the security considerations of the project it proposes. It is astonishing that, in 2025, when we know what is going on in the world around us, this Bill seeks to pretend that Westminster is a quiet little place where we can do whatever we like without regard to the real world outside. What has been said today and at other times is not scaremongering. We cannot pretend that the security considerations are minor. They are not minor; they are very serious. When noble Lords have an opportunity to look at and consider some of the reports that have been prepared, but not published, they will agree with me that these security considerations are serious. As others have said, we do not want to be the people who say, “I told you so”, do we?

I say again, as I have said before, that we can do better than this. Everybody wants a memorial. Everybody wants to commemorate the Holocaust. Nobody wants to forget what happened. We all want to say, “Remember, remember, remember, and never let it happen again”. However, in saying it, we are not telling the truth if we ignore the security considerations. It is our duty to tell the truth in order to protect not just parliamentarians but everybody who might have anything to do with this memorial. We must not ignore what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has said today.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for the measured way in which he introduced his amendment. Clearly, getting a security assessment is enormously important and should be done, but the question that faces this Committee is: should it be on the face of the Bill? I would suggest that it should not.

If the noble Lord will forgive me, I have a very distinguished lawyer. I hate to correct him by saying this, but there is only one planning system and this Bill does not seek to circumvent it. All it seeks to do is disapply the 1900 Act. A planning permission is something entirely separate. Matters of security and the like should be considered carefully by the Government in coming to their decision.

My noble friend Lord Blencathra gave the impression that this is just a simple binary choice. Should the Minister come to a decision, at that point, the various conditions that are part of a normal planning process will start to be brought into being and we will negotiate, whether that is on trees, the playground or security. Only when officials are happy with that will a decision be made.

I have worked, and happily so, as I suspect we all have, in the No. 1 terrorist target in the United Kingdom for 35 years. This is one of the top 10 terrorist targets in the world, but we come here because of democracy, because we want to be heard and because of the things we believe. I say gently and reasonably to colleagues in this Room, whom I like very much, that the arguments they are pursuing basically say: “This is a dangerous thing. Take it away from here so I can be safe”. I say this as gently as I can—I actually feel much more strongly about this. It is an argument for saying that Hamas and Hezbollah have said that we cannot put up any monument to the Holocaust or be supportive of dealing with antisemitism, because it makes us a target. That, my friends, is a recipe for surrender and defeat.

I apologise that I cannot stay for the end of this session because I too have a commitment. I am speaking to a conference of rabbis.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has misunderstood the meaning of risk assessment. We accept that it is a security risk. Of course you do not refrain from building because there is a risk, but you have to assess it and plan in detail what you will do to mitigate it. That is what this group of amendments is about. In particular, I support Amendment 35, on which the noble Lord, Lord Howard, spoke so persuasively. It is about planning to meet the risks that will undoubtedly occur. As I have said before, we have no assurance that there will be a proper planning application in which this can be aired. You would expect in general a thorough risk assessment to be available in relation to this controversial and security-imbued Bill and project.

We do not give in to threats, but there must be a thorough evaluation of the consequences. What evaluation has there been of the risks outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile? What traffic measures will be taken and what barriers erected? How will this affect everyone who lives in the area, Parliament Square and the Supreme Court? We need to know about security guards, whether armed or not, and the security measures that will be needed at night if the centre is open for commercial meetings. What are the risks to those who will build it, to visitors who will make use of the park during the construction period, to passersby, to boats passing by on the river and to schoolchildren going to the Parliament Education Centre? Are there risks to Victoria Tower and its refurbishment? What control is there over the escalating costs, which are going up exponentially year after year as building costs rise? What will be done about governance? What if sufficient funds are not forthcoming and the building takes longer than expected? Is there a risk to the parliamentary buildings on Millbank and the surrounding streets? I suspect that the Government do not have the answers to these questions. Amendment 35 will require them to come up with them, accepting of course that some security issues can be dealt with only confidentially.

These issues also apply to Amendment 36 from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which would restrict security checks to those entering the learning centre, leaving the rest of the gardens as a freely accessible open space, as it is now, where one can enter just for a few moments on a whim. This is welcome, but what effect would it have on the necessary security arrangements? The gate leading to the Pankhurst sculpture and “The Burghers of Calais” is but a few steps from the edge of the learning centre. How can the learning centre be protected from someone entering by another route, unchecked and carrying a weapon, red paint or worse? This will inevitably lead to the entire gardens being treated as protected property, with security checks at every gate no matter the reason for the visit. Even a harmless gathering of people for a Holocaust memorial event at the end of April is leading to the whole gardens being closed for at least one day.

Moreover, it is easy enough to propel something into the gardens from Lambeth Bridge or from the river in a passing boat. How will those dangers be met? I need hardly explain that the current atmosphere of unpleasant and sometimes violent protest marches in the area is likely to continue, sadly, for a long time. The TV studios of Millbank House overlook the gardens and thus provide a perfect platform for people who want more publicity for a cause. Has the Minister an answer to these questions? Amendment 35 is essential and should be accepted.

15:30

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for his experience and decades of work in keeping us and our country safe. There are few people who know more about these issues than him, so of course his views should be taken very seriously and there should be proper security risk assessments. I do not think that anybody will argue about that, but I think we need to bear in mind a couple of other points. As I understand it, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is that the learning centre in the gardens is too big a risk. I know that other noble Lords here today feel that the learning centre should be elsewhere, but Westminster is the most secure and protected place in the country, and if the learning centre and memorial are not safe here, where would they be safe?

Secondly, if one or the other were moved on security grounds, residents near any other proposed location would be completely justified in saying, “Look, if it is too dangerous for Westminster, how could it possibly be built near me?” Of course they would say that. That is what people near the Imperial War Museum, the Barbican or elsewhere would say.

Thirdly, if we think about this and take it to its logical conclusion, this is an argument against having the memorial or learning centre anywhere at all. In fact, if we take this argument to its logical conclusion, it is an argument against having anything that people think is controversial or dangerous and which they might oppose being built anywhere. This point has been glossed over, but it is an important point that we should take seriously because we should not be making a decision on the basis that we are scared about what racists or extremists might do. We have to deal with what racists or extremists might do.

The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, made a couple of other points that I want to pick up on. I do not think that anyone has suggested, anywhere, that there will be 1 million visitors to the memorial or the learning centre, which I think was the figure that he suggested.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I was present at a meeting with Mr Ed Balls and Michael Gove, and Mr Ed Balls said there would be 3 million a year. He said it would be the most visited memorial in the whole world.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Well, I am not sure I would take Ed Balls’s figures on this. It is not going to be 3 million. I have talked to the government officials about this, and I think that the estimate is in fact 500,000, but the important point to bear in mind is that already 25 million people visit Westminster every year, and many of the people who will visit the memorial will be people who are already visiting Westminster or who work here. That is the important point I want to make, and if we break it down, it actually works out at a few hundred people an hour.

The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, also made a point about transport. My understanding is that this is estimated to attract 11 coaches a day. It is on a main bus route, and many more buses than that already go past each day. I do not know, but I would have thought that Parliament Square attracts hundreds of thousands of vehicles a day, so again, I think that the traffic and the number of visitors that this memorial will attract will be a fraction of the amount of traffic and number of visitors already visiting Westminster .

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 15, particularly the use of the words “surrounding area”. The Minister and my noble friend Lady Scott placed great emphasis on the reassurance given by the Lords Select Committee about security and other matters, which they have seen as reason for us not to be worried about the various points raised in debates during the past couple of days. There is a gap here. I have an office in Millbank, and I gave evidence to the Select Committee because I have seen what my noble friend Lord Blencathra described, which is very large queues and very great difficulty accessing the Palace at present. I said that I thought that that was an issue that needed to be considered by the Select Committee.

The Select Committee ruled that out of order because it could consider only matters that were within the curtilage of Victoria Tower Gardens. Anything that happened in the street outside was irrelevant. I respect the committee’s judgment; I am sure that it has followed the Standing Orders to the letter, but the reality is that, when we are talking about “and the surrounding area”, we are taking the security issues to something that has not so far been considered at all. All the undertakings given to the Select Committee concerned only the curtilage of Victoria Tower Gardens because that is all that it was allowed to consider by the House of Lords Standing Orders. That is why I particularly emphasise and support that part of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly in support of this group of amendments, particularly those from the noble Lords, Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Carlile of Berriew. I remind the Committee, if I may, that last time, when I spoke about the risk of fire to the building, it was somehow deemed as if I am against having a memorial. That is not the case. We want a memorial that is respectful and allows people to learn but that does not become a focus for mass terrorist attacks. The noble Baroness, Lady Laing of Elderslie, highlighted that these are very real risks in today’s world. The world has changed.

I also remind noble Lords that if we look at anything underground—coal mines, for example—it must now have two exits. This building will have a single point of entry and exit. The reason for two exits is so that people can get out if one exit is blocked. I therefore ask the Minister whether he can tell us about that. He is smiling and shaking his head, but I do not think that this is fanciful. This does not go against having a memorial; it is about whether we have done a real risk assessment and whether the design of the building and the memorial mitigate the risks that have been assessed. It would therefore be very helpful to know when a comprehensive risk assessment of the building and the memorial was undertaken as well as whether we can have sight of that. We are being offered sight of a building, but to have sight of the in-depth risk assessment would be helpful.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, for introducing this group and giving the Committee the benefit of his extensive expertise as a former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. I hope that the Minister will take his amendments very seriously and consider allowing a further report on security as part of the process as we work towards the delivery of the memorial. However, I do not think it is correct to put it in the Bill.

Amendments 28 and 35 in the names of my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Howard of Rising are important amendments seeking to ensure that security and other risks are taken into account before the memorial is built. Security in Westminster is vital. We welcome millions of visitors every year, and endless high-profile people come to Westminster on a daily basis. We on these Benches support all efforts to ensure that the Government properly review and monitor the security measures in place in Westminster. Perhaps the Minister could look favourably on Amendment 28 in this group, which would ensure that security is properly considered through the planning process, as my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Howard of Rising suggest.

The argument has been made that Westminster is a highly protected and very secure part of our capital city, and I have some sympathy with that view. Can the Minister give us more detail on the additional security measures, if any, that the Government intend to put in place to protect the Holocaust memorial and learning centre?

Finally, I support my noble friend Lord Blencathra in his Amendment 36. He is seeking to ensure that people can continue to visit Victoria Tower Gardens without restrictions. This is a reasonable amendment, and I hope that the Minister will be able to explain how he intends to ensure that people will continue to have free access to Victoria Tower Gardens.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Carlile, Lord Blencathra and Lord Howard of Rising, for tabling these amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and I have a very strong commonality: Burnley has shaped both our lives. He has tabled Amendments 15 and 39, which require a review of security to be carried out and approved by Parliament before other sections of the Act can commence. I recognise that he has a great deal of expertise and experience in these matters, and he is absolutely right to draw attention to the need for proper security arrangements.

Security has been a central consideration throughout the development of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. We have to recognise and plan for the risk that people with evil intent will see the memorial and learning centre as a target. At the same time, we reject completely the idea that the threat of terrorism should cause us to place the memorial and learning centre in a less prominent location, a point that the noble Lord, Lord Austin, made very eloquently.

In developing the design for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, we have sought advice on security measures from the National Protective Security Authority, including MI5, the Metropolitan Police and the Community Security Trust. Based on their advice, physical security measures will be incorporated into the memorial and learning centre and landscaping which will meet the assessed threat. Their advice has also informed our proposed operational procedures, which, to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, will be reviewed and updated routinely in response to the current threat assessment.

These matters are an essential part of the planning process and were given careful attention by the planning inspector. He noted that security information had been shared with Westminster City Council’s counterterrorism and crime reduction teams, who raised no objections to the security aspect of the application. The inspector sensibly noted that much of the detail of the security arrangements could not be released without compromising security. That, of course, remains true.

This amendment is unnecessary, because security matters are and will continue to be fully addressed as part of the planning process within the statutory planning framework, which is the proper forum for considering them. Security matters were considered in some detail by the Lords Select Committee, which accepted a detailed assurance from the Government on publicising the reopening of the planning process so that parliamentarians and interested parties are aware of the timing and nature of the process. The committee also accepted a detailed undertaking in relation to the evidence on security, including that we would review our security plans, consult widely and make updated information on security matters available to Members of both Houses. Through representations to the Minister taking the planning decision, we aim to ensure that security considerations continue to be regarded as a main issue in the determination of the application.

The Select Committee, after careful consideration, accepted the assurance and undertaking which, taken together, will enable parliamentarians to examine the information provided as part of the redetermination of the planning application, with the exception of any information that is confidential or should not be placed in the public domain for security reasons. It recommended that we give careful consideration to amending the Bill as requested by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. We have given this recommendation very careful thought and have concluded that the proposed amendment would not lead to any greater expert scrutiny of security evidence. It would, however, lead to considerable delay and uncertainty for the programme. We have therefore concluded that no amendment is necessary or desirable. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press these two amendments.

Amendment 28 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, seeks to place in the Bill the terms of an undertaking given by the Government to the House of Lords Select Committee. It is therefore perfectly clear that the Government have no difficulty with the substance of the proposed amendment. The effect of the assurance and undertaking given to the Select Committee will be to enable parliamentarians to examine the information provided as part of the redetermination of the planning application, with the exception of any information that is confidential or should not, as I have said before, be placed in the public domain for security reasons. Ministers will also be accountable to Parliament for actions that they take in meeting the assurance and undertaking. Nothing is to be gained by including these measures in the Bill.

15:45

Amendment 36, also from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, seeks to ensure that visitors to Victoria Tower Gardens who are not seeking to enter the Holocaust memorial and learning centre should not be subject to security checks. It is not now, and never has been, the intention to carry out security checks on people who are not visiting the memorial and learning centre. This topic was addressed specifically in the original planning application and considered at the planning inquiry by the independent planning inspector, who noted in his report that security checks at the park entrances were not proposed.

This matter was raised again before the House of Lords Select Committee. Once again, the Government confirmed that there is no intention to conduct searches on people not visiting the memorial and learning centre. The Government were pleased to give a specific assurance to the House of Lords Select Committee in the following terms:

“the Promoter has no intention to request or arrange for security checks to be carried out on visitors to Victoria Tower Gardens … who do not intend to enter the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, and … the Promoter has no intention to request or arrange for access by members of the public to other areas of VTG to be restricted on security grounds”.

I hope it is therefore crystal clear that the Government wholly support the proposition that people who are not proposing to enter the Holocaust memorial and learning centre should not be subject to security checks. I also hope that it will similarly be clear that no amendment to the Bill is required.

I draw attention to the risks that such an amendment may carry. Noble Lords will be aware that Victoria Tower Gardens are used for many purposes. That will certainly continue after the Holocaust memorial and the learning centre are in place. It is impossible to know whether security checks may be necessary for other events wholly unconnected to the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. A statutory provision intended to prevent such checks may create doubt as to whether checks are permissible. I am sure that it cannot be the noble Lord’s intention to interfere with operational decisions that might be required in such circumstances; I therefore ask him not to move Amendments 28 and 36.

Amendment 35 proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, would insert a new clause requiring that a new risk assessment be carried out before the planning process can be reopened. This would simply duplicate what has already happened as part of the statutory planning process. Security risks are, and will continue to be, fully addressed as part of the planning process within the statutory planning framework, which is the proper forum for considering them. As I have said, the assurance and undertaking given to the Select Committee can give parliamentarians confidence that they will be able to examine the information provided as part of the redetermination of the planning application, subject to the caveat that I have already mentioned regarding confidentiality. This new clause is therefore unnecessary; I respectfully request that the noble Lord not move his amendment.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, that it was a little unworthy of him to say that I moved this amendment so that I would be safe. Most of us who come to this House as Members have a choice as to whether we come in or not, but an awful lot of people who work here do not. Also, I am concerned that families and children buying a sausage roll at the kiosk might be unsafe, as well as all the other people who might visit the centre if it is built.

The Minister is always extremely courteous and I enjoy our discussions; we have a common interest in a certain very interesting yo-yo football club. I have also spent quite a lot of time in planning appeals over the years, and I say to him that a planning appeal is not a place where secret matters of national security are discussed. There is no provision in a planning appeal for closed hearings; it would be grossly exceptional to have them. That is something provided in a Bill—potentially an Act—of Parliament.

What happens in reality in your Lordships’ House is that if the sort of provision that is in my amendment were passed and debated, there would be discussions on Privy Council terms or the equivalent. That is quite different from anything that happens in a planning appeal. I re-emphasise that there is another planning process here: it is called a parliamentary Bill which has rescinded another Act of Parliament which would have meant that planning permission would have had to be refused. Indeed, the application would have been rejected with what is sometimes called pre-refusal.

I am disappointed in the response we have been given and I shall return to this on the Floor of the House in due course. I will hope for the support of a considerable number of Members, many of whom are not in this Room, and we will see what happens. Until then, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 15 withdrawn.

Amendment 16

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

16: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Design of the Holocaust Memorial(1) After the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must launch a competition to design a figurative Holocaust Memorial appropriate to a location within Victoria Tower Gardens and reflective of the Nazi genocide of the Jews.(2) The final decision on design must include a public consultation, and consultation with Holocaust survivors and relatives of victims of the Holocaust.”

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 16 calls for the design of a new and appropriate memorial. As an aside, before I begin, in my 42 years in Parliament I must have heard hundreds, if not thousands of times the expression “The Government have no intention”. Then, as Harold Macmillan said, there are “Events, dear boy, events” and suddenly the Government have an intention. I move on to my amendment.

Let it be repeated again: everyone in this Grand Committee wants a proper and appropriate memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens to the 6 million Jews who were exterminated in the Holocaust. Let no one suggest that those of us who have vigorously opposed the Adjaye monstrosity and his pokey little bunker are opposed to a memorial which fulfils the demands of the Holocaust Commission, which the Government stopped talking about ever since they accepted this flawed design from a discredited architect. There is no surprise there, since the design fails all the tests set by the Holocaust Commission. The commission wanted a large campus; we get a bunker under the ground. The commission recommended the Imperial War Museum, Potters Field or near Millbank Tower, all locations with lots of space which were offered; we get a small garden which does not want it. The commission wanted something uniquely British; we get a second-hand cast-off rejected by Canada. The commission wanted something to commemorate 6 million murdered Jews; we get 23 things which are meaningless to everyone, and for other genocides as well.

I have heard it said by esteemed colleagues in this Room, for whom I have the highest regard, that the Adjaye monstrosity is a modest little measure and appropriate. One of the important needs in politics in these dreadful times is imagination and wishful thinking, such as thinking that Putin wants peace; that Kim Il Sung is not barking mad; that Vice-President Vance might be a decent guy; and that this project is modest and appropriate.

It has been said that the design must be brilliant because it was selected by internationally renowned architects. Of course they would support it. There is nothing so brutalist, Stalinist or big, shiny and ugly that they will not support. We could have had that big glass

“carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend”

on the National Gallery if His Royal Highness, the then Prince of Wales, had not criticised it then, but his comment that the National Theatre was like “a nuclear power station” was plainly wrong. I can tell noble Lords, as a Cumbrian, that Sellafield looks 10 times nicer than the National Theatre.

Look how the architectural luvvies despise the beautiful village of Poundbury, which the Duchy of Cornwall describes as

“Architecture of place. Creating beauty and reflecting local character and identity”.


This is the characteristic that seems to drive many architects and critics into apoplexy. It prompts them to hurl the architectural equivalent of curse words, such as mock, twee, faux and, perhaps worst of all, Disneyland. However, a growing body of research also shows a disconnect between what most architects design and what most users actually prefer. For the harshest architects and critics, the problem is much more basic. The village of Poundbury simply commits an unforgiveable offence against the most sacred rule of today’s architectural orthodoxy, which is, “We must not copy the past”. That is what has happened here, although one could say that the Adjaye design is copying the past, as it was rejected in Toronto.

I will shortly turn to other monuments around the world which have six points representing the Star of David or six features which could stand for 6 million murdered Jews. So, like all trendy, overrated architects Adjaye selected something of no relevance whatever to 6 million murdered Jews, but he made it big and shiny—at least it will be, until the bronze tarnishes—and the architectural world oohs and aahs and says “Oh, fantastic, darling”.

I challenge anyone here to tell me that they had heard the numbers 23 or 22 in relation to the Holocaust before Adjaye came up with that completely obscure figure. Not a single person who is Jewish or who has Jewish heritage has ever heard the figures 22 and 23 before in relation to the Holocaust. The internet is awash with Holocaust denial. There is not a single vile denier saying that the 22 countries the Jews were taken from to be exterminated is wrong. Not even the vile deniers had heard it earlier either. What they deny all the time is the 6 million massacred: that is the number we need to have front and centre of any memorial, and this monstrosity is not it. That is why we need a new design for Victoria Tower Gardens, and we can get one quickly.

I do not know how visually to represent 6 million murdered Jews. We all saw the brilliant display of 888,246 ceramic poppies at the Tower of London commemorating our First World War dead. It was magnificent but it took a lot of space, and something like that for 6 million dead Jews would require seven times the space, so that would not work. The most moving memorial I have ever seen is in Budapest, and that is not relevant for here either. It is a row of bronze shoes from Jewish men, women and children on the banks of the Danube where Jews had to stand to be shot in the back of the head to topple into the river, which ran red with their blood.

However, other countries have done brilliantly. After Canada rejected the Adjaye abomination—for noble Lords who have not seen it, it is a series of 23 large concrete fins, the same size as he has pawned off on us here, but that time they were grey, concrete and wavy. There is no explanation given for why Ottawa had to get concrete wiggly ones and we get straight bronze ones. However, after Canada rejected it, it then built a proper memorial with sort of Star of David shapes in it. It is too large for our gardens, but it is authentic, relevant and appropriate. The Czech Republic has a suitable sized monument of two triangles intersecting, resulting in a six-pointed star shape. Both these monuments, I suppose, satisfy the architectural requirement that they are not just old-fashioned copies of the Star of David, but a modernised version of it.

Estonia has a large granite or marble slab with a seven-branched menorah on the bottom half and a stylised Star of David on the top. Athens also has something interesting. It has an irregular, six-sided, white, marble stone in the centre, surrounded by six irregular triangle stones. The one that would fit in perfectly here is the six-point Star of David monument in Gorlice, Poland. It has 12 faces with plaques with writing on them and is about the same height as the Buxton memorial, although a bit wider all round. Tirana in Albania has three beautiful, large, dark marble slabs arranged in a semicircle in a prominent place in the centre, right beside Mother Teresa Square. The three slabs say in Hebrew, Albanian and English:

“Albanians, Christians and Muslims endangered their own lives to protect and save the Jews”.


Albania was the only country in Europe with more Jews at the end of the war than at the start, since it did not kill a single one. It gave refuge to all Jews who reached there. It is a superb memorial. How can the poorest country in Europe, with a GDP of $26 billion, get it so right when we, the sixth-largest economy in the world, with a GDP of $3 trillion, cannot get anything remotely Jewish?

What all these memorials have in common is something Jewish or relevant to Jews, such as the Star of David or the menorah. Therefore, we do not need architects and their weird ideas, we need designers, and that is where this project went wrong at the beginning. An architect cannot design an appropriate monument any more than a designer can make architectural drawings for the technical workings of a bunker. They are different skills, and we all know that a new design competition could come up with monument designs within weeks for something that could be built in six months, a design that reminds us of 6 million murdered Jews. The memorial is not for the benefit of Jews, which was once wrongly stated in this Committee, but for all the rest of us who need reminding of that figure of 6 million. Jews do not need reminding of that. That is why the Adjaye abomination is so wrong. When challenged about the brutal ugliness of it, he said on the BBC on 12 February 2019 that

“disrupting the pleasure of being in a park is key to the thinking”

behind the memorial. No, no, no, Adjaye. Key to the thinking of the memorial is getting across the message that 6 million Jews were slaughtered.

My real criticism of the Adjaye design is not my subjective opinion, which I give the Committee all the time—that it is an abomination, grotesque and ugly—but that his design is irrelevant. All the others I have indicated have something Jewish about them: the Star of David, the menorah, or writing on plaques stating that 6 million Jews were massacred on the face of the memorial, not buried in video screens in a bunker. That is why we need a new design for this garden—a proper, moving memorial to 6 million slaughtered Jews that bears some symbolism of Jewry and the Holocaust. Anything else fails to deliver what the Holocaust Commission asked for. I beg to move.

16:00

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I have visited memorials all over the world. The designers of this one said:

“When viewed from the northwest corner by the Palace of Westminster, the Memorial is first perceived as a gradual rising hill towards the south end of the VTG. Along the journey south, the path inscribes the rising landscape, and leads along the embankment”


past the Buxton memorial

“after which the full scale of the Memorial is revealed. The elevated land mass is both hill, and cliff-like landscape, and is held aloft by 23 tall, bronze-clad walls. The overall volume inscribed by the walls offers an interplay between robustness and frailty; cohesiveness and fragmentation; community and individualism”.

I have rarely read so much piffle and gibberish attempting to justify a meaningless third-hand design.

There are to be 23 bronze fins and the designer, Sir David Adjaye, tried to justify them, with 22 pathways, as a representative signifier of the number of countries from which Jewish victims of the genocide were taken. Again, this symbolic confusion, coupled with the unnecessary and misleading association with the Palace of Westminster, means that there can be no public benefit offered by the design to weigh in the balance that the inspector undertook at the inquiry.

Sir Richard Evans, our great historian of Germany, has debunked the figure of 22. He said that it was entirely arbitrary and depended on how you count states, and that many of the victims were refugees from other states. He called the design spectacularly ugly. As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, it has no overt references to religious symbolism or text, relying instead, to quote the architects again,

“on the twin primary motifs of the swelling landform and the cresting bronze portals with the descent into the chambers below. The graduated mound, rising out of the tabular lawn to the north, would convey a sense of the growing tide of orchestrated racial aggression and violence, finally breaking with the cataclysmic events of the Holocaust, symbolised by the bronze armature above the descending portals. These defining elements of the Memorial, fashioned from the brown alloy of sculpture, would have a power and grace distinctly of their own. Collectively these elements would make a bold and poetic visual statement of great power and beauty, and one that can be readily understood as such”.

How odd, then, that Sir David Adjaye should repeat almost the same design in Niger, in relation to terrorism, and in Barbados, in relation to slavery.

In fact, far from the design being done after any research into the park or London, or the UK’s association with the Holocaust, it is a hallmark Adjaye design. In another attempt to justify it, he said that it was deliberately aimed at disrupting the park. His work is instantly recognisable because it always involves stripes. I invite noble Lords to look up his designs on the web. He entered an almost identical design in the competition in Ottawa for a Holocaust memorial there, but that location was entirely different—a concrete island. The involvement of Canada with the Holocaust must have been entirely different, yet he found fit to enter that design into the competition in London. It was unwanted in Ottawa, which chose something else, so it was sitting on the shelf.

It is entirely meaningless, with no reference to Jews, the Holocaust or the UK. There are no names and numbers—nothing to evoke the awful events it was planned to stand for. If you saw it, you would say to yourself: “What on earth is that?”. You would not be moved to think of the Holocaust, commemoration, discrimination or persecution, or indeed people.

Abstract Holocaust memorials around the world tend to be vandalised much more than figurative designs, because they have no emotional value. The Boston memorial has been vandalised several times. It bears a passing resemblance to the Adjaye one, and was said to have been influential on the jury that chose the latter. Kindertransport memorials and human depictions such as the exceptional sculptures by Kormis in the Gladstone Park Holocaust memorial—I wonder whether any noble Lords have visited it—are less likely to be destroyed. There are many Holocaust memorials in the UK already, to be seen on the Association of Jewish Refugees map of those sites, and not one is as meaningless as this. Abroad there are some beautiful ones, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, mentioned. The silver tree in Budapest would be marvellous in Victoria Tower Gardens.

The jury that chose it seems not to have done its homework. Did it know about the Ottawa rejection, or that shortly thereafter almost the same design was presented by Adjaye Associates for Niger and Barbados? There can be no escaping the fact that this design is not bespoke and has nothing to do with what it is supposed to commemorate. At least there is a plaque to my grandmother in a Manchester memorial, because there will be nothing here to remind me or anyone else of her.

The design has attracted mockery from the outset: a dinosaur; a toast-rack; a whale’s ribcage; a set of false teeth. It will inevitably attract red paint and worse. To use the same design over and over smacks of contempt for what is being remembered. That it has no visible Jewish symbolism is very telling—no figures, no candelabra, no Star of David. That is because the promoters want to downplay the thousands of years of antisemitism that drove the Holocaust by combining its presentation in the learning centre with other genocides—as has been said in Written Answers to Parliamentary Questions—albeit they cannot decide which ones to include. This means in the end only a vague message about not killing people you do not like, and so the Adjaye design says nothing of interest. Like the Berlin concrete blocks memorial, it will not garner respect. The Berlin memorial has people picnicking, dancing and playing on it and riding bicycles between the blocks. The Adjaye design will be perfect for scooter races between the sticks.

Do not let the promoters tell you that Adjaye was not the designer. He heads a big team, but it is his name all over the publicity, the evidence, the competition and the maps used to this day. He gave evidence to the public inquiry and the Government trumpeted his choice at the outset. The fact remains that it is Sir David who has withdrawn or been withdrawn from most of his projects, for reasons that I am coming to.

Following a year-long investigation by the Financial Times, Sir David Adjaye was accused two years ago of sexual assault and misconduct. He has apologised for entering relationships that blurred the boundaries between his professional and personal life, while not admitting criminal wrongdoing. He said they were consensual. There are graphic descriptions online of assault, his giving money to the women involved and a toxic atmosphere in his office. He has stepped back from projects in Liverpool, Sharjah, the Serpentine, Harlem, Oregon and elsewhere.

Sexual violence against Jewish women was widespread and well documented in the Holocaust. Rape was a feature of the pogroms of eastern Europe a century ago and it featured in the massacres of 7 October. I have no words to express the horror and disgust that I and others will experience if this Government are so uncaring as to allow to go forward a project whose lead designer is associated with sexual assault. This cannot be allowed to stand. There could quite quickly be a commission for a new figurative memorial that means something, as quickly as the project to honour the late Queen is going ahead. That would satisfy the need to reflect on the events of the war and would fit in with VTG and its other sculptures.

I cannot urge noble Lords too strongly to accept this amendment and not continue with a design that is an affront to the victims and their relatives. If that design remains, we will get the message that the Government do not care about the feelings of those who will see it and are stubbornly determined to go ahead with a design by someone whom, I fear, will be associated in future only with his sexually inappropriate misbehaviour.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, I have always supported having a national memorial, and I am very keen to see it. I was 14 when we went into Belsen, and I have lived with the memory of the reports and photographs that came back ever since. As it happens, I live in a flat in Smith Square, but I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Austin, that I will not see the memorial that is being proposed at the present time, because I have been told that it will take three and half years to build. Before it even starts being built, and whatever problems may occur while it is being built, it is extremely unlikely that I would ever see it. I therefore do not have a personal interest.

I strongly support my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s Amendment 16. It seems to me deeply irresponsible not to regroup, to have, as he said, a design of a stand-alone memorial compatible with the other memorials in the park, and to have it finished—as indeed the Holocaust Commission suggested—within a period of two years. That is somewhat less than three and a half, five or six years, or whatever the present proposal implies. It would also be completed at less cost than is expected now, probably within the £138 million, plus a contingency.

I finish by saying that there is nothing in the Holocaust Commission’s report that says or implies that the memorial and the learning centre should be in the same building. It has always been a complete mistake that that was somehow agreed, subsequent to the report. Memorials are a matter for private remembrance and for, as it says in the Holocaust Commission’s report, paying respect, contemplating and praying. They are not buildings through which many people should tramp. If, indeed, we want another gallery to talk about what the British did or did not do between the Treaty of Versailles and 1942, let us have it in the Imperial War Museum, which would be the right place for it.

Will the Government therefore please reconsider their position and take the obvious way forward, which is to have a memorial in the park, self-standing, with no visitors going into it, just visitors coming to see it to pay their respects, contemplate and pray?

16:15

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, rise to speak to this amendment, not so much to comment on the design, although I find it meaningless, unimaginative and repetitive, but to comment on the designer, his tainted reputation and the effect that this will have on not just the public and media perception of the whole project but, more importantly, on Holocaust survivors and their relatives, who this memorial is designed to honour.

When this project was announced by the promoter, it claimed with great pride and numerous times the involvement of Sir David Adjaye, even calling him a “starchitect”. Since then, Adjaye has faced some seriously unpleasant sexual allegations. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, outlined many of them, so I will miss the next section of my notes, which goes into considerable detail, as the noble Baroness did, on all of this. As a result of these scandals, Adjaye felt that it was best for him to resign from his role as architectural adviser to the Mayor of London. He has also removed himself from involvement in the Holocaust memorial that we are now discussing.

However, without a doubt, the memorial is now and will for ever be tainted by Adjaye Associates continuing as the designated lead architect. In spite of the promoter’s recent efforts to downplay his involvement, all of the plans and documentation, including the promoter’s documentation, to this day feature the name of Adjaye Associates. To prove the point, this morning, I Googled: “Who designed London’s new Holocaust memorial?” Straightaway, the answer “Adjaye Associates” came up, with no mention of the substitutes which the promoter is now promoting in his stead.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, not wishing to bring shame by association on to their projects, the Africa Institute in Sharjah cancelled his major new campus project. His practice was also dropped from the £57 million project for Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum. Quite why we are persisting with his design when other prestigious projects have seen the light and when his association with the project can only bring it into disrepute remains a complete mystery.

In view of that and of the widespread dislike of the design, as per my amendment, would now not be a good time to invite fresh and more imaginative designs in keeping with the Holocaust and Victoria Tower Gardens from firms not associated with sexually inappropriate shame and scandal and from firms that will bring honour, not dishonour, to the memorial centre?

[Baroness Fleet (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 16 in the name of my noble friend Lord Strathcarron. I, too, am greatly in favour of a new Holocaust memorial in London—we all are—but the proposed memorial, designed by the discredited architect David Adjaye, is totally inappropriate. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, delivered, in her inimitable way, a brilliant analysis of the once-fashionable David Adjaye. As the former chairman of Arts Council England, London, I would like to make a few observations.

Since 2015, I have taken an interest in the process to select a design and location for the Holocaust memorial. It was clear early on that this proposal would run into trouble, as indeed it has. A long process involving an international competition with 92 entries from all over the world by no means guarantees a good outcome. The then new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced in October 2017 that the memorial’s location next to the Houses of Parliament was,

“designed to ask questions about the role of society and its institutions in preventing hatred”.

A noble aim, I am sure, but it was also clear that we were heading for trouble because of the highly contentious issue of including other genocides, which has been hotly debated today. Surely the purposes of the project are to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to provide an educational learning centre about the Nazi’s genocide of the Jews. Can the Minister clarify once again why and when other genocides were added to the memorial’s purpose?

Then we come to the design of the memorial. Call it what you will—a giant toast-rack or a ribcage—but it is the wrong design. It is a recycled, previously rejected design in the wrong place. Members of the design jury, a number of whom I know quite well, might normally be considered sensible and sensitive. However, there is nothing sensible and sensitive about the Adjaye design with its disproportionate scale. UNESCO has declared that it will compromise a world heritage site.

In the design, I am influenced by the dignity of memorials that I have seen across Europe and America while travelling with my husband, whose grandfather died in Auschwitz. The design of the memorial in Berlin, for example, is inspired and inspiring. It is very sombre; the slabs of grey concrete tell a powerful story. It is a place of understanding and contemplation. I remember that, on the day that I visited, drops of rain fell, like tears, on the grey slabs. It was a memorable and deeply moving experience.

The memorial proposed for London, however, is overbearing, with its showy 23 looming bronze fins. Why 23? The explanation will be puzzling to almost everyone who sees it, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra said. Did the design jury actually visit the site? They would surely have seen how the chosen design would dwarf the other memorials in Victoria Tower Gardens, in particular the important memorial to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton in recognition of his work to abolish slavery. The design by the Victorian architect Samuel Sanders Teulon and Buxton’s own son, Charles, is quite delicate and modest, as Buxton himself was.

My ancestor Sir John Bowring, MP for Bolton, was a colleague and contemporary of Sir Thomas. Bowring was a strong opponent of slavery, being an early member of the Anti-Slavery Society founded in 1823. An economist, Unitarian and polyglot, I can only imagine what Sir John’s view would have been of the giant toast-rack. My half-brother is a Buxton, and I share his family’s disappointment that those remembered for campaigning against slavery will be minimised by this thoroughly inappropriate Holocaust memorial.

It is not just residents, disparagingly described in the past as self-interested, who are opposed to this memorial. Jewish people are not universally at one with the Chief Rabbi who supports it. I am not Jewish, but I know that a great many members of the Jewish community, including the remarkable Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch—mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech—are opposed to it. This memorial really is the wrong design in the wrong place.

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

My Lords, I also support Amendment 16, or something like it. This is a very important amendment: it takes us right back to the core of the Bill, which is really about the nature of an appropriate memorial in this specially protected location for this unique purpose. I took a break during the afternoon to go out into the gardens, and it was interesting to observe that some things will remain unchanged, whatever is built there: the extraordinary smell and the scent of the hyacinths at the north end of the gardens will remain unchanged—and might be enhanced, as we have heard.

There are some things that will not remain unchanged, but where compromise is appropriate and will certainly be necessary. I saw young children from a local nursery in the playground this afternoon. The Minister is looking weary, but I am afraid I am going to detain him, as this is important—he looks at his officials as if to say: “What do I say? What do I think?” In my view, this goes to the heart of the matter—where do we need to be concerned and what should the Bill address? We have to recognise that, whatever happens, the playground will be a noisier place, with people all around it. For the nursery assistants who were wheeling these children in this afternoon, it will be different, but that is the sort of thing which I believe is an appropriate and necessary compromise.

There are other things that, with good will—which seems to be a bit lacking today and over the past couple of weeks—and good sense, are clearly capable of being sorted out, including security, safety and other issues. I have had the privilege of standing where the Minister is today. For a lot of these debates or issues, people say, “This needs to be on the face of the Bill”, and the Government often, perfectly reasonably, say, “Oh, we’re going to do it, so we don’t need it on the face of the Bill”. There has been a certain amount of that, but these are important areas.

We are discussing something that will be irrevocably changed: the nature of the world heritage site if this proposal goes ahead. I know that the Minister, in response, will say that we will talk about UNESCO next week, as he said to me last week. However, my point is that UNESCO, a convention to which the UK is a signatory, places obligations—albeit not legal ones—on the UK. It is difficult to talk about this amendment without referencing the concerns of UNESCO. If the Minister wants to respond on UNESCO today—he does not look as though he is likely to—it would be welcome. I note that there are other UN conventions to which the UK is a signatory, which do not themselves impose legal obligations, for which this Government seem to be bending over backwards to follow UN rulings, decisions and advice.

It is also worth putting on the record—because people do read these proceedings—that what I have heard today is not about nimbyism; some extremely unfair accusations have been made. Yes, the proceedings may be going on a bit long, but a lot of what we have heard today, and in previous sessions in Committee, are examples of your Lordships at their best: bringing relevant expertise to a thorny, difficult problem. Like many, I live under the flight path to Heathrow. I am a proponent—I always have been in, both in government as an official and since I left government—of more runway capacity at Heathrow. The accusation that a lot of us are coming at this as nimbys is very unfair.

It is also worth restating—because earlier, one Member of the Committee completely mischaracterised the nature of hybrid Bills—that, for hybrid Bills, the House of Lords is obliged to allow for private interests to be stated. That was dealt with admirably by the Committee looking at the Bill. I note that the House of Lords, between 1909 and 1969, considered and passed four Dudley Corporation Bills; they were hybrid Bills. I suspect those Members of the House of Lords, if they were here when the Dudley Corporation Bills were going through, would have been outraged if the interests of Members with an interest in Dudley had not been given a hearing. That is important to recognise. Now that we are speaking in the normal way, as Members of the House of Lords, it seems to me hardly surprising, given the proximity of the subject matter of this Bill and the nature of what is being proposed, that a significant number of Members of the House have important things to say about it, just as we would on any other topic where we thought we had something to bring to the party.

Having said that, it is important to go straight back to the planning question. I will not make artistic judgments, as some of my noble friends have, and I will not talk about architects. I happen to think that the Vienna memorial by a British sculptor, which was referenced earlier, is very moving; it is right in the centre of the city in Judenplatz. However, that just demonstrates that there are all sorts of views on artistic matters, and I do not believe that the Committee should spend time thinking about artistic matters. What we should be thinking about is what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, said. He reminded us that this is a planning Bill. Clause 2 is all about sweeping away particular planning restrictions, so it is no good the Minister keeping on saying, “Well, it is all to be dealt with in the planning process”.

16:30

We have no assurance about what that planning process will be, in spite of repeatedly asking for it. I am mindful of the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead—again, the Minister shakes his head. The noble and learned Lord, who is a very distinguished lawyer, said this during the evidence sessions of the Bill Committee:

“To say it is going to be in the future planning process seems to me to be far too woolly, to be perfectly frank”.

I very much agree with him. We have had no comfort on this, which is why all of this is so troubling. I say to the Minister that we have again, as we had last week, the makings of an amendment—I do not happen to have strong views as to whether it is figurative or not—that will deliver a memorial, which we all want to see in Victoria Tower Gardens, that is appropriate to the scale required; that will not irrevocably harm the character of the world heritage site; and that could be delivered at much lower cost, with much greater practicality around it. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will take this amendment seriously, in the spirit of wanting to get something that represents value for money as well as quality built in a reasonable timescale.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Strathcarron for his Amendment 16, which seeks to establish a competition for the design of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. As I have said in our debates on previous groups, concerns about the design of the centre and memorial should be addressed in the full planning process; the Minister has given us this afternoon an assurance that that will be the case for both this and other matters.

That said, we are now a very long way along this process, and a design has already been chosen and discussed fully in the past. I have listened carefully to the concerns of my noble friend. There would have to be serious practical problems with the chosen design for it to be sensible to reopen the design question. We need to make progress on the delivery of this memorial and learning centre. I remind the Committee that it has now been over a decade since my noble friend Lord Cameron announced his plans for a Holocaust memorial. If we were to reopen the question of design for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, that could risk a further delay; we must ask ourselves whether that is appropriate given the amount of work that successive Governments have put into delivering the memorial.

I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope that he is able to address noble Lords’ concerns fully.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, for bringing this amendment, which was eloquently put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. It seeks to require a rerun of the process that took place in 2016 to identify the proposed design for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, with the additional restriction that the outcome would be a figurative memorial and, perhaps, the implication that there would be no learning centre.

It may be helpful if I remind the Grand Committee that the design of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre was chosen by a broad-based panel after an international competition that attracted 92 entrants. The shortlist of 10 design teams was described by Sir Peter Bazalgette, the then chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, as

“some of the best teams in architecture, art and design today”.

Anish Kapoor, who was rightfully praised by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in our debate last week, was part of a design team alongside Zaha Hadid Architects, which submitted a powerful and striking design. Other well-known architects and designers who were shortlisted included Foster and Partners, Studio Libeskind and Rachel Whiteread. This was a competition that attracted designers of the very highest quality from across the world.

After detailed consultation, in which shortlisted schemes toured the UK and a major consultation event for Holocaust survivors was held, a judging panel had the difficult task of choosing a winning team. The judging panel, chaired by Sir Peter Bazalgette, included the then Secretary of State, Sajid Javid; the Mayor of London; the Chief Rabbi; the chief executive of the Design Council; the director of the Serpentine Gallery; broadcaster Natasha Kaplinsky; and Holocaust survivor Ben Helfgott. Clearly, this was a serious panel of well-informed people with deep experience on matters of design, as well as on the significance of a Holocaust memorial. The panel unanimously chose the team consisting of Adjaye Associates, Ron Arad Architects and Gustafson Porter + Bowman as the winners.

In announcing its decision, the panel referred to the sensitivity of the design both to the subject matter and to the surrounding landscape. Public exhibitions were then held to gather feedback on the winning design ahead of a planning application. As the law requires, further consultation took place on the planning application. More than 4,000 written representations were submitted. A six-week planning inquiry was held, in public, at which more than 50 interested parties spoke. All the details of the planning application, over 6,000 pages of information, all of which remains publicly accessible online, were closely scrutinised. Members of the design team, including the very talented young architect Asa Bruno, director at memorial designer Ron Arad Architects, who tragically died the following year, were cross-examined by learned counsel.

There was, of course, a great deal of discussion at the planning inquiry about the proposed design of the Holocaust memorial, the learning centre and the associated changes to Victoria Tower Gardens. Many opponents of the scheme, including the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, took the opportunity to inform the inspector of their opinions on the proposed design. In his detailed report, the inspector sets out the spectrum of views on the design presented to him. Having heard the evidence of a very wide range of supporters and opponents, the inspector was then able to reach a balanced judgment. He recorded in his report his view that

“the proposals comprise a design of exceptional quality and assurance”.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

Can I ask the Minister whether all these people knew that the design had already been put forward in Ottawa? I do not think that even I knew that then.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I will come back to the noble Baroness’s point towards the end of my wind-up.

Following the planning inquiry, the independent inspector submitted his detailed and lengthy report to the Minister, with a recommendation that consent should be granted. The Minister agreed with that recommendation.

Amendment 16, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, would simply take us back around nine years and require the design competition to be run again. There is no good reason for such a step. The Government remain fully committed to the current design, which has been the subject of detailed attention and wide consultation. Suggestions that the memorial was not designed by Ron Arad or not envisaged specifically for Victoria Tower Gardens are wide of the mark. Ron Arad’s drawings showing the evolution of the design have been displayed at the Royal Academy for all to see the originality and brilliance of his design.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

Does the noble Lord agree that a camel is a horse designed by a committee? What he has just said proves that.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, swiftly moving on, it is not realistic to suppose that a new design competition would produce a design that pleases everyone. Let me be absolutely clear: I have featured in a BBC housebuilding documentary programme and I was most suspicious of design but, by the end of the 14 months when I was running for the European Parliament, I realised the impact and the power of design. Everyone has different tastes and different suspicions of design; everyone has different views. Differences of view about the artistic merits of designs are nothing new. It is quite proper that there should be an open debate about the design of new memorials, indeed of all new public buildings.

The design that is proposed for the UK national Holocaust memorial and learning centre is the product of extensive consultation, a design competition that attracted many of the best architects in the world and a judging process that relied on the deep expertise of a talented and experienced panel. Are we simply to set all that aside and require the process to be repeated? It is right, of course, that a decision to proceed with construction of the memorial and learning centre should be taken only after all relevant voices have been heard.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, referred to the press reports in 2023 concerning Sir David Adjaye. Following allegations made in those reports, Adjaye Associates has said that Sir David will not be involved in the UK Holocaust memorial project until the matters raised have been addressed.

I am not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, was in her place when I made the following point. The learning centre will look at subsequent genocides through the lens of the Holocaust. The content of the learning centre is being developed by the leading international curator, Yehudit Shendar, formerly of Yad Vashem. The focus is to ensure that the content is robust and credible and reflects the current state of historical investigation into, and interpretation of, the Holocaust. The exhibition will confront the immense human calamity caused by the destruction of Jewish communities and other groups, and the exhibition will also examine the Holocaust through British perspectives.

The noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, said that he knows nothing wiser. I was very clear in an earlier group about the next steps of the process around planning options, subject to the passage of the Bill. I made it very clear last week—and I will say it again after the confirmation of the previous group—that the designated planning Minister, Minister McMahon, will take an approach of his choosing, whether that will be a consensus round- table meeting, written responses or a public inquiry. It is for the designated Minister to decide which approach to the planning process he will take. On his very important focus on world heritage sites, I would not do justice to the noble Lord’s passion in this area if I swiftly gave the answer now, but I will come back to him, and go through this in detail, in the next group.

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

I appreciate that the Minister does not want to repeat multiple times his definitive words on the world heritage site, and I fully accept that. On the planning, what he has just said—which I have heard him say before—seems to give absolutely no comfort about the future planning, because he says that it is entirely for the Minister. Does he accept that it would be technically possible for the Government to put amendments to the Bill that would guide the future planning process? At the moment, the Government are washing their hands of it. Would it be possible for the Government, or anybody else, to come forward with amendments to the Bill to direct in some way the shape of the future planning process, to give the Committee more comfort about what will happen, rather than just being told that it might be something or nothing?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, let me make it clear: it is for the designated Minister to decide the process and make the decision. If it means that, as normal planning decisions are made, there might be some conditions as part of the planning process, as is normal—for example, you cannot start building without consultation and cannot open the building without letting Westminster City Council know about security—then that is up to the Minister. I know other examples; I have just given one there. The process is totally detached from here and from me bringing the Bill forward as a supporter of it.

Moving towards concluding remarks, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, suggested that the memorial proposed for Victoria Tower Gardens is in some way a copy of a proposal that the architect submitted for a Holocaust memorial in Ottawa in 2014. I find this a rather strange criticism. When we consider the Buxton memorial, for example, are we to think less of its design because the architect used a similar Gothic revival style somewhere else? Should we be disappointed with “The Burghers of Calais” simply because it is one of 12 casts of the same sculpture? The topic was, of course, addressed at the planning inquiry, where the late Asa Bruno was able to point out that, while sharing a basic common architectural motif, the two proposals differ greatly in scale, material, form and proposed visitor experience, so that was clear from the public inquiry.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

Can I ask the Minister why Sir David Adjaye would say that the memorial was something disruptive of the park, and specifically about this situation, if he used the same thing abroad? Is his conscience not troubled at all that, for purely administrative reasons, the Jewish community is going to be lumbered with a design by someone who has admitted sexually inappropriate behaviour? Unfortunately, one cannot include photographs in Hansard, but I have in my hand the report,

“David Adjaye steps back from Holocaust memorial after misconduct claims”.


He steps back, but we are left with the design, which is featured on Adjaye Associates’ website. Do the Government still have a contract with Sir David Adjaye, and what is the future of the association with him? Because, going ahead with this, I cannot stress too strongly how appalling it is.

16:45

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, if I heard her correctly, I think the noble Baroness was asking about my conscience. This is in the national consciousness, and that is why we want to build this Holocaust memorial learning centre to reflect and learn the lessons of the past but also to be an education for future generations to ensure, as the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, said, that this can never happen again.

Regarding Sir David, I do not want to say anything further about the allegation; I have said what I have said. I repeat that Adjaye Associates said that Sir David will not be involved in the UK Holocaust memorial project until the matters raised have been addressed. There is nothing that more I can add.

Let me make an important point to noble Lords across the Committee. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit Ron Arad Studio. As I have said previously, when it comes to design, I am not the easiest to please person. Everyone has different views, as we see in the debates here, and I respect that. In addition to these proceedings, it would be very helpful to all noble Lords if I gave them the opportunity to see the proposed project in 3D form and to look at it from a design point of view. However, I repeat that it is not for this Committee to consider that; it is for planning. We are here to do two things: first, as per Clause 1, to allow the Secretary of State to spend on the project; and secondly, as per Clause 2, to disapply the 1900 Act so that we can build the project.

The planning system provides exactly the forum for a debate on this topic. That forum allows views to be heard and balanced judgments to be formed. There is no good reason for Parliament to seek to put aside the planning system in the single case of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. Noble Lords will have plenty of opportunities, subject to the passage of the Bill, to be part of the planning process. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

There is a point that has not been dealt with. In January 2015, there was cross-party support for the conclusions and recommendations of the Holocaust Commission. I do not think that the Minister has addressed the argument that the Adjaye design does not conform to those recommendations. I feel that he has avoided any discussion of the differences between the design and what was recommended at that time and won cross-party acceptance, which I think is still in existence. That point needs dealing with in these deliberations.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the utmost respect for the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and I appreciate his strong concerns and the very interesting points he has raised throughout the passage of this Bill. Let me clear: there were 92 entrants in what was an international competition, and the design of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre was chosen by a broad-based panel. The chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation said that the 10 teams shortlisted were,

“some of the best teams in architecture, art and design today”.

The competition attracted the highest quality designers from across the world. The decision was made through a process in which the panel chose a team consisting of Adjaye Associates, Ron Arad Architects and Gustafson Porter + Bowman as the winner.

I just say to the noble Lord that numerous Prime Ministers, with elected mandates, have supported the Holocaust memorial and learning centre—the whole project. We too will continue to support it wholeheartedly. I invite the noble Lord and others to look at the model when we bring it to the House. I found it very impressive, but that is my view.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

I will have one more try. It seems to me that, whatever the Minister has said, it does not deal with the problem the Government have: that there was and still is cross-party support for the conclusions and recommendations of Britain’s Promise to Remember. The Adjaye design does not meet them. If the noble Lord thinks that it does, then we need a proper explanation of the way in which it does. There never was a single reference to what is now being proposed, with both the memorial and the learning centre in a single building—you cannot rely on the word “co-locate”.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, very briefly, we think that it does. I note that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has an amendment in group 7, when we will discuss this in depth.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I begin with a profound apology to my noble friend Lord Strathcarron, whose amendment I inadvertently stole. For some reason, when I was writing up my notes, in my enthusiasm for some of the amendments here, I assumed it was mine. I therefore jumped up today to propose it as mine—it certainly was not mine and I apologise for that. My noble friend kindly agreed to let me do the wind-up in his place.

My noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook said that the only reason why the Opposition might object to it is if there were practical problems. By that, I think that she meant if there were construction, engineering or big design problems, but we say that there are practical problems because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, there is nothing Jewish about it. There is no Jewishness in the whole thing.

The Minister attempted to justify regurgitating the Ottawa failure on the basis that architects often reuse designs. Yes, that is fair game, except that this was supposed to be a uniquely British design. The design for the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens, or wherever it was to be, had to be a uniquely British one. There is nothing uniquely British about something that Canada rejected.

In my remarks, I did not refer to the personal problems that Mr Adjaye experienced and the allegations against him. I simply note that he has said:

“I will be immediately seeking professional help in order to learn from these mistakes”.


The Government keep saying that it does not matter now, because Adjaye will have nothing more to do with it in future. It is too late to withdraw from it now —it is Sir David Adjaye’s design. He was praised to the heavens and his name was mentioned 12 times in the press release announcing the design. The Government were very proud to have David Adjaye then, and it is no good now trying to distance themselves from him.

I am not Jewish, so I cannot understand the depth of feeling there would be about someone who, because of sexual problems, has withdrawn from a project to design a memorial for 6 million slaughtered Jews. All I can say from my own background, with two uncles who were in the 51st Highland Volunteers, captured at St Valery and taken to Stalag Luft 14, is that I would not like a monument to them and to the regiment to be designed by someone who had these sexual allegations against them. I would hate that.

One of my noble friends said that a new monument would be completed quickly and at much smaller cost. Of course, a separate learning centre above ground would also be cheaper. My noble friend Lord Sassoon made a very good point. We can get a suitable amendment that would lead to an appropriate memorial that relates to Jewishness, is the right size and tries to get across the message that the memorial is there because 6 million Jews were slaughtered. That is the most important thing.

Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my noble friend Lord Strathcarron’s amendment.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I clarify that these are allegations.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Yes, he denies any criminal involvement at all and denies those allegations of sexual assault. I merely quoted his words:

“I will be immediately seeking professional help in order to learn from these mistakes”.


He has withdrawn himself from Adjaye Associates. I have not given any credence to the women who have made the sexual allegations, and I am happy to repeat that he denies them. He has nevertheless withdrawn from his involvement with this project, and it is too late to say that it is nothing to do with David Adjaye.

Amendment 16 withdrawn.

Amendments 17 to 20 not moved.

Committee adjourned at 4.55 pm.

House of Lords

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Thursday 20 March 2025

11:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of London.

Oaths and Affirmations

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

11:05

Lord Botham took the oath, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct.

Public Sector: Working From Home

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

11:07

Asked by

[Lord Londesborough]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to assess the impact of working from home on the productivity of the public sector.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

Noble Lords will, like me, want to thank the public sector for its continued dedication and for what it does day in, day out. As my noble friend Lord Livermore informed your Lordships’ House in a similar OQ last year, the Government inherited a situation in which public sector productivity remains at 6.4% below pre-pandemic levels. This is clearly unacceptable. Our focus is on fundamental reform of our public services to drive greater efficiency and productivity. Further details will be set out in next week’s Spring Statement and the forthcoming spending review.

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

I thank the Minister for her response but I am rather perplexed. If economic growth is the Government’s top priority, why are they failing to conduct a full and proper assessment of the impact of working from home across the public sector—not least because the 7% fall in public sector productivity since the pandemic has coincided with a surge in remote working? There are key questions to answer, whether it is by sector or job function, for both management and employees, especially the young. It is not a one-size-fits-all issue, as the private sector is rapidly discovering. Why do the Government remain so resistant to learning?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I am sorry but I do not agree with the sentiment behind it. In the Budget last year, the Chancellor announced a £100 million public sector reform and innovation fund, which has established a “trust and learn” approach to how we can deliver public service reform. We should be very clear that, according to the CIPD, the overwhelming majority of private sector organisations also now operate hybrid working at 60%, which is the same level as in the public sector and the Civil Service.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Clearly, if we are going to raise public service productivity, we must tackle training and skills. I deeply regret that the coalition Government sold off the National School of Government. Over the last 15 years, much of the training for our public services has been outsourced, often to management consultancies. What are the Government doing to bring training back in-house and to ensure that there is upskilling for the whole of the public sector, done on a fully professional basis?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government are absolutely committed to the re-prioritisation of our workforce in delivering front-line services, which will require ongoing upskilling and training. On bringing it in-house, I look forward to ongoing conversations with the Minister sitting to my right, my noble friend Lady Smith of Malvern, about how we will collectively work across government to achieve it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, is not the answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, of why the Government are not tackling this problem the same as for why their policy on schools has been changed and their whole approach to employment policy is being changed? It is because this Government are run by the trade unions.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that many general secretaries of trade unions would wish that to be the case. As a former trade union officer, I am very proud that this Government are embedded in and wedded to Labour and trade union values. We are working with our trade unions to deliver a plan for change regarding flexible working and our new normal. Noble Lords will appreciate that we are now five years on from the pandemic, when we had 80% of the workforce working from home. We now have a new normal. We look to what people’s expectations are and how we can deliver on those and on the delivery of our core mission of economic growth, working with all partners, trade unions and employers, to deliver it.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, flexible working can give great benefits to both employees and employers, in the public sector in particular, but will my noble friend consider the importance of making sure that there are times when people do attend work in person where they can, not least to build teamwork and camaraderie, particularly for younger workers who at the beginning of their careers need to benefit from personal, up-close experience with their more senior colleagues?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an important point. I think most of us in your Lordships’ House benefited from being in workplaces so that we could be mentored and learn from people who are more experienced—I definitely do every day in your Lordships’ House. In terms of making sure that people are working in the office, the easiest example for me to give is the Civil Service. Civil servants are now required, as the previous Government established, to work 60% of their time in office environments to ensure that institutional knowledge is passed on from new starters to those more experienced but also for those more experienced to learn from new approaches to the world in which we live.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

We heard what the Minister said about working with the unions. Last month the FDA Civil Service union published its findings that almost two-thirds of the staff it surveyed felt that having to work in the office three days a week decreased their productivity. Will the Minister confirm whether the FDA’s findings tally with the Government’s own official analysis of the impact of the three-day in-office rule?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My right honourable friend in the other place Pat McFadden has been clear that we want to ensure that people are working in the office. We genuinely believe that there is social capital developed from having office-based approaches, and we are committed to retaining 60% of staff in the office during their contracts. We should also reflect on the fact that one of the opportunities that this has given the state is that we have been able to consolidate the estate, one example of which is 1 Victoria Street, which was recently sold, leading to annual savings of £30 million. This gives us an opportunity in terms of hybrid working but also to ensure that we are getting value for money for the public purse.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Does the noble Baroness agree that her impact in the Division Lobby would be much decreased if she was online? Does she also agree that in important meetings the impact of everyone being in the same room is much better than when part of the meeting is online? Does she further agree that we should apply that standard to Select Committee meetings in this House?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not brave enough to answer the final point. As for my performance in the Division Lobby, I think most noble Lords have now experienced that. I can either apologise or be grateful for it. In terms of online working and how we use technology, personally, I benefit from sitting in the same room during meetings; I definitely absorb more. But noble Lords will be aware that I also do a great deal of work with the Northern Ireland Office and all our meetings have to be hybrid because of where people are. That is the case for most of us who are operating in government. Our officials are spread, so to make sure that we hear voices from our nations and regions, it is important that we operate a variety of different technologies.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, returning to the earlier question about skills and training, will my noble friend talk to her noble friend on the Front Bench and to Pat McFadden and Georgia Gould in the Commons about re-establishing a new form of civil service college, which could be done with a confederation of universities at a fraction of the price that was going to be charged by EY until this Government stopped it back in July?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend knows how inordinately fond of him I am, and I am aware that it is always a bad idea to disagree with him. On that basis, I will have all those conversations.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that there is a big difference between those civil servants who are working as researchers or analysts and those who are public facing; for example, in HMRC, the Passport Office and the DVLA? She will be aware that HMRC has underperformed in terms of answering telephones and dealing with the public. Can she tell the House how it is getting on at the moment?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. He is right to raise it. In 2023-24 HMRC answered only 66.4% of phone calls when customers wanted to speak to an adviser. I can update the House that, according to the most recent figures we have, in quarter 3 of last year handling was 85%, so we are making significant advances. One of the things that has been most effective is that we are now giving the majority of people an answer on their first call and 80% of customer correspondence is now being issued within 15 days.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, the Select Committee on Home-Based Working, of which I am a member, is receiving evidence from private sector employers that they are looking at innovative ways to measure productivity, but more importantly, to see what happens in the kind of telephone call the Minister has just referred to, because accurate information is not always given. What plans do the Government have to measure productivity in a more sophisticated way for public sector workers working from home?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises an important point. The Government are currently reflecting on how we should do it. The House of Lords Select Committee on Home-Based Working has a call for evidence which closes on 25 April, and we look forward to seeing its report in November to reflect on its recommendations.

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

11:17

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they have taken to give schools the capacity to make assessments of commonly occurring special educational needs.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I remind the House of my declared interest with the British Dyslexia Association and Microlink PC.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, we are improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream settings to ensure that all children and young people receive the support they need to thrive. To do this, we are funding the universal SEND services programme, which has supported professionals to access over 20,000 SEND-specific training modules, the PINS programme to support around 1,600 primary schools to better meet the needs of neurodiverse children, and the NELI programme which has helped staff screen an estimated 640,000 children to identify those with language development difficulties.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. Will she expand on what has been done to disseminate knowledge throughout the teaching staff once this assessment has been made? Where anyone has problems, it is usually a case of working smarter, not harder, so more help from the mainstream types of support can often be counterproductive.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right: we believe that every teacher is a teacher of special educational needs and disability. Where we find good practice, we need to make sure that it is disseminated to all teachers because the best teaching produces the best results for all children, including those with special educational needs and disability. From this September, the initial teacher training scope will include improved measures and information about what works well for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, dyscalculia is the learning disability that most people have never heard of, yet its prevalence is the same as dyslexia, and indeed its impact on educational, employment and health outcomes are very similar. The prevalence rate means that one child in every classroom has dyscalculia, yet the Minister will know that the DfE has no official definition of dyscalculia, nor is there any guidance at all for parents, carers and educators on the website. When will the Government address the incredibly low awareness of this high-impact condition by including reference to it in initial teacher training so that young people get the diagnosis, early identification and support that they need and deserve?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I know that the noble Baroness has not only raised the issue of dyscalculia with me but, in doing so, drawn attention to it more broadly. The approach that is taken in initial teacher training is not to specifically identify particular conditions because, as I suggested to the noble Lord, the best-quality training for mainstream teachers is in the type and quality of teaching that will enable them to identify needs and to enable children to make the best progress. Where really specific support is needed, that should be commissioned by the special educational needs co-ordinator, within the school or externally. I feel reasonably confident that SENCOs understand the sort of issues that the noble Baroness is raising, but ensuring that information and best practice are available is clearly an important part of the work that we are doing.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, when there is not early identification, increasingly parents have been feeling that they have to withdraw their children from mainstream education and home-school them. Could the Minister confirm that we are collecting data on those who are home-educated? Those parents do not think it was an elective home education, and it is important that we know how assessment is failing and why those parents have withdrawn their children and are home-educating them.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that it is an enormous failure of the system if parents feel they have to withdraw their children from school, not voluntarily but because they do not believe that schools are providing for them. That is why it is so important that this Government’s plans to develop a more inclusive and expert mainstream education, alongside specialist schools where there are particularly complex needs and they are needed, is so important. In the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will be coming to this House reasonably soon, we will be taking additional measures around both the consent needed and the understanding of those students who are being home-schooled. On that particular issue, however, I will write to the noble Baroness about the extent of the information that we currently collect.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that there is an intermediate position between removing children from mainstream schooling and leaving them there, which is that some children with special educational needs should be able to access support alongside their mainstream schooling? Once a condition has been identified, parents who can do so will often look to access that in the private sector because it is difficult to get it due to the availability of the right resources. To what extent is the Minister confident that, where there is an identified need for additional special support outside the classroom, there are sufficient specialists available to deliver that support?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Some of the best practice that we are seeing in mainstream schools occurs where they are able to develop in-school resource centres with particular specialisms. That is why the Government have provided an additional £740 million-worth of capital to improve the capability for specialist centres like that and specialist places within mainstream schools, and in special schools where necessary. So my noble friend makes an important point. Last week, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State launched a call for evidence on best practice in inclusive practice which is nevertheless maintaining the specialist support that children need. I hope we will find more examples through looking at the good work that is already happening, which, through the increased investment and the reform that we are making in the special educational needs and disability system, we can ensure is spread more widely across our schools.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the adoption and special guardianship support fund may run out of funds entirely by the end of this month? What action are the Government thinking of taking to avoid that extremely damaging situation?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Due to the enormously difficult fiscal position that we inherited from the last Government—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, it was bad. We are having to make some enormously difficult decisions. Having said that, we are in the process of business planning, as well as planning for the next spending review, and we hope to be in a position to announce the future of schemes like that as soon as possible.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that recent reports have highlighted the very variable quality of education, health and care plans, and have identified a number where interventions were recommended that are proven not to work. In parallel with that, there have been suggestions that there should be the equivalent of NICE for special educational needs. Given how complex this area is and how long it will take to make the big structural reforms that I know the Government want to do, is this not something that the Government could press on with quickly to improve the lives of children within the system?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a fair point about us being as clear as possible about which interventions are most effective for children, as well as the broader reform that is going to be necessary. That is why, to be fair to the noble Baroness, some of the work that was started under the change programme is identifying where there is good practice in relation to EHCPs. That is why, in the engagement that this Government have started, led by Christine Lenehan as the strategic adviser for special educational needs and disability, we are looking at what is working effectively and what we need to change. I take the noble Baroness’s point about how we more quickly identify what high-quality interventions are and how to spread that as quickly as possible across the system.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, we are in a situation where we need to get early assessment for those who need it, but, as the Minister will know from recent discussions on welfare and on the number of very young people particularly on sickness, how does she think we should deal with the problems of overdiagnosis and of pathologising and medicalising young people who are having difficult times but are actually keen, or their parents are keen, to get a label when it is not appropriate? It seems to me that that is skewing the figures and damaging the system.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness identifies the crucial role of identifying early where there are difficulties or particular needs that children have. That needs to start really early, which is why the Government have improved both the training and the advice available to early years practitioners to be able to identify that. In the range of measures that I outlined in my initial Answer, there is more scope to identify and to start to take action early to prevent the early signs of some of those conditions, which can then become more serious, from escalating in the way in which the noble Baroness said. In relation to welfare reform, ensuring that we are preparing all children, particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities, for their future working lives—as I was able to see in a recent visit to New College Worcester for visually impaired young people, for example—is also incredibly important so that people can start their life able to work and achieve the best outcomes that they can throughout their lives.

HIV/AIDS: US Withdrawal from WHO

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

11:30

Asked by

[Lord Fowler]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the United States of America’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization on the global treatment of HIV/AIDS.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for the work that he has done on this agenda over very many decades. The UK will continue to work with the World Health Organization, member states and other partners to support the WHO’s ongoing transformation and to strengthen its efficiency, transparency and responsiveness. We are proud of our long-standing support for global health organisations at the core of the response to HIV/AIDS and we continue to support efforts to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

[Lord Fowler (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. There have been, to date, 40 million deaths from AIDS across the world. Because of the success of efforts over the last years, official predictions were that AIDS could be eliminated as a public health disease by 2030, as the Minister has just said, but that was before the abrupt and recent changes of policy by the American Administration, which have caused havoc across the world. Is it really the Government’s view that the 2030 target is achievable in the new conditions? Do they share the view of most medical experts that the American policies are leading the world backwards, to defeat, in a vital area of public health?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I do not think it has made it any easier, but we stand by our commitment to do this by 2030. There are some things in our favour around medical advances and new treatments, and a willingness of some Governments now to play a part that perhaps they have not been able to in the past. There is no doubt that the situation is now more challenging, but we will work as firmly and with as much energy as we ever have towards this goal, because it is important that we do.

[Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)]

My Lords, tuberculosis is the single biggest cause of death for people with HIV/AIDS, killing 1.25 million people a year. It is the most deadly infectious disease of all. Given the reduction of funding and the dismantling of USAID, and the withdrawal of funding from the WHO, does the Minister share my concern that our ability to conduct ongoing surveillance of this airborne transmissible disease is at risk? Will the Government maintain their programmes to ensure that this disease too can be beaten by 2030?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We are concerned about HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases. The theme of these exchanges today is going to be one of heightened concern about our ability to make the progress that we have an ambition and a responsibility to make. There is no doubt that it has now been made more difficult. The noble Lord asked about the decisions we are making here in the UK. We are not responsible for the decisions that other countries make, but we are responsible for the choices that we take. Although those decisions are currently being made, I find it difficult to envisage a situation where the United Kingdom does not play a leading role in the fight against these diseases.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, with regard to our approach, this week marks the 10th anniversary of the 0.7% legislation passing this House. I mourn that, because I was naive; I felt that subsequent Governments would honour it. However, we now have the position where the Government will be paying more to private sector landlords in the UK than the entirety of all our support for children with malaria or those born with AIDS. In two years’ time, we will be spending the same level on official development assistance as Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. With all great seriousness, given how far away we will be from that legislation—and the more incredulous government statements saying that when fiscal circumstances arise we will get to it—as the people now in charge of that legislation, will the Government now do the decent thing and repeal it?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Absolutely not. Why would we do that? It is our ambition to regain the 0.7% spend on official development assistance. We have been very clear about that. Why would we repeal that legislation? I find it very difficult that we are spending so much money on housing asylum seekers and migrants in the UK out of our ODA budget. I do not think that is what we should be doing. The previous Government completely lost control of the borders of this country and we have inherited this situation. The Home Office is working hard to get the numbers down and to reduce the spend so that money can be spent where it is needed most. We did make the decision—and it was a difficult one for this Government—to prioritise spending on defence. I do not think I need to explain to noble Lords why we did that. It is a decision I support, and I will be working incredibly hard, with allies and partners, to make sure that the money that we do have is spent wisely, and that we get the best value for money for British taxpayers and the most impact that we can for our partners overseas.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, last week, I co-hosted on behalf of the parliamentary Science and Technology Committee a meeting of STOPAIDS in this House. We heard from people from Africa whose ability to access drugs had, in one case, enabled a woman to live to become a grandmother. We heard about the devastating effect, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, of the cuts in USAID, for which we are not responsible. I hope my noble friend the Minister will understand that, to the extent that Britain can continue to play its part in trying to reach the 2030 target, it must use the resources, scarce though they are, to enable this work to continue. We cannot allow the world to go backwards. This needs to be tackled now.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I completely agree. There are encouraging things happening around some of the medical devices and the drugs that can be used now to provide protection against HIV, including devices for which women are in control of their use, because we are seeing an increase in prevalence among women and young girls. There are encouraging things happening, but it would be incredible to stand here and say that the situation that we now find ourselves in is not far more challenging than it has been more recently.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, taking into account the withdrawal of the United States from the WHO, can the Minister inform the House how we are working with other international partners to fill that void?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

It is vital that we do that, and we are doing that. I met the executive director of the WHO earlier this week, and that is something we spoke about in some depth. The noble Earl is absolutely right to encourage the Government to take that approach, and we will be doing so.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, alongside the withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the Trump Administration are cutting billions of dollars from US universities and research institutes. What assessment have the Government made of the impact on the UK’s research partnerships, and, crucially, in relation to this question, the impact on our shared global health challenges?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

There is no doubt that research and development is critical to making progress on this and many other agendas in development. We are working through the impact, as the noble Baroness suggests we should. Clearly, we cannot fill the void, but we can work smarter and more collaboratively, and certainly with our university and research partners it is important that we do so.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister seems to suggest that devices and medication are expanding. The problem is that people need to get tested. The impact of the US pulling out is that there are 228,000 fewer tests a day and the supply of things such as condoms and PrEP has ceased in certain programmes. If the Minister wishes the UK to take a lead, as she said at the Dispatch Box, what extra support and resources will be made available if this temporary suspension becomes permanent?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We are working through the impact of the United States’ decision and looking at how we reprioritise our own spending. The noble Lord is absolutely right. Encouragingly, in 2023, approximately 86% of people living with HIV worldwide knew their HIV status. What we do not want to see is that incredible achievement going in the wrong direction. He is right to remind the House of that.

Pharmacy Opening Hours

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

11:39

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the potential reduction in pharmacy opening hours.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government recognise that pharmacies are an integral part of our communities. There are processes in place to monitor opening hours and their impact, and core hours of either 40 or 72 hours would not be affected by the proposed action by one trade body. Options are available to patients to access alternative pharmacies or distance-selling pharmacies. We will make an announcement shortly on a funding settlement for the years 2024-25 and 2025-26.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I thank the Minister for her response. Will His Majesty’s Government publish the independent economic analysis of the pharmacy funding crisis? Also, last summer we nursed my brother-in-law as he died. We had to access medicines, often at short notice. That was very difficult, even in a built-up urban area with many pharmacies around. In rural areas, it is far more difficult. What assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of any limitation of opening hours on health outcomes in rural areas?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I will of course discuss the right reverend Prelate’s request for publication of information with Minister Stephen Kinnock, who has been working very hard with the sector in resolving matters on funding.

On opening hours, as I have said, there are core hours, but there are also additional supplementary voluntary hours that community pharmacies can choose to do. There is also a whole range of ways in which people can access pharmacy services—notwithstanding the point the right reverend Prelate made about his personal experience—including being able to contact distance pharmacies, which can provide things through online contact, by telephone call or by other means.

Pharmacies are key to making healthcare fit for the future, but we want to make sure that they are completely accessible. We will work with them to make sure that they, as largely private businesses, do so.

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my interest as chairman of King’s Health Partners. Just to build on the point made by the right reverend Prelate, what assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of the impact on population health outcomes of the intersection between limited access to primary care services and diminishing availability of pharmacy services?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I know the noble Lord talked about primary care more generally, but the assessment on pharmacies is that there is quite a good coverage. Some 80% of the population live within a mile of a pharmacy and, as I say, there are other online and not-in-person ways of contacting pharmacies. The Pharmacy Access Scheme provides financial support to pharmacies in areas where there are fewer pharmacies. Local authorities, along with ICBs, continue to monitor changes, look at provision and have the ability to intervene where necessary. On all these counts, in respect of primary care provided through pharmacy, which is so important, we continue to monitor the impact across ICBs. With regard to a particular assessment, I will gladly write with more details to the noble Lord.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister has rightly talked about some of the alternatives, particularly when hours are limited. Can I ask her about some of the long-term thinking in the department on the future of pharmacy services? We know that some chains, for example, have in-store pharmacies. What thought has been given to more of these partnerships—and also, perhaps, pharmacies as part of future primary healthcare centres? While many people may want a bricks and mortar pharmacy, those who use the NHS app, for example, may be happy to order repeat prescriptions and have them delivered or pick them up from a local location.

Patients are also more open to ideas of online consultation. We have seen Royal Mail trialling delivery by drones in remote areas. There is a whole host of things happening in other sectors that the pharmacy sector and other parts of our health and care sector can learn from. What is the department learning from this innovation in other parts of the economy?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes some very constructive points and illustrates further the point that there are many ways to deliver pharmaceutical services. I can assure him that we are exploring how pharmacy can best be positioned—and indeed levered—to fit our ambition for a neighbourhood health service within the NHS 10-year plan. More will be heard about that soon.

The noble Lord will also be aware that one of the challenges that community pharmacies raised with us is about funding, which was cut or held flat between 2015-16 and 2023-24, representing a cut of some 28%. That is why we have concluded the consultation about funding; we will shortly announce the outcome, looking at how these private businesses can operate in the market. We are keen to ensure that they play their part and continue to work very constructively with them.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, the financial year ends in two weeks, and the ongoing delay in this year’s financial settlement for pharmacists has created a cash-flow problem and exacerbated the financial issues, which means that on average eight community pharmacies a week are closing. In December the chief executive of Community Pharmacy England wrote to Ministers asking for a remedial injection of cash to help cash flow and keep pharmacies open. I gently ask the Minister why Ministers have so far ignored that request.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I feel that the most constructive response I can give to the noble Lord is the response of the Secretary of State, who has made it quite clear in Parliament that discussions will conclude shortly and an announcement will be made in the normal way. That will be via an open letter to contractors, which will be published on GOV.UK. I hope the noble Lord will understand that I cannot say more until our engagement with Community Pharmacy England, the representative body, comes to a conclusion. I can add for the benefit of noble Lords that NHS England commissioned an independent economic analysis of the cost of providing pharmaceutical services. It has informed the consultation with the sector and will be published in due course.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister concerned that GPs’ tendency very easily and readily to sign repeat prescriptions increases the demand on pharmaceutical services? Does she agree that there should be a much more rigorous review of repeat prescriptions on a regular basis?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I appreciate the noble Baroness’s views. Indeed, community pharmacies in England are dispensing around 1.1 billion NHS medicines with a value of over £10 billion each year. Prescribing is of course a clinical decision. We are nevertheless keeping an eye on the situation, of course. What matters is that people seek help, and I am very glad to say that pharmacies are playing an increasing role in the availability of assistance, so people do not always have to go to GPs, particularly for some of the more common conditions.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that community pharmacies play a vital role in addressing NHS waiting lists through the administration of the vaccination programme—whether it is influenza or the Covid-19 vaccine—and thereby contribute to the reduction in the waiting lists that are faced by many hospitals throughout the UK? Will all efforts be made by government to ensure that the challenges faced by community pharmacies at present will be resolved in the near future?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I certainly agree with my noble friend’s point. I hope that she has noticed my enthusiasm for the role that pharmacies play. The introduction of Pharmacy First was a tremendous contribution to some common-sense approaches so that people who have common conditions can more immediately access services. Many of us will have experienced that. As I have said, we will conclude matters shortly and look forward to making the decision about future funding known ASAP.

Victory in Europe and Japan: 80th Anniversaries

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Thursday 13 March.

“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a Statement about the Government’s plans to mark the 80th anniversaries of VE Day and VJ Day.

This year, 2025, marks 80 years since the end of the Second World War—80 years since victory in Europe on 8 May 1945 and victory over Japan on 15 August.

‘In all our long history we have never seen a greater day than this’

were the words of Winston Churchill when he marked the end of fighting in Europe on VE Day. Huge crowds gathered outside to celebrate, with thousands flocking to Buckingham Palace and spontaneous street parties erupting across the nation. Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Elizabeth at the time, joined in the celebrations, tiptoeing out of the palace with her sister Princess Margaret to join the celebrations on the streets of London.

‘All of us were swept along by tides of happiness and relief’,

she said.

The sacrifices made over the war were great. Without the combined efforts of the allied forces from Britain, the Commonwealth and beyond, the way of life we enjoy today and the values we hold dear would not have been possible. The total number of allied deaths, injuries and captures exceeds millions, and thousands of civilians lost their lives here at home. We are proud to remember the lasting legacy of peace they fought so hard to secure.

Each of us, in every community, has a direct connection to those who served in the Second World War. Those service personnel who were called up and asked to risk their lives for our freedoms are not strangers: they are our parents, grandparents and the ancestors of our neighbours. I have always been very proud of my grandad, who served in the RAF, and I know the country feels equally proud of every veteran who risked, and often tragically paid, the ultimate sacrifice as part of that terrible conflict. It is the ancestors of our neighbourhoods and communities who led the effort on the home front: children who were evacuated, women who stepped into essential roles, and of course the Bevin boys, many from Barnsley, who worked down the pit to power the war effort.

As time passes and we approach 80 years between life today and the end of the Second World War, the living memory of those who experienced the war fades further into history. This year’s commemorations of VE Day may well be the last where veterans who served their country during the Second World War can be in attendance, and my generation will be among the last to have the experience of speaking directly to family members who fought for their country or contributed to the effort at home. It is up to all of us, here today and across the country, to keep their stories alive.

Just as people took to the streets in 1945, it is with great pride that I can announce the measures this Government will take to mark the anniversary in 2025. All of us have memories of how national moments of celebration can bring us together, from the Olympic opening ceremony in London 2012 to the Queen’s jubilee celebrations. These events unite us in our history, our story, and our common values. This year’s anniversary will be no exception. Clement Attlee said in 1943:

‘Here in this country, although our political divisions were deep, in time of need we were able to transcend them in the interests of the whole community’.

The events this year will be a timely opportunity to remember those communal values: pulling together, a fighting spirit in the face of adversity, and compassion for our neighbours.

I am delighted to confirm that the Government have announced a programme of activities up and down the UK. Celebrations will start on the early May bank holiday, Monday 5 May, with the Cenotaph draped in flags overnight, followed by a military procession and flypast. Street parties will be held across the country, echoing the celebrations of 80 years ago. As part of this, we all know the power of food to bring people together, and we will be working with partners including the Big Lunch to make sure as many parts of the UK as possible can celebrate. We are launching our new initiative, Tip Top Towns, a call to action for community and volunteering groups to come together to get their town or village ready for the day, whether through bunting, litter picking or crocheting bonnets for postboxes.

The next day, iconic buildings will light up in commemoration, and 25,000 ceramic poppies will cascade from the Tower of London, recreating the beautiful installation from 2014. On 7 May there will be a special performance from the Parliament Choir, with tickets available to the general public. On VE Day itself, Thursday 8 May, there will be a service in Westminster Abbey, where we will come together to reflect on the values the Second World War generation fought to protect. Celebrations will conclude with a VE Day concert delivered by the BBC, mirroring the spontaneous celebrations that took place in 1945 and featuring a mix of music, poetry and spoken word. On VJ Day, Friday 15 August, the Royal British Legion will lead the nation in honouring those who fought and died during the war in the Far East, with a service at the National Memorial Arboretum.

Veterans will rightly be at the heart of our commemorations and the Government are honoured to be working with the Royal British Legion and other partners to bring this to life. Indeed, to prepare for these events we are launching our Letters to Loved Ones initiative to encourage schoolchildren and family members to explore their family histories, looking for old letters and artefacts to help them learn about life during wartime and share them on our website. This will come together at a joint event at the Imperial War Museum North with the National Theatre. To inspire young people to learn about what life was like during wartime Britain, we are announcing Our Shared Story, bringing together a range of educational resources, including materials for schools from the Royal British Legion, called I’ll Remember. “The Next Morning” will be a brand new National Theatre production written by award-winning screenwriter and playwright James Graham, which will focus on the hopes, dreams and ambitions of young people after the Second World War. An immersive augmented reality experience will bring moments from VE Day to life.

We want the whole UK to feel included and involved in VE and VJ Day celebrations, wherever they live and whoever they are. I know that events and services are happening across the devolved nations, including community initiatives in support of VE/VJ Day activity. In Wales, a VE Day event will take place at the Senedd on 8 May, and the Scotland’s Salute concert, organised by Royal British Legion Scotland and Poppyscotland at Usher Hall in Edinburgh, will take place on 6 May. In Northern Ireland, grants have been made available by a number of councils to fund community initiatives in support of VE/VJ Day activity. Special exhibitions, talks and lectures will take place in museums across VE week in all parts of the UK.

I thank my counterparts in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Governments for their support and engagement, which will ensure that all parts of the United Kingdom will mark this 80th anniversary. We will be working with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on the “For Evermore Tour”, which will focus on the stories and experiences of Commonwealth soldiers, many of whom continued to fight in the Pacific after the war on the European front had come to an end.

Together, we will make sure that the legacies of those who gave their lives will continue to be told for generations to come. I am sure the House will join me in looking forward to these commemorations as an opportunity to come together as a nation, as Britain did 80 years ago, to honour veterans and reflect on the freedom and values that The Second World War generation fought so hard to protect. I commend this Statement to the House”.

11:51

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, we on these Benches warmly welcome this Statement. It is clear that the Second World War continues to cast a long shadow. Names of the fallen are etched in stone in every parish of this country. The conflict transformed our society, not just in the families scarred by the conflict but by accelerating the role of women in the workforce or in military service, through the migration of our fellow subjects from across the Empire to help rebuild these war-torn islands, just as they had helped to defend them, and in the technological advances made in the face of adversity. In the secrecy of Bletchley Park, this country quietly invented the computer, helping to break codes and ciphers, foreshortening the war by some two years. In the desert of New Mexico, scientists from around the world invented a weapon so terrible it brought an end to the conflict in the east and still forms the linchpin of our defence today.

That past is not so distant. Here in your Lordships’ House sit the grandsons of our wartime premier and his deputy, the descendants of many others who rendered distinguished wartime service, and a young boy who came here, like thousands of others, as a refugee on the Kindertransport. Later today, in Grand Committee, we will continue to discuss plans for a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, one of the greatest crimes against humanity. This afternoon in this Chamber, we will discuss the European Convention on Human Rights, part of the international determination that the atrocities and violations of the 1930s and 1940s must never happen again.

But that recent past begins to slip from living memory. The Holocaust Educational Trust is doing brilliant work capturing the testimony of the last survivors, using modern technology to digitise them, so that future generations can interact with them as though they were still among us. Just this week, we lost 105 year-old Group Captain John Hemingway, the last of the few to whom we owe so much for defending these islands in the Battle of Britain. The Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister led the tributes from the nation, which remains humbled by their service. At the commemorations this summer, there will be fewer and frailer veterans. Can the Minister say what plans there are to put them at the heart of the proceedings, so that we can renew our thanks to them and hear their stories while we are still able to?

The Minister and I were both born closer to the end of the Second World War than to today; that gap grows ever wider for us all. But, for children born today, even the events of this summer will not form part of their consciousness. I am pleased to see mentioned in the Statement the work being done by the National Theatre, the Imperial War Museum, the National Lottery, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and many more. What else are the Government and their arm’s-length bodies doing to ensure that the lessons of the Second World War are passed on to future generations?

It is sadly clear that those lessons are as relevant today as they ever have been. The scourge of antisemitism continues to poison minds in this country and others. Extremism and intolerance are once more on the march. Only yesterday, Hungary, a member state of the European Union, banned Pride marches taking place in its country. The Statement which follows this one is about the return of conflict to the European continent, and of the siren song of isolationism. It is clear that we need to remind ourselves and our friends of the lessons of the last century.

Just a few steps from the Minister’s office in her department is the room from which Winston Churchill addressed the crowds on VE day, 8 May 1945. He told a war-weary but jubilant nation

“this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole”.

He asked them:

“When shall the reputation and faith of this generation of English men and women fail?”


This summer, let us make sure that we uphold that reputation, renew that faith, and give thanks to all those who fought for the freedom that we cherish today.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome this Statement. I encourage the Government to make as much as possible of this, as an opportunity to explain to our younger generation and educate them on the implications of what we were fighting for in the last war.

Like others, I have taken my grandchildren to the Imperial War Museum, and I was happily surprised to see pictures of my parents-in-law in uniform in the display on Bletchley. I will be taking them to the Western Front at Easter, where we will walk over the areas where in 1918 my father, as an 18 year-old in the Highland Division, fought. It is ancient history for our grandchildren, but it is highly relevant to them.

I hope the Government will make this very much a commemoration of an allied effort. In our commemoration of World War I, I felt that the then-Government tried too much to make this Britain versus Germany. We had Polish squadrons in the RAF. We had Belgian squadrons in the Bomber Command. We recruited Caribbean people who served as ground crew. We had Polish divisions. I have had many conversations in Saltaire with elderly Poles who fought in the Eighth Army, who then came to Britain after the war. We had French divisions on British soil. We had a Czech brigade. We had people who went back to work in the resistance in Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. We had Poles and Ukrainians who came here in large numbers as displaced persons and refugees after the war, whose grandchildren have almost forgotten about that. We also had 2.5 million people in the Indian army. We underplayed that in our commemoration of World War I. Many of their descendants now live in this country and are British citizens, as indeed are many of those who volunteered with the RAF from the Caribbean during the war. All that needs to be explained to the younger generation, in all its diversity.

I hope the Minister has already got her tickets for the Parliament Choir concert. I hope that all other Members of the House—those who will not be singing—will be there on 7 May for an excellent concert, for which we are already rehearsing.

We also need to educate our younger generation on the parallels between where we are now and where we were then. The Russian attack on Ukraine is motivated partly by a claim to be able to defend Russian minorities in other countries. That is what the Germans were doing in Czechoslovakia in 1938. We might even wish to remind the public that steps towards European integration after the war, in which Ernest Bevin and Winston Churchill played a large part, were absolutely part of preventing war again in western Europe. We need a sober recollection of the dangerous world we live in, the changing threats we face, and the values which we and our democratic neighbours must defend.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is really positive that we can have a united voice on what will be hugely significant anniversaries, not least because, as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, outlined, very sadly, this will be one of the last significant anniversaries where we have veterans who fought for our freedom still alive. [Interruption.]

[The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Colville of Culross) (CB)]

My Lords, the House will adjourn until this chaos calms down.

12:00

Sitting suspended.

12:04

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I had started going through some points around unity within your Lordships’ House, which I think has continued despite the interruption. As noble Lords will be aware, the Government have announced exciting plans to mark the 80th anniversaries of VE and VJ Day with a series of events and celebrations, which I am delighted to discuss with your Lordships’ House.

The noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Parkinson, outlined a number of points around our shared commitment to ensuring that we mark these anniversaries with the right amount of respect, while mindful of the fact that our veterans are, very sadly, coming towards the end of their lives in many cases.

As noble Lords will be well aware, Victory in Europe Day—VE Day—takes place on Thursday 8 May later this year and marks the Allied victory in Europe. The news resulted in millions celebrating the end of the war with street parties, dancing and singing across the country. The war in the Far East did not end until 15 August 1945 with victory over Japan, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, outlined, we are all very mindful of the events that led to that victory over Japan.

In preparation for today, and very much in line with the theme of letters to loved ones, remembering and people having conversations with family members, I spoke to my mum this morning. She is 85, so she was five at the end of the war. At the time she was in Kirkwall in Orkney and remembered both that the cinema burned down—a slightly random five year-old’s fact to remember—and that there was a parade of armed forces not just from the UK but mainly from the United States, and she and her fellow five year-olds went up to the American soldiers and asked them for chewing gum. That was her main memory. She said it was the first time she had had chewing gum—she is still not a fan.

Eighty years on, very few veterans remain alive. That is very poignant, because very many of those first-hand accounts, like that from my mother, are becoming less common. I am sure all noble Lords will join me in taking this opportunity to pay tribute to Group Captain John “Paddy” Hemingway, who sadly died earlier this week. He was the last surviving pilot of the Battle of Britain. For his bravery, selflessness and resilience during one of the darkest times in our history, I think we are all truly grateful. He was a true hero whose service leaves a lasting legacy that will continue to inspire generations to come, and our thoughts are with his family at this time.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, mentioned parallels to the current day, including the need for alliances, and that the Second World War was not just a binary conflict but one that brought together people from across the world in our attempt to win it. My personal recollection is of the very many Polish friends my parents had when I was growing up, including someone who went on to become a journalist in this country, having come over as a young man and been a pilot in the RAF. It will be recognised that it was a collective effort, and that is particularly appropriate today. Those who fought from across the Commonwealth will also have their place; we will remember them, as we do others, during the celebrations and commemorations.

Five years ago, the 75th anniversaries of VE and VJ Day were profoundly poignant occasions, overshadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic. As the world faced an unprecedented global crisis with social distancing and lockdowns in place, the commemorations became a moment of reflection about the crisis we faced as well as one of gratitude to the Second World War generation. I think the late Queen spoke for the nation, and that we had a moment of unity across our country. This year, while the focus remains on remembrance, we have the opportunity to come together, gather in our communities and honour the legacy of those who fought so hard and gave up so much to protect the freedom we cherish today.

A truly inclusive national engagement programme will complement the series of events for VE and VJ Day 80. There are many ways that everyone from across your Lordships’ House, and members of the public, can get involved. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, I have not yet got my tickets for the choir event that he mentioned, but I will do so.

The Government are introducing a general call to action for people from across the country, called Tip Top Towns, where the public are encouraged to get their towns, villages or cities ready for VE Day. Whether this be through putting up bunting, litter picking or crocheting bonnets for postboxes, everyone is invited to get in the spirit of the commemorations. We are encouraging street parties up and down the country on 5 May, mirroring the celebrations that took place in 1945. The Big Lunch has developed street party packs to support these, and the National Lottery is making its Awards for All fund available to support celebrations across the UK.

We are working with brilliant creative organisations to deliver a wide-reaching programme of activity. This includes Arts Council England, which will provide funding to arts centres, libraries and museums across the UK to celebrate and reflect on the 80th anniversaries of VE Day and VJ Day. The National Theatre is creating a brand new short film, “The Next Morning”, which will focus on the hopes, dreams and ambitions of young people. The Imperial War Museum has launched a national call-out, Letters to Loved Ones, for schoolchildren and their families to look for letters from the Second World War. The public will be invited to explore the important history of the Second World War, and to share their personal stories, as part of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s For Evermore tour, which will have the torch of peace at its heart—the torch is currently in Portcullis House.

The value of these commemorations lies in their ability to connect generations. It is vital that our young people understand the impact of the Second World War, and that they have the opportunity to hear first hand the stories of our living Second World War veterans and others who lived through the war years, before it is too late. The Government, in partnership with the Royal British Legion, the Imperial War Museum, the National Theatre, Atlantic Productions and the Together Coalition, are developing a school resource to enable young people to engage with veteran testimony. Our shared story will provide schools with learning resources for each key stage, focused on the end of the Second World War and what this means for us today.

The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, asked about engagement with veterans. As was noted, this year will be one of our last opportunities to thank our veterans and to hear their stories first hand, so it is important that we not only thank them for their service but ensure that their legacy lives on to inform future generations. We are working with the Royal British Legion, which has done a recent call-out to veterans, to ensure that veterans who are able to take part in the commemorations can do so as much or as little as they would like. The welfare of veterans will be central to all VE Day and VJ Day commemorations. Every young person will have the opportunity to engage with the stories and testimonies of the Second World War generation.

The Government hope that the programme will bring the whole country together in remembrance and celebration. We must ensure that the stories of those who lived through this war, or who made the ultimate sacrifice, live on, not just in books or on paper but in the hearts and minds of future generations. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, is right that, when we see intolerance and antisemitism on the rise, this feels particularly important this year.

12:13

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement, but one of my regrets about the commemoration of the centenary of the First World War was the lack of focus on the immediate post-war period and the political and diplomatic failures that set the conditions for the later, even more damaging, conflict. This is in direct contrast to what happened in 1945, when it was recognised that enduring peace is not a natural or spontaneous phenomenon but requires sustained international commitment, co-operation and effort. That message is surely as relevant today as it has ever been, so can the Minister reflect on how that particular theme might be woven into this year’s commemorations, particularly with regard to education?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The noble and gallant Lord makes a really important point. The first part of that discussion will be on the point that only by learning about our past and seeing how it relates to our present will we genuinely pay tribute to those who died and made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. The schoolwork will play a particular role in that. All of us are mindful of the very fragile place the world is in—it is even more fragile than a year ago—so that very present understanding of how we need to work together across national borders to secure peace, and the recognition that we cannot take it for granted, have to run through our commemoration of these events.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on not just her excellent Statement but her calmness during the interruption. Like me, she has lots of connections all around the United Kingdom, and she knows that men and women in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force from all parts of the United Kingdom protected this country during the war. Therefore, it is very important that all the celebrations take place in every part of the United Kingdom. She elaborated on some of them so far, but can she extend that and tell us what more is being done, particularly in co-operation with the devolved Administrations in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Discussions are taking place with the military around the country, with devolved Governments and with local government; close official engagement has taken place, and they are fully aware of our plans for VE Day and VJ Day. In Wales, a VE Day event will take place at the Senedd on 8 May, and the Scotland’s Salute concert at Usher Hall will take place on 6 May. There is one project that I am most enthusiastic about—it is important that it will be not just in London but in communities, and the Imperial War Museum North will play a central part. On 7 May, in the Imperial War Museum North, some letters submitted by the public will become part of a public performance coproduced by the National Theatre. So if noble Lords take one thing away from this it should be that, if they know people who have letters or remarkable stories that their families would want to share, they have a chance for their stories to be included if they share letters through the Government’s website before 14 April.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I know that we may be a little uneasy about the current American leadership, but the American nation is quite a different thing. It played a vast part in the victory at the time, as, indeed, did the Russians. Would it not have been wise to have put that in this Statement? There is no mention of America at all. Is it not important to get the message over to the younger generation that when the great powers serve the rest of the nations, rather than pursuing their own internal interests, we make far greater progress, and will in the future?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

We are clearly talking to all our allied partners in this respect. Although this perhaps was not mentioned explicitly in Stephanie Peacock’s Statement, I note that I specifically mention American forces. It would be remarkable if they were not also part of the commemorations—I make it clear that they are commemorations—and government departments are working to make sure that that happens.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, can the Minister say a little more about VJ Day? Outside St Albans Cathedral is the peace obelisk given by the people of Japan because of the courageous witness of the then dean, Dean Thicknesse. Each year, on 6 August, we have an ecumenical act of witness and prayers there. What is being done specifically to educate people about the dreadful carnage caused by atomic bombs and how we can build today a world that does not need to use them in the future?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Our country contributes to nuclear non-proliferation. The type of ecumenical reflection the right reverend Prelate mentioned is clearly appropriate to commemorate the devastating way in which we reached VJ Day. We will make sure that both the VE and VJ Day anniversaries are appropriately commemorated. The specific commemorative event for VJ Day will be a service at the National Memorial Arboretum. Further details of our VJ Day plans will be shared more widely as the year progresses.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, popular thinking about VE Day is of parties and celebration. As the noble Baroness said, this will be the last opportunity we have to thank the veterans. But there were many who did not grow old as those who were left grew old. Particularly given the parallels at the moment, during these VE celebrations it is important that we ensure that we do not forget the cost and the sacrifices that were made. How are we going to ensure this? When I asked my father for his memories of VE Day, he said that the family did not really celebrate it because his 19 year-old brother had been killed on 26 April 1945. The family had just received the telegram—which was the second, because his elder brother was killed in the Arctic convoys in 1944. Can we ensure that our younger generation—who may be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice one day—understand the ultimate sacrifices that were made by those people?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. I am clear that when we talk about people making the ultimate sacrifice, we need to make sure that children and young people understand what that means. I sincerely hope that we never get to the stage where our young people today have to make the same sacrifice. I am also clear, from talking to a number of people about their own families’ memories of that time, that there was not unadulterated joy. As well as relief that the war was over, there was significant sorrow as well.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

We will have a Cross-Bencher first.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that it was ideology in the form of fascism that posed the danger then, and it is ideology in the form of neo-imperialism in both Russia and China that poses the danger to us now? I welcome the Statement but, while we rightly cover all the angles that noble Lords have mentioned, I hope that consideration will also be given to educating the overall public—not just younger people—about the threat we will face due to events in Indochina, and to celebrating the role of our allies there, as well as warning of what is to come through China’s ambitions in its neighbourhood.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

As a Government, we are clear that we want to tackle ideologies that undermine our democracy and freedom wherever they are. I believe that the public are fully aware of the fragility of our world order at the moment. I would find it very odd if that did not come through in a lot of the commemoration of those events.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, many of the people who fought on after VE Day used the phrase “the forgotten army”, so can we make sure that we emphasise the sacrifice and real hardship that many of the prisoners of war experienced from Japan? If I might just gently say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, the brutal truth is that, had the Americans not been involved and not used their nuclear weapons, hundreds of thousands of people would have died needlessly. It was a horrible thing to do, but that nuclear deterrent played an important part in giving us the freedom which those people who interrupted our proceedings today enjoy.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

We value our relationships with the Americans now, as then. The noble Lord makes a powerful point. It is vital that we do not simply focus on VE Day but look at VJ Day as well. The commemorations around VE Day will have a different tone, and there will be more community-engaged street events, and so on. We are clear that the sacrifices made by those who served across Asia and the Pacific will be at the heart of the commemorations.

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome everything that the Minister has said. However, a few noble Lords have mentioned that the events of World War II and the Holocaust are slipping from memory into history. It strikes me that that gives impetus to revisionist historians and Holocaust deniers to peddle their poison and chip away at its integrity. Does not this mean that these celebrations have to be more striking than in previous years in order that the memory is collectively imprinted on younger generations?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I reassure my noble friend that we are determined that that will happen. He noted the rise of antisemitism; it is a deplorable form of hate crime which the Government are committed to tackling, as well as to ensuring that everyone is able to worship and protest freely, to wear religious clothing and go about their lives in safety and security, irrespective of their background, faith or other characteristics.

[Lord Hussain (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

If we conduct our business appropriately, we will still have time for other Members to come in. We have not heard from the Liberal Democrats.

[Lord Hussain (LD)]

My Lords, I hope the Minister will agree that the role of the British colonies and the British Empire needs to be recognised. Our younger generation needs to be reminded of the role played by people from the British colonies, particularly the Indian subcontinent. I speak as somebody whose family member—my father’s elder brother—went to serve in the British Army. He left my father, aged 15, to look after the family and never came back. That is the kind of example from among those of us from those colonies who have settled in Britain. The new generation needs to be reminded of that.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Absolutely; the noble Lord’s point is well made. All our activities and events will focus on both the UK and Commonwealth experiences at the end of the war, ensuring that these commemorations resonate across the whole of the Commonwealth. We are engaging with the Commonwealth Secretariat to ensure that Commonwealth experiences are represented. We are actively engaging with embassies throughout the Commonwealth and collaborating closely with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on a global tour to honour and share the stories of those who fought in the Second World War. Colleagues in the FCDO and MoD are working closely with us on these plans. This will also be an important aspect of how this is addressed in schools and with young people so that all our pupils and young people recognise their own shared history, wherever their families were during the war.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

We will hear from the Cross Benches, please.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the need to involve allies. I would like to say a word about the need to involve former enemies as well. My uncle was shell-shocked and injured at Kohima. My father was one of the first Army doctors to go into Bergen-Belsen; I think he was the first. They would have said that it is very important that commemoration should also be mingled with reconciliation. It is important that, on VE Day, the Germans are fully involved, as the Japanese should be on VJ Day.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

We are trying to involve all nations appropriately. One of the clearest indications of how we work with those countries that were previously our enemies is shown in the steadfast allyship particularly of Germany in relation to conflict in Europe.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Minister that many people from other countries came to help in Britain. My father came from Ireland to serve and help to defeat Hitler, and there were many people from Poland, of course, and from all over the place, including the huge contribution from the Indian army and the African armies, not to mention Canada, which joined us from the start. Not wishing to be sour about it, I think it is worth remembering that the United States did not declare war on Germany; Germany declared war on the United States. Roosevelt declared war only on Japan.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

It is really important when we have these commemorations not to drag over some of the old issues and enmities but to move forward. In previous answers, I have completely recognised the role of Commonwealth soldiers across the military, as well as those from other nations, and we will make sure that all nations are involved appropriately.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the forgotten parts of the last two world wars was the role played by the railways in supplying logistics to the front. We spent a long time bombing them when we were attacking, but of course the Germans tried to bomb us as well. My father was in the Royal Engineers and spent a lot of time repairing the railways in France and Belgium. There is only one book produced about that—it was written by Christian Wolmar—but my main point in speaking today is that this is still the case in Ukraine. I commend Network Rail and my noble friend Lord Hendy, who was in his place, for giving so many spare parts and other help to Ukraine to keep the railways there working. It is just as important now as it was in the previous war.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that point, and wholeheartedly agree. I have mentioned my family, and my great-uncle was also in the Royal Engineers and would have carried out similar roles during the war—so I shall look out for that book with interest.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

It is the turn of the Cross Benches.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, as one of probably quite few Members of today’s House who was a teenager during the Second World War, I add my commendation to Group Captain Hemingway. He was born in Dublin, as was I, and very many Irishmen served in the Second World War with great distinction, who should not be forgotten.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for that point. I hope that, from the short debate that we have had today, noble Lords have understood how much we want to involve and recognise the role of all nations, including not least our Irish neighbours. We shall have an opportunity in your Lordships’ House to debate this—I am not sure whether the date of the debate has been put forward in the diary, but I know that there are plans for us to have a debate in the context of VE Day, and I look forward to having a discussion with noble Lords again then.

G7

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 17 March.

“With permission, I shall make a Statement about last week’s meeting of G7 Foreign Ministers. We met at a pivotal moment. Some Members of this House may have doubted that we could find common ground, and some of our global competitors may have hoped that we would fail, but after 36 hours of talks, we were united. Britain united with our allies to make our citizens more secure. National security is a foundation of this Government’s plan for change, and we are leading from the front.

The overriding priority was, of course, Ukraine. Last week in Jeddah, the United States and Ukraine reached a common position. A ceasefire offer is now on the table, and American weapons and intelligence are flowing once again. This demonstrated what this House has always known to be true: under President Zelensky’s leadership, Ukraine is serious about peace, sincere in its efforts to pursue a just and lasting end to this appalling war, and unrelenting in its determination to ensure that it remains democratic, free, strong and prosperous.

At the G7, the UK and our allies were united in our unwavering support for Ukraine’s defence of its freedoms, united in support for Ukraine’s pursuit for peace, and united on what is required to make that happen. Now it is Putin who stands in the spotlight, Putin who must answer, and Putin who must choose. Are you serious, Mr Putin, about peace? Will you stop the fighting, or will you drag your feet and play games, and pay lip service to a ceasefire while still pummelling Ukraine? My warning to Mr Putin is this: if you are serious, prove it, with a full and unconditional ceasefire now.

On whether Putin will deliver, I must tell the House that I see no sign yet that he will. The G7 meeting helped us ready the tools to get Russia to negotiate seriously. We are not waiting for the Kremlin. If it rejects a ceasefire, we have more cards that we can play. We can all see the impact that the G7’s unprecedented sanctions have had on Russia’s faltering economy: social spending is down, and inflation and interest rates are sky high. There can be no let-up in our efforts. In Canada, we discussed where we can go further to target Russia’s energy and defence sectors, further squeeze its oil revenues and use frozen Russian assets.

At the same time, we will keep up our support to Ukraine; Europeans clearly need to shoulder our share of this responsibility. We in the UK are stepping up on drones, munitions and training, sending more than 400 different capabilities to Ukraine and training more than 50,000 recruits. We have also announced the biggest increase in UK defence spending since the end of the Cold War. We are urging our allies to do the same so that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position now and in any peace that follows. Tomorrow, I will be hosting EU High Representative Kallas—the first such visit since we left the European Union. In this moment, Ukraine’s friends should be working hand in glove, and that requires a new era in UK-EU security co-operation.

Finally, we are taking steps to ensure that Russia does not come back for more. We know the history—Budapest, Minsk and paper promises betrayed by Putin. Together with France, we are establishing a coalition willing to deter Russia from invading again. To be credible, it will need US support, but Britain and our allies recognise that we need to step up, and this Government are leading the effort on multiple fronts. In the past week, my right honourable and learned friend the Prime Minister convened the biggest gathering yet of those willing to play their part in ensuring Ukraine’s future security. That followed my visit to Canada and the trip of the Secretary of State for Defence, my right honourable friend the Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), to Paris. This week, military planners from the allies will gather for further discussions in the UK, which will be co-chaired with France.

Ukraine was our top priority, but our unity extended beyond Ukraine. The G7 united in support for the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages and unhindered humanitarian aid into Gaza. Let me be clear to this House about what I said to the G7: Hamas must release the hostages. For Israel to be secure, these terrorists can have no role in Gaza’s future, but the complete blocking of aid in Gaza is appalling and unacceptable. Humanitarian aid should never be used as a political tool, and we urge the Israeli Government to change course. The G7 also discussed the Arab reconstruction plan for Gaza—an important signal on which we should build.

The G7 also united behind an inclusive political transition in Syria. Stability in Syria bolsters UK security at home and abroad. We condemned the recent violence in Syria’s coastal regions and called for those responsible to be held accountable, and we were united in increasing the pressure on Iran. Tehran is producing highly enriched uranium at a rate that makes a mockery of the limits set in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Iran can never be allowed to develop or acquire a nuclear weapon. President Trump has written to the Supreme Leader, and this weekend the United States has responded strongly to the Houthi resumption of unacceptable attacks on international shipping. Iran must now change course, de-escalate and choose diplomacy.

The G7 also kept the spotlight on the conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We denounced the atrocities in Sudan. The warring parties must protect civilians, cease hostilities and ensure unhindered humanitarian access. There was strong support for the conference on Sudan that I will host next month, which is an important opportunity to get a political process moving. We also condemned the Rwanda-backed offensive in the eastern DRC, which is a flagrant breach of the DRC’s territorial integrity. The M23 and Rwandan Defence Force must withdraw. All parties should support African-led mediation processes.

The G7 also reiterated our call for the restoration of Venezuelan democracy and reaffirmed our strong support for Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. As the G7 met, Armenia and Azerbaijan concluded negotiations on an historic peace agreement. We warmly welcome that achievement and encourage both sides to move to signature as soon as possible.

It was a pleasure to be back in Canada. It is a proud, sovereign nation, in which I have family whom I have visited since childhood, and with which we share a long history and a Royal Family. Its new leader, Prime Minister Carney, is in London today, and I am sure that the whole House will congratulate him on his appointment. My fellow G7 Ministers and I received a warm welcome to Quebec, home of my good friend Minister Mélanie Joly. We united behind a new Canadian-led initiative on maritime security—an example of Canada’s strong leadership. With growing threats from the Red Sea to the South China Sea—trade routes on which growth and all our economies rely—a strong collective response from the G7 matters to us all.

Fifty years ago, a small group of western leaders met just outside Paris—the origins of the G7. They did not agree on everything; they were from different political sides, with three from the left and three from the right. It was a time of upheaval, with war in the Middle East, an oil crisis, a recession, and the Bretton Woods system falling away. Many, then as now, were pessimistic about the ability of democracies to navigate the turbulence, but that generation rose to the challenge. With the G7, they tried something different—its format allowed leaders to be honest with each other, and so find common ground. Today, we must rise to these new challenges. In that same spirit of honesty and common purpose, Britain and our partners are stronger when we stand together. We are standing together right now. I commend this Statement to the House”.

12:34

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, the turbulence of the global situation that we face was reflected in the breadth of the subjects covered in the joint statement of the G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting: Ukraine, Gaza, China, Sudan, the DRC, Latin America and Iran were all covered. We are faced with a world of growing uncertainty and instability, and we welcome the commitment shown at the G7 to face those global challenges together.

The importance of co-operation and alliance with those countries that share our values in facing these threats is, in my view, crucial. Over the weekend, and in the other place this week, we have heard that the proposed peacekeeping initiative for Ukraine is now moving into an operational phase, which we welcome. However, the Foreign Secretary did not expand on what that means in practical terms, or what our European and Atlantic allies have committed to in supporting it. Can the Minister provide the House with an update on these issues?

Across both Houses of Parliament, there is overwhelming support, I am delighted to say, for our Ukrainian allies, and we on these Benches continue to support Ukraine in its fight to defend its freedom, democracy and the rule of law. The Government have taken admirable steps to co-ordinate our allies, which we welcome, although the House would welcome an update on what this means for us and our country in practice. What are the effects of this initiative on our Armed Forces? What planning is currently under way as part of this operational shift? Which allies in the so-called coalition of the willing have expressed interest in this initiative, and what are they willing to offer? What discussions have the Government held with the United States to advance clarity on this plan? Facing Putin and ensuring the security and sovereignty of Ukraine can be achieved only alongside our allies, and I think that the House would welcome further clarity from the Government to explain what they are doing to shift this coalition of the willing to a coalition of the committed.

The G7’s joint statement also made clear the growing and very serious concerns among allies about China’s activities aimed at

“undermining the security and safety of our communities and the integrity of our democratic institutions”.

This comes alongside many other concerns raised at the G7, including China’s non-market policies and practices that are leading to harmful overcapacity and market distortions; China’s military build-up, and the continued, rapid increase in China’s nuclear weapons arsenal; and increasing efforts to restrict freedom of navigation and overflight through militarisation and coercion in countries bordering the South China Sea, in clear violation of international law.

Given these clear and blatant risks to our domestic security, and the threat that China poses to the rule of international law, will the Government now take steps to place China on the enhanced tiers list of the foreign influence registration scheme? In my view, this would further strengthen the resilience of the UK political system against covert influence and provide greater assurance around the activities of China that are deemed a national security risk.

Proceeding from the concerns expressed at the G7, the country now needs to see further concrete responses from the Government to address the threat posed by China. I therefore close by asking the Minister: what other measures are being considered by the Government to compel China to engage in strategic risk reduction discussions, and what steps are the Government taking to deter China’s non-market policies and practices?

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the seriousness of the issues addressed by the G7 are such that, from the welcome Statement that the House of Commons received on Monday, events have changed between then and when it has come to this Chamber with regards to the likely slow movement of President Putin in his talks with President Trump over a ceasefire for Ukraine, the increased concern with regard to the Red Sea, and the strikes from the United States and the repercussions of that—I remind the House that, on Sunday, President Trump’s national security adviser called the previous attacks, which very brave RAF personnel took part in, as “feckless”. The war has restarted in Gaza with more humanitarian concern and more violence on the West Bank, just within three days of that Statement coming to this Chamber.

We are now close to the second round of tariffs from the principal economy within the G7, as part of what the Wall Street Journal—not a liberal newspaper—in America has described as the

“dumbest trade war in history”.

Regardless of its dumbness, there will be effects across the whole of the G7, including the UK. From these Benches, we reiterate our desire to have ever-closer relations with the European Union and Canada in particular, so that there is a co-ordinated response. It is regrettable that there should need be that within the G7, but this is the world which we have to address.

On the Statement itself, I welcome the Foreign Secretary stating that they discussed using frozen Russian assets. The Minister will know that these Benches have asked for accelerated work on the seizure of the assets. Can the Minister update us on that, and tell us what the prospect of an announcement is from the G7 Heads of Government meetings? At the very least, we think there is a justified case for draft UK legislation to be released, so that we can understand what we would be required to do to move fast on that. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline where we are on the seizing of assets.

The Minister knows that we have supported the increase in defence expenditure across the UK, as the Foreign Secretary referred to in the Statement. Can the Minister give a bit more clarity as to what proportion of the increased defence expenditure is likely to be spent within the UK and what proportion is likely to be spent within the US? What is the Government’s position on the reports that we have seen about the UK’s difficulty in taking a full role within the common defence procurement approach in the European Union? Are we seeking to move quickly on a defence and security treaty which should facilitate this? There are a number of Members in this House who called for that under the last Government and continue to do so. It is now urgent, and I hope the Minister can update us on it.

The Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that we disagree with the method of the increased funds. We believe that the companies that avoid paying tax in the UK—tech companies—and are operating on underpaid taxes for their profits should contribute more. That is under the Basel 3.1 mechanism. There is agreement within the EU and, as I understand it, the G7. Only one country has argued against it and pulled out of it: the United States. A second G7 country has delayed our implementation because of that first country. We do not believe that that is appropriate; we should move quickly on using the resource from an increase from 2% to 10% on undertaxed profits. That is a better way of funding increased defence expenditure, rather than cutting the ODA budget.

Earlier, the Minister reiterated the Government’s position, which is an ambition to honour the 0.7% legislation. I remind the House that the legislation does not require the Government to have an ambition to meet 0.7%; it requires them to meet it. It is not a “We would like to do it” Act; it is a “We must do it” Act. If the Government are not committed to this then they should state it clearly, with regards to the means by which they would meet the legislative target.

On the fiscal circumstances of meeting the legislative requirement, it seems that the Government’s policy choice is to cut ODA to fund defence expenditure—that is a policy choice, not a fiscal one. What are the fiscal rules now when it comes to the policy choice of funding in an alternative way? There is no mechanism under the 0.7% legislation for alternative policy choices to be used, other than fiscal circumstances, so what is the status?

Finally, I reflected on the Government’s Statement 10 years ago, when we passed this legislation, on the 2015 G7. Granted, that was not a meeting of Foreign Ministers but of Prime Ministers, and the Prime Minister said this to the House of Commons:

“For the first time in a number of G7s and G8s, we actually got the 0.7% commitment back into the text, so it is clear and there for all to see. I would argue that it is not just right for Britain from a moral standpoint, but that it actually increases our standing in the world that we can point out that we have kept our promises and were able to use that money to enhance not only the economic standing of those countries, but our own security as well.”—[Official Report, Commons, 10/6/15; col.1203.]


I agree with the then Prime Minister.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, made an important point in his opening remarks, about co-operation and unity being vital when we face so many challenging situations around the world. I thank him for saying that and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

The noble Lord asked about the Prime Minister’s comments on us being prepared to support security guarantees for Ukraine, which includes boots on the ground, should that be needed. It is too early to be able to say anything detailed in response to his question. I understand why he would like more information, and, if I had it, I would share it with him, but we are at an early stage and I do not have anything to share today.

As the noble Lord rightly said we should be, we are working closely with the US and other allies. As noble Lords will know, on Saturday, the Prime Minister hosted a leaders call to discuss next steps in developing the coalition of the willing, to which the noble Lord referred. Leaders agreed that we will accelerate our military support, tighten our sanctions on Russia’s revenues and continue to explore all lawful routes to ensure that Russia pays for the damage that it has done to Ukraine. Military planners will meet in London this week to progress practical plans. The Foreign Secretary met G7 counterparts last week, and G7 Foreign Ministers endorsed the US-Ukraine ceasefire agreement and discussed imposing further costs on Russia if a ceasefire is not agreed. The Defence Secretary met E5 Defence Ministers last Wednesday, and they committed to stepping up support for peace, working towards the establishment of security guarantees.

On China, noble Lords know that our approach is to co-operate and compete, and challenge where we need to. That is done through dialogue with our Chinese counterparts.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, suggested that we work closely with Canada and our EU partners when we face challenges on certain trade and other issues, and he is right to do so. He asked me to update him on the issue of frozen Russian assets. All I can say is that we are working as hard as we can on this; we have redoubled our efforts and will keep going. It is vital that Russia pays for what it has done in Ukraine.

The noble Lord and I will have to agree to differ on the issue of official development assistance. It was the right decision; we needed to get the money into the defence budget quickly. There is a development pay-off in doing that, because it enhances our ability to provide security, and that supports many developing nations—they have said as much.

On the issue of the 0.7%, I strongly urge noble Lords not to fetishise legislation that has not had the effect that those who proposed it wanted. Our desire to reach 0.7% is not to do with legislation; it is a desire to have an impact on developing nations because that is the right thing to do. That is what will drive us to meet that figure when the economic situation allows. It is a policy choice—I am not pretending it is not; of course it is. We have decided to put more money into defence. However, we do not sit here, in a crouched position, wondering how on earth we are going to fulfil our obligations to the global South over the next few years. We are going to be active, prioritising certain countries and streams of work. We will be engaging closely with our partner countries and the aid sector, and will be working multilaterally. We will be more active because we have to be.

It is not just about the money; it is about investment, our approach, working together and the technical assistance we can provide. I encourage noble Lords to think about our responsibility to the global South not just in terms of ODA. It is far bigger than that. There is not a limit on our ambition just because we have had to make these difficult financial decisions. They were the right decisions, but over the next few years we will have a more active and energised approach than we have ever had, because that is what is needed and what this Government want to do.

12:50

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register of interests. In common with many Members of your Lordships’ House, I am an ambassador for the Halo Trust. Most of the Statement delivered by my right honourable friend in the other place was, quite appropriately, about our unwavering support for Ukraine’s people and territorial integrity.

Ukraine—where, along with allies, we are now considering boots on the ground—is the most heavily mined country in the world, with over 23% of its land contaminated or at risk of contamination with landmines and unexploded ordnance. At the fifth review conference of the Ottawa treaty in December, we reaffirmed our commitment to continuing the UK’s mine action commitments. We are home to two of the largest mine action organisations in the world: Mines Advisory Group and the Halo Trust are responsible for almost 70% of global mine clearance. I urge my noble friend to ensure that the FCDO’s mine action programme is protected as our budget is reduced. It costs only £12 million per year and raises twice that from other sources, including philanthropy. GMAP is cheap, it is genuinely world leading, and it is indispensable and irreplaceable.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I hear what my noble friend says about demining, and he is right. He urges me to commit to protecting that programme, and I will take his very wise counsel seriously. I get a lot of people coming to tell me what must be protected. No one has ever come to tell me that there is this programme that is not very good, but the case he makes is incredibly strong and I will keep that in mind.

[Lord Hussain (LD)]

My Lords, the Statement mentions Sudan very briefly. I happen to have visited that country on a couple of occasions, albeit a few years ago. I have two very brief questions. First, the Minister said that funding for Sudan will be prioritised, but can we have an assurance that all development support for the broad civilian front will be protected? Secondly, will the Minister agree with me that for the peace, prosperity and security of the African region and, more importantly, for the people of Sudan, the best option will be to keep Sudan as one sovereign country? If so, what are the British Government’s efforts to achieve that?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that we have committed to protecting our support for Sudan, because so many thousands of people find themselves in such a horrific situation in that region. We are about to hold a conference here in London for international partners to come and talk. I think the prospect of an imminent resolution is limited. However, the right way to approach this is to use our convening power and to encourage dialogue in the hope that it can in time unlock this situation, because it is desperate. We are undertaking a great deal of humanitarian assistance in the region, which is right, but ultimately we need to see peace in Sudan.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister struck a global approach when she was answering the questions earlier, which is quite right. Will she remind all those involved around her that it is not just Commonwealth countries? It is Japan this time as well. It is on our side and anxious to make a contribution, and keeps on asking at what point it should be brought in and so on. It is not just a European issue.

Secondly, have we picked up on the rather interesting emergence of a discussion about energy vulnerability? The Russians have been exploiting this, of course, but say that for the moment they will not hit energy and power stations. It reminds us that this is a world and a situation in which civilian, non-front-line utilities can be reached by rockets in a way they never could in earlier combat. They must be defended, and the cost of that defence is part of our defence expenditure. It is not just MoD tanks and rockets; we will have to spend defence money on defending vital utilities and civilian populations, because this is a war against civilians.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right to mention Japan, an incredibly close friend and ally of the United Kingdom. We do work with it, so I take his point; he is completely right to remind noble Lords about that.

Attacks on energy and other civilian infrastructure are abhorrent, and we work closely with our allies and partners to try to make sure that we do what we need to protect them and, where necessary, that we are fully engaged in reconstruction that, sadly, will need to happen.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the Statement and particularly the strong words, on which I think we are united in this House, about standing by Ukraine. On that matter, I particularly noted her comments about the discussion around Russia paying for the damage it has wreaked across Ukraine. Of course, the damage is not just a cost in pounds alone. Does she agree that there can be no peace worthy of that name while there are tens of thousands of Ukrainian children taken from their parents, scattered across the country and, according to some reports, even being brainwashed against their mother country? There can be no peace worthy of that name while those children remain in Russia. Does she share my concern of recent reports that Yale University’s humanitarian lab has been defunded by Elon Musk’s DOGE while it was in the midst of trying to track many of those abducted children? Has the G7 discussed the fate of those poor, abducted children? Their safe return really must be an absolute non-negotiable in any peace deal.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord. Many things keep me awake at night, but the fate of those children is one that frequently comes to mind. We do discuss those children and the necessity of their safe and immediate return to their families. What has happened is unimaginable. He is completely right, and I can assure him that we take every opportunity to discuss that.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

I co-chair the taskforce for the return of the children who have been taken into Russia. The evidence is really shocking and quite scandalous. It is interesting that no one from the Government has ever asked me to come and speak to them about the evidence. I draw that to the attention of the Front Bench; perhaps it will find its way down to the other end of this House. I suspect that no one in this House knows more about it than I do, and yet I have never been asked.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I would like the noble Baroness to consider herself invited. I would be very keen to hear what she has to say, to consider the evidence she has and to discuss ways in which she may be able to assist in efforts to have those children returned.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests on organisations working for conflict resolution, particularly chairing the ICO advisory panel in this regard. I associate myself closely with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Katz. We are all as one on this, and we must look at alternative sources.

My question is on the one glimmer of hope in the Statement. I commend the Government on continuing to draw attention to the resolution of the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as the previous Government did. That is a positive within the Statement. In the same way, were there any discussions about the territorial gains that Russia has made in Crimea, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and, of course, the Donbass? What would be the resolution there? At the moment, the way discussions are going, it seems that Russia gets to keep lands that it has occupied.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I do not have anything specific to say on the content of those negotiations. It would be strange to disclose things such as that—were I aware of them, which I am not—while those negotiations are ongoing. What matters is that the agreement that is finally reached is one that the people of Ukraine are satisfied with. What matters is that we get peace, but it needs to be a just peace and it needs to be agreed with Ukraine at the very centre of it.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement refers, rightly, to Israel’s complete blocking of aid to Gaza as being “appalling and unacceptable”. Since the Statement was made, Israel has resumed attacks on Gaza; 400 people have died, including many children, and there is great concern for the remaining Israeli hostages in this situation. Sir Keir Starmer said that he was “deeply concerned” about the Israelis resuming military action, and, in the other place, he refused to rule out the suspension of further arms sales. Surely we are now at the point where we have to suspend all arms sales to Israel.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We have been very clear that we think that Israel ought to allow aid into Gaza, and that it is wrong to disrupt that flow and to cut off the electricity supply. What matters is that we can protect that population, feed those children and get the medical supplies where they need to be. On arms and restrictions, as noble Lords know, we take an approach that is based on the law, and we apply the law. We made decisions last year to impose restrictions; we will do so again should we need to in future. The situation today is the same as it was yesterday, and we have made no new decisions on that.

[Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)]

Following the ongoing work and conclusions of the G7, will the Minister have a further word with the Ministry of Defence about the extreme inadvisability of dispatching a carrier group to the Far East at this time, taking with it a very large amount of the depleted serviceable aircraft and ships of the Royal Navy currently available for operations? The carrier’s place now is in the north Atlantic with its escorts, and it should not go to the Far East.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I have a very good relationship with my colleagues at the Ministry of Defence, and I am happy to discuss any issue with them, but operational decisions such as that one probably would not fall within my remit. I am sure they will note what the noble Lord has said. They are free to make the choices that they have made, and they have more information on which to base those choices than we do here today.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether the United States Secretary of State raised either the G7 becoming the G8, by the addition of Russia, or the G6, by the subtraction of Canada? If her answer to that question is “No” or “I don’t know”, can we stop being distracted from the mass of important matters that the G7 must address in the months ahead?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I am not aware of any such discussions. I believe that the G7 has been focused on, as the noble Lord said, the vital issues that it faces.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

The Statement said that the G7 was

“united behind an inclusive political transition in Syria”.

I am not quite sure how we can help to bring that about until we again have an embassy in Syria. I apologise for coming around like a cracked record on this. The last time we spoke about it, Ministers seemed to be showing a bit of leg; there was a hint of movement. Is there any chance of that leg moving into action?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I do not need to explain to the noble Lord that it is not straightforward to reopen the embassy in Damascus after such a period of time, but I take on board his desire to see that happen. I understand why he said that; there are very good reasons to take that view. I will consider that alongside Minister Hamish Falconer, who I am sure will respect, as he should, the views of the noble Lord.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement refers to the G7 condemning

“the Rwanda-backed offensive in the eastern DRC, which is a flagrant breach of the DRC’s territorial integrity”.

Shortly after the Statement was made, the EU sanctioned nine additional individuals and one entity in association with Rwanda’s backing of the M23. I know that if I ask about Magnitsky-style sanctions, the Minister will answer saying, “We don’t talk about what we are going to do in the future”. Instead, I seek from her a reassurance that the Government are maintaining a focus on this crucial issue of the highest humanitarian damage and disaster, particularly because of violence against women and girls but also more generally. Can she reassure me that the Government are keeping a focus here?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising that point, and particularly for mentioning women and girls—she is right to do so. On sanctions, obviously we do not talk about designations ahead of time, but it is important. It is too easy, sometimes, to forget about the DRC—and, indeed, Sudan—when we have Ukraine and Gaza so prominent in our minds, so I am grateful to her for raising that.

European Convention on Human Rights: 75th Anniversary

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note

13:05

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To move that this House takes note of the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, as we mark the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights, I thank my noble friends on the Cross Benches for selecting the Motion and express my gratitude to the many distinguished Members from all parts of your Lordships’ House who are participating in this debate. I also thank the Library and the many organisations which have sent briefing material, from the Law Society to the International Bar Association to Policy Exchange.

The Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard said:

“Life must be understood backwards; but … it must be lived forwards”.


Following Kierkegaard’s advice, I will begin by looking back and recalling the convention’s genesis and achievements, and then I will say something about its future.

In 2013, I opened another Cross-Bench debate marking the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recalling that it grew out of the egregious disregard and contempt for human rights that had resulted in barbarous acts and outraged the conscience of mankind. Eleanor Roosevelt, a key figure in crafting the 1948 universal declaration, described it as a “Magna Carta for all” people. It helped to inspire the European convention; both are foundation stones intended to be for all people and not available for selective enforcement according to culture, tradition or convenience. They should be seen as much as a declaration of human dignity as a declaration of human rights.

In the aftermath of the two world wars, which both began in Europe and which claimed the lives of some 77 million people—and in the same continent where another war rages today—a formidable array of political leaders showed extraordinary zeal and exemplary commitment in creating architecture to uphold the rule of law. Intrinsic to that were international covenants, many of which focused on human rights. In 1946, those barbarous acts which had outraged the conscience of the world prompted Winston Churchill to set out the case for a new international order based on the rule of law and human rights. Outraged consciences led to practical actions.

Lawyers such as Raphael Lemkin, 49 of whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust, bequeathed the 1948 genocide convention, while Sir Hersch Lauterpacht developed the legal concept of crimes against humanity. At Nuremberg, Lauterpacht helped draft the speech of the British prosecutor Hartley Shawcross—the Labour Member of Parliament for St Helens and later Lord Shawcross—who in turn collaborated with Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Liverpool West Derby and later the first Earl of Kilmuir—in the prosecution of Nazi war crimes after World War II. He played a significant role too in drafting the European Convention on Human Rights.

The agenda had been set in Missouri, by Winston Churchill in March 1946, where, flanked by President Truman, he famously remarked that an iron curtain had descended across Europe. He insisted:

“We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man”.


Two years later, speaking in The Hague, he presided at a grand congress of 800 delegates and said:

“In the centre of our movement stands the idea of a Charter of Human Rights, guarded by freedom and sustained by law”.


The congress issued a message to Europeans calling for a charter of human rights and

“a Court of Justice with adequate sanctions for the implementation of this Charter”,

leading, in 1950, to 15 European nations signing the convention, with Britain the first to ratify it in 1951.

The text was crafted largely by a team of Oxford and Cambridge professors headed by Maxwell Fyfe. Other British politicians involved in the drafting of the ECHR included Harold Macmillan, Samuel Hoare and Ernest Bevin. The signatories described their convention as a mechanism for

“enforcement of certain of the rights stated in the Universal Declaration”.

Churchill wanted

“moral concepts … able to win the respect and recognition of mankind”,

urging lawmakers:

“Let there be justice, mercy, and freedom”.


Churchill envisaged a Strasbourg court before which violations

“in our own body of … nations might be brought to the judgment of the civilised world”.

In a ringing endorsement, the Daily Telegraph said the convention was

“the turning point when the free peoples of Europe rejected enslavement in the communist system and defeated all attempts to poison and destroy their democratic traditions from within”.

The Times described it as

“a crucial step towards safeguarding fundamental freedoms and promoting a common European heritage of justice and the rule of law”.

The convention has created a common legal space for over 700 million citizens, prohibiting, among other things, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, slavery and forced labour, and arbitrary or unlawful detention. Its 14 articles protect basic rights, from the right to life to the rights to privacy, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, a fair trial, family life, and more.

The UK subsequently ratified protocols to the convention on the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, and three additional rights: the right to free enjoyment of property, the right to education and the right to free and fair elections. Parties to the convention undertake to secure convention rights and freedoms to everyone within their jurisdiction, underpinned by the creation of the European Court of Human Rights, which deals with individual and interstate relations.

During the years following its creation, the convention commanded widespread cross-party support. Lord Chancellors such as Viscount Hailsham described it as part of the

“armoury of weapons against elective dictatorship”.

Another Member of your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, said that pulling out of the convention was “xenophobic and legal nonsense”. On the Liberal SDP benches, notably Lords Wade, Grimond and Jenkins of Hillhead, and Baroness Williams of Crosby were lifelong supporters of the ECHR.

Margaret Thatcher declared that the UK was

“committed to, and supported, the principles of human rights”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/7/1989; col. 252.]

in the ECHR. Sir John Major reiterated this commitment, and in 1998, Tony Blair incorporated the rights and liberties enshrined in the convention in the Human Rights Act. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, told this House that the Act

“does not create new human rights or take any existing human rights away. It provides better and easier access to rights which already exist”.—[Official Report, 5/2/1998; col. 755.]

The 1998 Act was described simply as “bringing rights home”. Beyond our home, the ECHR provides reassurance to everyone living and travelling in the Council of Europe area, that we share similar, enforceable human rights standards.

Notwithstanding recent calls to leave the ECHR, last November, this Government said they remained “fully committed” to the ECHR and to

“the important role that multilateral organisations like the Council of Europe play in upholding it”.

Of course, the Council of Europe pre-dates the European Union and has no connection to it. Some 19 member states of the Council of Europe, including the United Kingdom, are not members of the European Union; Russia was expelled because of its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The ECHR and the Council of Europe are inextricably bound together. Leaving the convention clearly means leaving the Council of Europe. Sir Jonathan Jones KC, a former Treasury solicitor and Permanent Secretary of the Government Legal Department, says that ECHR withdrawal would

“involve leaving the Council of Europe, which is responsible for the convention”.

A resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe states that

“accession to the Council of Europe must go together with becoming a party to the European Convention on Human Rights”,

while the European Court of Human Rights insists:

“Today more than ever the Convention is the cornerstone of the Council of Europe, and any State wishing to become a member of the organisation must sign and ratify it”.


Last month, Theodoros Rousopoulos, the current president of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, gave a Lord Speaker’s Lecture. We heard him pay tribute to the commitment and high-level contribution of the United Kingdom parliamentary delegation led by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. To those who today will demand that we leave the ECHR, and therefore the Council of Europe, I would simply ask them to tell us which rights in the convention they object to. Do we really want to join Belarus and Russia as the only countries not part of any pan-European body?

In 2001, Parliament created the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I have the honour to chair—although today, I speak for myself and not the committee. The committee has a remit to examine matters relating to human rights in the UK and it has functioned historically as a champion for convention rights.

The JCHR pays close attention to the cases before the European court, the judges of which are elected by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly. We have noted the role of the convention and the court; for example, in ending the ban on gay people in the military, and homosexual criminalisation in Northern Ireland; in prohibiting the retention for life of DNA samples of innocent people; on indiscriminate phone tapping; on the plight of the Sunday Times, which was prohibited from publishing information about thalidomide; on the protection of vulnerable victims of domestic violence; on the combating of racism; and on the degrading punishment of a teenager in the Isle of Man.

Among our current JCHR inquiries, we are examining the failure to prosecute UK nationals who took part in the genocide in Iraq, and transnational repression and forced labour in supply chains. Previous inquiries have included reform of the Human Rights Act and the right to family life. Last week, we held a round table on the Mental Health Bill, where we heard stories of detention and incarceration. Earlier this week, I met Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to discuss what we actually mean by human rights and how deeply they are connected to the laws we proclaim, the conventions we have signed, and the traditions of liberty and freedom represented by this place. The European Convention on Human Rights is an essential part of that tradition. Malcolm Bishop KC, writing in the New Law Journal, says that

“the Convention is now firmly embedded in the common law and an impressive corpus of jurisprudence has emerged, which, in my opinion, has made this country a better place”.

I agree.

To its detractors, and for the record, in 2024 the court gave just two judgments on the merits of cases involving the United Kingdom. A violation was found in one case and no violation was found in the other. In a commentary earlier this week, Joshua Rozenberg forensically addressed the caricatures and misattributions which are often wrongly laid at the door of the ECHR. By population, the UK has the lowest number of applications of all member states: three per million people, while for all states combined it was 47.4 per million. Of course, the reason there are so few UK cases is that we broadly obey the ECHR.

Those who want to reduce UK legal standards—some even want to tear up the Human Rights Act—would vandalise our constitutional settlement. This and leaving the convention in a fit of pique, rather than engaging with and reforming it, is not worthy of this country or those who entrusted this extraordinary legacy to us.

At the outset, I recalled Kierkegaard’s thought that life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards. Institutions and conventions are not set in stone. There is always scope for political debate and greater definition of the respective roles of parliaments and judges around controversial issues such as border control, which the JCHR will examine. However, to throw away all the gains would make no sense and merely play into the hands of dictators and enemies of democracy. We are experiencing war in Europe, along with contempt and disregard for international law and institutions, including despicable attacks on the International Criminal Court. We see the rise of autocracies with global reach, even with reach into the UK through transnational repression by hostile states. Rights and freedoms are under assault from within and without.

In this context, we are therefore right to recall the spirit which, 75 years ago, animated remarkable leaders. We are entitled to have pride in the significant British contribution to creating both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights and genuine pride in the development of human rights, international law and the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. To defend this legacy, we must become far more robust in the public domain—in our schools and universities—in setting out the patriotic case for these shared fundamental values.

In this 75th anniversary year of the European Convention on Human Rights, we are entitled to look back on what was achieved in the ruins of Europe and out of the ashes of Auschwitz. We must insist that those concerns remain vitally relevant to this day and that they are crucial to our future. I beg to move.

13:21

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare interests as the author of the Penguin Allen Lane book Human Rights: The Case for the Defence, as a new member of our delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and as a lifelong human rights lawyer and campaigner. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on his well-deserved appointment as chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and on that outstanding opening of his debate marking the 75th Anniversary of the convention which protects the civil rights of around 700 million people in 46 states.

I have been working with the convention on an almost daily basis for around 30 of those years, both for and against UK Governments domestically and in the Strasbourg court that has rendered it perhaps the most effective international human rights mechanism in the world. Most formatively, I was a government lawyer in the late 1990s during the passage and implementation of our Human Rights Act and at Liberty, the National Council for Civil Liberties, from 2001 until 2016.

We have been eloquently reminded of the history of why Conservative politician, jurist and Nuremberg prosecutor David Maxwell Fyfe was deputed to lead the convention drafting process after the Council of Europe was founded by the Treaty of London in 1949. If there was ever any doubt about the direct relationship between justice and peace, the 1930s had ended it. This was especially so in Europe, where two, too proximate world wars had begun. It could be no surprise that those seeking to rebuild the lands of Milton, Molière, Mozart and Michelangelo should have made co-operating around human rights enforcement a priority. If we have sometimes been a little complacent in the intervening years, surely that is over now, as war and far-rightism once more stalk Europe, and respect for the rule of law is far from secure, even in that great old constitutional democracy across the Atlantic.

In any event, I can report, first hand, the many ways in which the convention has come to the aid of people in the United Kingdom where both their common law and legislators had previously failed them. Before Strasbourg’s intervention, victims of rape were subjected to days of degrading cross-examination in person by their alleged assailants, contrary to Article 3. Similarly, abusive parents who beat their children to a pulp could be acquitted of the grave offence of causing grievous bodily harm by deploying the defence of reasonable chastisement of a child. Indeed, I would go as far as suggesting that victims of crime may be among those who have most benefited from the convention’s effect upon our domestic law, before and since the Human Rights Act 1998 brought rights home to be directly enforceable here.

There are numerous examples too of the UK’s privacy, free speech, non-discrimination and other vital rights and freedoms being ensured and enhanced by the convention. It would be far from liberal or progressive, and certainly deeply unconservative, not to treasure it.

13:25

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for whom I have an enormously high regard, on securing this debate and his introduction to it. It is a paradox that defenders of the supranational European Court of Human Rights invariably begin with an appeal to British chauvinism laced with deference to Conservative icons by invoking the creation myth. That goes as follows: “The ECHR was a British invention, inspired by Churchill, drafted by Maxwell Fyfe, which codified historic British rights. Since we were the first country to ratify it, it must have been eagerly endorsed by us”.

That is almost entirely false. Attlee’s Government ratified the convention with great reluctance and only on condition that the future European court would have no jurisdiction in the UK since British people would not be allowed to take cases to the court. They also treated the convention as non-binding, deliberately not altering laws known to be incompatible with it. Moreover, when Churchill returned to No. 10 a few months later with Maxwell Fyfe, then Lord Kilmuir, as his Lord Chancellor, despite some ambiguous enthusiasm for it when in opposition, he adopted exactly the same position as Attlee, as did subsequent Conservative Prime Ministers—not allowing the court jurisdiction in the UK.

The second myth about the ECHR was that it simply codified British rights which had evolved over centuries. If that was all it did, British membership would confer little benefit and leaving would be no loss. This myth implies that few British laws would be incompatible with the convention. If only. Judgments have been made in 567 cases and the UK found to be in violation in one or more respects in no fewer than 329 of them by the Strasbourg court. In addition, the court has decided over 25,000 British cases by rejecting them or declaring the vast majority inadmissible, but after enriching the lawyers. That would be no surprise to those advising Attlee’s Government, who warned that allowing recourse to Strasbourg would provide

“a small paradise for some lawyers”—

now among its most enthusiastic supporters. In the immigration and asylum tribunals alone, human rights cases were 40% of the 350,000 cases received over the last eight years. To say it has no impact within the UK is an absurdity.

The original purpose of the European court was not to fine-tune each country’s statute book but to protect fundamental freedoms, from torture, slavery, arbitrary arrest et cetera. The third myth is that the court has succeeded in this objective. It was always unrealistic to imagine that any regime which was prepared to use torture, slavery or arbitrary arrest would be put off by the prospect of an adverse ruling by a foreign court. In practice, whenever an authoritarian regime has come to power, adherence to the ECHR has not dissuaded it from trampling on human rights. When the Greek colonels faced an ECHR ruling about the use of torture, Greece simply withdrew from the convention. Russia was expelled for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, not for its rampant domestic human rights violations. Belarus abandoned its observer status rather than implement convention rights. Both Azerbaijan and Turkey have gone pretty far down the road to authoritarian regimes while still remaining in the convention. It is little known, but one reason that France did not even ratify the convention until 1974 was that it was aware of the use of torture and other abuses of human rights during the war in Algeria and had other reasons afterwards for remaining outside. Indeed, it did not allow its citizens to take cases to Strasbourg until 1981 but suffered little opprobrium for that.

The claim that if Britain left it would be joining Belarus and Russia is puerile. We would be joining other common-law countries, including democracies such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, which uphold human rights without relying on a supranational court. Like them, we would make our laws democratically, not hand over the right to make laws to an international court, giving it the power to legislate rather than enforce the law.

13:30

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on his excellent opening to this very important debate.

When Ernest Davies, the Member of Parliament, signed the convention on behalf of the Labour Government in 1950, in Rome, he was not carving a monument in stone; he was putting his name to a dynamic and living convention. There were 15 signatories and now there are 46, excluding only Belarus and Russia in the European context.

The guide to the European court puts it this way:

“By its case-law the Court has extended the rights set out in the Convention so that its provisions apply today to situations that were totally unforeseeable and unimaginable at the time it was first adopted … new technologies, bioethics … the environment. The Convention also applies to societal or sensitive questions relating … to terrorism or migration … abortion, assisted suicide, body searches, domestic slavery, adoption by homosexuals, the wearing of religious symbols … the protection of journalists’ sources, or the retention of DNA data”.


What happens where there is no European convention?

Last week, in the United States, hundreds of Venezuelans were shipped to El Salvador. They were treated in an inhuman and degrading manner that would contravene Article 3 of the European convention. They were shackled, contravening Article 5, without any form of trial, contravening Article 6, and with no ability to complain to a court of the violation of their rights, contravening Article 13. The USA is a country which bows the knee to Magna Carta and the rule of law, but the US federal judge who sought to block this move has been ignored. “Oopsie, too late!”, said the President of El Salvador, pocketing the millions of dollars paid to his country.

Where have we seen this behaviour before? In Nazi Germany, the crimes of which motivated European countries to come together to sign the convention. There is a suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, and others that the UK should withdraw and write its own, presumably on the Trumpian model.

There is good news. The Human Rights Act came into force in the year 2000. Since then, there have been 245 judgments against the UK, finding at least one violation of the convention. But the number of cases has steadily declined, from 18 per year at the beginning to just two in 2022. The number of applications, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, against the UK is now the lowest per capita of all European states. We have succeeded in bringing the convention home, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, pointed out, so that our own courts can and do apply its provisions in appropriate cases.

There are three reasons. First, the Human Rights Act creates a legal obligation for all public bodies, including the police, hospitals, care homes and local councils, to protect rights in all their decisions and actions, meaning that people’s rights are less likely to be breached in the first place. Secondly, United Kingdom courts are now the first port of call for any human rights claimant, and United Kingdom judges consider human rights more explicitly and intensively than they could before. Thirdly, the European court is much more likely today, in considering applications from this country, to follow the reasoning and conclusions of our courts and the decisions of our public authorities. It respects our judges and the way in which the Human Rights Act is applied. Ernest Davies, Ernie Bevin and Clement Attlee were right to feel proud of what they had done.

13:34

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I too add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for bringing this debate and for his speech. I am not going to explore the legal implications, but want to make a few theological points, if I may. I want to comment on the origins of the spring from which these ideas first came, how it developed into a stream and then a river, and how still today our understanding of rights and responsibilities is developing.

The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, is right. It goes back to those early chapters of Genesis. In fact, you could go back to the Code of Hammurabi, 1,700 years before Christ, but let us go back to the Ten Commandments, where we find the creation narratives where humankind is created in God’s image. It is about the inherent dignity that belongs to each and every person, not dependent on sex, wealth, education or any other differentiation. This is implied in the Ten Commandments and is developed further in passages such as Deuteronomy 10, where God defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the stranger in the land. It is why the prophet Isaiah urges the people of God to seek justice, correct oppression, defend the fatherless and plead for the widow.

However, as Jonathan Sacks, a former Member of your Lordships’ House, was keen to point out, rights are things we claim and duties are things we perform. In other words, duties, he said, are rights translated from the passive to the active mode. The biblical teaching in the New Testament reaches its fullest expression in this reciprocity in human relating, expressed by Jesus in this way: love the lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.

Nowhere in the scriptures do we find the phrase human rights—and certainly no reference to the ECHR. Indeed, some theologians, such as the eminent Alasdair MacIntyre, have argued that human rights are actually a fiction; he simply did not agree with them as a concept. Others, including a former Member of this House, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, disagreed, saying that the fundamental theological point

“is not so much that every person has a specific set of positive claims to be enforced, but that persons and minority groups of persons need to be recognized as belonging to the same moral and civic world as the majority, whatever differences or disagreements there may be”.

He went on to argue that

“a proper consideration of human rights has a better chance of sustaining its case if it begins from the recognition of a common dignity or worthiness of respect among members of a community than if it assumes some comprehensive catalogue of claims that might be enforceable”.

All laws and all conventions are ultimately human constructs. There are some who dislike the ECHR and have problems with the wider issue of human rights. There are people who are not happy with the way that the court has interpreted the underlying legal principles which are enshrined in the convention. But the huge benefits that it has brought to so many people, particularly people who have traditionally been marginalised and not given the ability to participate and to engage, surely outweighs the frustrations that people sometimes feel. I, for one, am thankful that we have the ECHR.

13:38

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, as your Lordships will know—I am sure the right reverend Prelate, whom it is a pleasure to follow, will know—in George Orwell’s 1984, the three great regional powers of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia confront each other with constantly shifting alliances. Why those alliances shift is never clear, but it is the people and their human rights who suffer. Today, there is a fourth great power in the world; not only the United States, Europe—in a rather different form from the others—and Russia, but China too, watching and no doubt considering its options for Taiwan. One cannot push analogies too far, but we now live in a world of great power machismo, where international co-operation and international agreements are too often flouted. But it is precisely at times like these that they are so needed, and why it is right to focus now on the European Convention on Human Rights.

Too often, Europe, which we like to think of as civilised, has experienced the abuse of human rights: in Ukraine today, in the aftermath of Russia’s wholly unjustified and unjustifiable invasion; in Bosnia; in Serbia; in Kosovo more than 20 years ago; and in the chaos and anarchy of eastern Europe after the Second World War, brilliantly evoked in the books of Primo Levi. It is a tribute to the ECHR that more than 40 countries, with Russia of course expelled, are now its members and have accepted the international legal obligation to protect human rights, in our case through the implementation of the Human Rights Act.

Of course the ECHR is not perfect. Of course some member states fail to observe all their obligations under it. But Europe and, through Europe’s example, other parts of the world are the better for it. As an original signatory, Britain gained respect and influence. That must remain the case so that Britain, as a constructive and active member, can help to realise the ECHR’s principles. I do not favour withdrawal from the ECHR. I believe in exercising our influence for good within it. I am glad that the Prime Minister has said that the Government are unequivocally committed to the ECHR. I hope that the Minister will repeat that commitment today.

13:41

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare that I am a practitioner at the English Bar and the president of the council of Justice, a leading British law organisation. I am the director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, an honorary Writer to the Signet in Scotland and, as your Lordships heard earlier, I am currently working for President Zelensky, heading up with his chef de cabinet a task force to get the children back from Russia. I have been working on that for a number of years with the Yale observatory and other bodies.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton. We owe him a debt of gratitude in this House for his constant reminders of our common humanity. He is tireless in his work on the abuses that happen around the world, so it is no surprise that he is speaking here in protection of the values of the European Convention on Human Rights. It amazes me that the very same people who fought tooth and nail to take us out of the European Union—a step which has been ruinous for the economy of this country—are still seeking to sever ties with our European neighbours, especially when it is clear that we have to retain our bonds of connection with Europe and European nations in the face of grievous threats from Russia.

Withdrawal from the ECHR would be disastrous. The Human Rights Act has enriched our law enormously, and it has been especially productive for women. I say that as someone who has been very much on the front line in cases concerning the rights of women. You have only to think about the case of Worboys, where it was possible to use the ECHR before the courts to make sure that rape was properly recognised in prosecutions. Vulnerable victims of domestic violence have received better protection because of the Human Rights Act. There is also the ending of the ban of gay people in the Army, the inquiry into the sex abuse of women in the Army, the better protection of children against corporal punishment and sexual abuse, the greater protection of the media, the ending of detention without trial at the beginning of the 21st century, the prevention of torture from other countries being used and evidenced in our courts, and the protection of religious freedom. The list is enormous. It has also been vital in the Northern Ireland peace process.

You cannot pull out of the ECHR without leaving the Council of Europe. This alliance promotes democracy, human rights and the rule of law across 46 states. Since its inception, the Council of Europe has accepted over 200 treaties, conventions and protocols, including the Istanbul convention, to end violence against women and girls and to end domestic violence; the Lanzarote convention, to protect children from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse; and the Council of Europe convention against human trafficking. I hear the muttering on the Benches opposite, but we should remember the work that is done through the Council of Europe to defend local and regional democracy and governance. It observes elections and promotes good governance through the exchange of experience among member states—which I have done. The Council of Europe also helps member states to fight corruption and terrorism, and undertakes necessary judicial reforms. It has a group of constitutional experts, the Venice Commission, which offers legal advice to member states. Are we going to pull out of that?

The Council of Europe is supporting the people of Ukraine in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression. It has a dedicated Ukraine action plan and a development bank which is aiding Ukraine in its recovery efforts and accommodating Ukrainian refugees. Are we really going to put all this at risk? Are we really going to reduce ourselves to little Englanders? That is what it would mean, because the people of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales do not want to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

13:46

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, while congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this debate, I begin by paying tribute, as he and others have done, to one of the ECHR founders and drafters in the 1950s, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe—later Viscount Kilmuir from 1954 to 1962 and Lord Chancellor here under Churchill, Eden and Macmillan—who earlier on at the Nuremberg trials, through his fair-minded skill and clarity as a prosecuting counsel, played an enormous part in enabling the German public to understand and accept the guilt of their leaders for crimes against humanity, his cross-examination of Hermann Göring becoming one of the most noted in history.

I join with your Lordships in giving huge thanks for the ECHR, whose 75th anniversary we now commemorate; for the extent to which it has not only healed wounds but with balanced purpose, as implied by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, reinvigorated the heart, mind and soul of Europe; yet furthermore, for its success in providing soft power, direction and stability well beyond Europe and throughout the world; thus with efficacy accomplishing what was intended of it in the first place, as expressed by Maxwell Fyfe in Strasbourg in August 1949, and I quote:

“We cannot let the matter rest at a declaration of moral principles and pious aspirations, excellent though the latter may be. There must be a binding convention”.


In my remarks today, I will briefly touch on three aspects: the scope for the United Kingdom to achieve results through the Council of Europe; education as a human right; and the practicalities of its delivery.

During the progress of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, your Lordships will recall that this House voted to protect private copyright under Council of Europe standards, yet in which regard we can still proudly reflect that the present copyright protection ECHR conventions are precedented and inspired by the United Kingdom in 1710, three years after the 1707 Act of Union, through the Statute of Anne, which granted publishers of books legal protection.

Particularly so to our advantage here as a revising Chamber, and as emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others, countless examples come to mind of the Council of Europe as a natural ally within which affiliation of 46 states the United Kingdom remains a prominent member, and where I am a recent chairman of its committee on education.

As we are all well aware, the numerous groups of people suffering disadvantage in education range from girls and women, students with disability and special needs, learners living in remote areas, and refugees and asylum seekers to those experiencing discrimination against them from a number of pretexts and prejudices, and not least those living in countries where education systems are insufficiently developed.

During its G7 presidency in 2021, the United Kingdom gave a commitment to promote education in the third world and elsewhere as necessary. What actions have the Government taken since then? Which initiatives are in progress? Can the Minister affirm that such G7 plans are being clearly designed and carried out so that they contribute towards building up the strength of international communities themselves?

What plans do the Government have, along with international partners, including at the Council of Europe, to co-ordinate the delivery of a variety of international education initiatives which are at risk of financial cuts?

As well as students, such interventions clearly stand to benefit communities, cities and regions as well. One example is the current academic partnership of joint research into green energy between the Scottish University of the Highlands and Islands in the United Kingdom and the University of Zadar in Croatia. Having helped to put this together, I declare an interest as current chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Croatia. What steps are the Government now taking to actively encourage similar partnerships, possibly facilitated by Horizon and other schemes?

Following ECHR and education as a human right, enhanced prospects for world peace will also derive from much better education and competitive skills opportunities at grass roots and within all international communities. Given that G7 countries have already embraced that objective, the United Kingdom, in its own interest and that of others, must now help to ensure that this objective is properly carried out.

13:51

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, about 10 years ago, as a Minister, I visited the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. I was there to apologise to the Committee of Ministers for the fact that we had not yet given prisoners the vote. While I was there, the president of the court kindly gave me a book about the convention and the court entitled The Conscience of Europe. It was a fascinating account of the establishment of the court and its development for the subsequent 65 years.

But it is important to remember the context in which the convention was born. The noble Earl has given a very vivid account of that. This was a continent devastated by war in which the population had been deprived of all the most basic human rights. But did the architects of the ECHR really envisage that an asylum seeker here would be able to rely on the convention when arguing that his children’s liking for chicken nuggets meant that he should not be returned to his country of origin because to do so would violate his human rights? This and so many other cases have trivialised human rights and are not reflective of the legacy of those responsible for the convention.

I declare an interest as a member of the Commission on a Bill of Rights set up by the coalition Government. Perhaps more important is the fact that, since the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force, I have regularly acted for public authorities. Time does not permit me to give a full list of all my failures, but I was recently reminded of one. A group of prisoners sought damages on the basis that their human rights had been violated because they were not given heroin while in prison—a breach of Article 3, apparently. I acted for the police because a number of Nigerian young women living in this country had been kept in domestic servitude by some rather richer Nigerians. The court was asked to find, and did find, that the police were guilty of a violation of human rights for not being sufficiently curious—not the girls’ captors, the police.

I am extremely reluctant to suggest leaving an international institution of any sort. We know they are rarely perfect, but it is surely better that they exist. I am conscious of the importance of remaining on good terms with our European allies, particularly at this moment, and I voted to remain in the European Union, but I have come to the conclusion that at the very least we should repeal the Human Rights Act. The obligation in that legislation to take into account Strasbourg jurisprudence has produced some very unsatisfactory results. The process of taking into account can itself be difficult, given the variable quality of some of the judgments. It has meant that we pay far greater heed to the court’s decisions than any other countries in the Council of Europe—a particular irony, since there are so few decisions against the United Kingdom.

This Government have an almost theological approach to the ECHR and the HRA, but critics of the way in which it has operated in practice are not confined to those on the right, as noble Lords may have observed. My view is that Parliament and the courts are not only capable of but better suited to protecting human rights here. Our current arrangements amount to a significant subcontracting of the task to an international court.

Like others, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for bringing this debate to your Lordships’ House. With his passion for the protection of human rights, he would have made a great contribution to the ECHR had he been around at the time. Indeed, he would have been a worthy guardian of the conscience of Europe. It is thus a matter of profound regret that I must express the view that the whole concept of human rights has been brought significantly into disrepute.

13:55

[Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury (CB)]

My Lords, I spent 21 years as a barrister and then five years as a judge, arguing and applying English law while the rights contained in the human rights convention were not part of our law. Then from 2001, shortly after the Human Rights Act came into force, I spent 16 years as a judge applying and developing our law so that it incorporated convention rights.

Across the UK legal system, whether in civil law, public law, criminal law or family law, the Human Rights Act introduced important new rights such as the right to privacy and family life. It reinvigorated many previously stultified rights, such as freedom from detention. It re-emphasised the importance of vital rights, such as freedom of expression, and it increased the rights of all citizens against excesses of the state—a particularly important feature at a time of ever-increasing regulation.

I am no starry-eyed human rights groupie. As a senior judge, I tried to ensure that the new human rights jurisprudence did not cause the common law, of which this country should be so proud, to wither away. Rather, I tried to ensure—and I hope that, together with my colleagues, I succeeded in ensuring—that judges developed the common law so that it incorporated and benefited from the principles of the convention.

Of course, human rights law can occasionally lead to results with which many people will disagree, but the application of established law in any field can result in unpopular decisions, and that is a particular risk with a law that paints on such a broad canvas. Many decisions that are unpopular in this connection are concerned with asylum, but this country’s international duties with regard to asylum seekers are controlled as much by United Nations treaties as they are by the convention. There is a real danger that the public get a warped view of human rights, with the media focusing on cases that can be portrayed as leading to surprising results. Many of those cases are inaccurately or very one-sidedly reported. Although a number are not unfairly or inaccurately reported, they should be contrasted with the many unreported decisions where human rights have enabled or assisted a judge to get a fair answer that otherwise he or she may not or could not have done.

In the number of cases where the result seems rather odd, I am sometimes rather surprised that the Government or the relevant public body have not chosen to appeal. Judges do not always get things right, and appeal courts are there to deal with that, but too often there are no appeals when there should be.

Forty-six countries have signed up to the convention. It is a civilised force in an increasingly unstable world. Because its decisions apply over so many countries, the Strasbourg court judges generally appreciate that they have to tread carefully when laying down the law. They have developed the concept of a margin of appreciation to enable individual countries to make their own rules in some sensitive areas, such as assisted suicide. In my experience and knowledge, the Strasbourg judges have been prepared to reconsider and go back on decisions when a UK court has given judgment explaining why it thinks a particular Strasbourg court decision may be inappropriate for the UK.

This country is almost unique in the world in having no coherent overarching constitutional document. Because of that, the Human Rights Act has a particularly important role in protecting individual freedoms and liberties. It has been cleverly drafted so as to give human rights a special status in our constitution without overriding the supremacy of Parliament. We should be valuing it, not trashing it.

13:59

[Lord Rook (Lab)]

I draw the attention of the House to my registered interests: I am a partner at the Good Faith Partnership, which provides the secretariat for the UK FoRB Forum. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for this debate and, as other noble Lords have noted, for his tireless commitment to human rights. He has long been an inspiration to me and, as a new Member of the House, I hope to become more like him when I grow up.

I wish to draw noble Lords’ attention to the importance of the European Convention on Human Rights for the pursuance of freedom of religion or belief. Born amid the growing realisation of the full and horrific extent of the Holocaust, the issue of freedom of religion is core to the convention. “Everyone,” Article 9 declares,

“has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”.

Sadly, the fight for religious freedom is far from won. More than 80% of the world’s population live in states where there are severe or significant restrictions on their freedoms, and that number is rising. Although this continent is home to the convention, there remains work to be done and threats to guard against. A few years ago, I sat in the gallery of the Bundestag, witnessing the understandable anger and outrage of the majority of its members as one party repeatedly refused to condemn the internment of Uyghur Muslims in so-called education camps in China. Watching this scene play out in that place was chilling, to say the least.

I am grateful for the leadership of our Government in this area, for the work of my noble friends Lord Collins of Highbury and Lady Chapman of Darlington, and for the appointment of my honourable friend David Smith MP as the UK’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief. I am certain that they will build on the work of the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, and previous envoys to ensure that we as a country remain a leading force for freedom of religion or belief around the world.

Finally, I ask the Minister to take this opportunity to assure the House of this Government’s continued support for the court that upholds the convention. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, the European Court of Human Rights has only once found the UK to be in breach of Article 9. We can certainly be proud of our record. We must continue to hold ourselves to the highest standards and make ourselves accountable for our decisions and actions.

The challenge to reduce persecution around the world is beyond the powers of any one country. At a time when intergovernmental institutions are all too often and all too easily undermined, the court and its convention offer a unique opportunity for nations and institutions to work together to fashion a world where people are truly free.

14:02

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to serve on the Joint Committee on Human Rights under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, whose timely debate this is and whose contribution we heard earlier. As a barrister practising in part in the field of public law and human rights, and as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and like all noble Lords who have spoken, I place the highest value on human rights. However, human rights are not one and the same thing as the European Convention on Human Rights as it is today.

In March 2021, the former professor of law and legal philosophy at the University of Oxford, John Finnis, and I wrote a paper for Policy Exchange entitled Immigration, Strasbourg, and Judicial Overreach. In his foreword to that paper, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, noted that:

“There is only one way to determine the limits of the commitment undertaken by the states which subscribed to European Convention on Human Rights and that is by reading the instrument and construing it against the background which would have been known or assumed by the parties at the time. Indeed, this is the only way to understand the meaning of any utterance whatever. But the European Court of Human Rights have felt free to give the Convention a meaning which could not possibly have been intended by its subscribers on the ground that it is a ‘living instrument’ which it is entitled—indeed, required—to update in accordance with what it considers to be the spirit of the times”.


In the paper, we examine the transformation of the convention in respect of immigration policy, the position in 1951 being that the signatory states

“have no obligation to let in refugees … have no legal or treaty obligation to accept refugees at all … and have no absolute obligation to continue to provide asylum for refugees who are a danger to the community”.

They were matters for the states themselves.

Forty years later, the European Court of Human Rights set out a line of judgments that has circumvented those principles. It has done so along two routes. The first gives the ECHR’s absolute prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment, found at Article 3, a radically expansive interpretation, which is neither morally nor legally warranted. The second circumvention has been via Article 8—the right to a private and family life—which has been expanded to override immigration controls. This is something which those who drafted, signed and ratified the convention would certainly have rejected. These misinterpretations facilitate and incentivise unlawful migration, and hamper European states in justly handling the issue. Elastic, expansive and inauthentic treaty interpretations such as these are contributing substantially to the real risk that the rule of law in European states will be overstrained.

Behind this judicial transformation of refugee and migration law lies the doctrine, judicially invented in 1975, that the ECHR is a living instrument. This doctrine enabled the Strasburg judges to reform social arrangements, even very fundamental ones, either without debate and approval from democratic legislatures or with a retrospective approval, strongly encouraged by the court’s assertions that these reports are already required by law and by international agreements and obligations which this country has long accepted as binding. In either form, this is an unconstitutional purpose. It is unfitting for the ECHR. The convention was intended not to provide an engine to social reform, still less for top-down reforms, but to block regression from the level of respect for rights that was standard in 1950 in the founder states—distinguishing them from the defeated fascist states and communist tyrannies imposed on Europe in the late 1940s.

The calls for withdrawal that we have heard in relation to the convention come about as a result of these issues. I submit that this House will expect to see the European Convention on Human Rights reformed, or face a clamour which may be unavoidable.

14:07

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this important debate on the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights. I echo the remarks of noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, about the important contribution the noble Lord has made to human rights over many years. I declare my interest as a delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and a member of its Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. I am also the chair of the human rights committee at Liberal International, which is a designated NGO to the UN Human Rights Council.

In following the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, I have to say that I did not agree with his views but I am grateful that he and I are both free to say what we wish to. Millions elsewhere in the world are not, because they do not have the human rights and freedom to do so.

Others have already explained the creation of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the role of the Council of Europe in the establishment of the European Court of Human Rights. PACE appoints the judges and takes evidence on key matters relating to human rights, and it is able to bring states together to address failures, even—or especially—by PACE’s own member states.

PACE meets in two weeks’ time to address the new Georgian Government’s breaches of human rights following elections last year. Every day, many thousands of peaceful protestors come together across Georgia to remind the new Government that their elections were not democratic, and that new laws enabling imprisonment for the most minor offences, and the extrajudicial murder of journalists and imprisonment of civic leaders, including artists, actors, journalists and politicians, continue. As a result, PACE must decide whether to recognise the credentials of Georgian Dream, given these human rights infringements. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, PACE has done this before. Following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, PACE did not recognise the Russian delegation and Russia was expelled.

UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO whose mission is to monitor the performance of the UN by the yardstick of its own charter, made the case in April 2022 to the UN General Assembly that, following the murder of civilians in Bucha in Ukraine, Russia should be suspended from the Human Rights Council. It is completely wrong to be overseeing the protection of human rights while clearly abusing them, and Russia was suspended by a two-thirds majority. Similarly, following the murder by Iranian police of women’s rights activist Mahsa Amini in 2022, the UN Economic and Social Council suspended Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women until 2026.

These two cases are important. The UN is a body of states that rarely agrees on everything but occasionally, with outrageous breaches of human rights, it is important that action is taken. Those two states, as well as China, are now using extraterritorial action, sadly a growing area of human rights abuses—for example, Putin’s murder of Litvinenko in London, the attempted murders in Salisbury of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and the murder of Dawn Sturgess, a completely innocent bystander. This is making the UK and its people at risk of human rights infringements by other states on our own territory.

China, like Iran and Russia, follows and monitors exiles abroad and the families of those who have fled. The threat to their safety is real. In July 2023, the police in Southampton charged a Chinese national student with racially motivated assault after he and others assaulted a Hong Kong man on the street. In that same month in Southampton, footage emerged showing pro-Hong Kong demonstrators being violently attacked by a group of Chinese nationals.

Are our front-line police being trained to recognise this extraterritorial action by other countries? Are the individuals at risk being given support and protection? Are we working with other countries and the Council of Europe on how we tackle this particularly egregious threat to human rights?

14:11

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, for so powerfully moving this debate with such a comprehensive and passionate opening statement. It gives us the opportunity to note the tremendous positive impact of the convention, not only here in the United Kingdom but elsewhere. I also record my thanks to Professor Paul Johnson of the University of Leeds for his advice and support.

The convention is a vital aspect of life in the United Kingdom. It does not merely enunciate a set of important principles that most of us agree with, such as the ability to speak freely, to hold our own beliefs and to be free from interference in our private lives, as others have said. Rather, it creates a tangible and effective mechanism to allow us all to seek redress if we feel that our human rights and fundamental freedoms have been violated.

The sad fact is that it is this very enforceability of the convention, particularly by the European Court of Human Rights, that has long caused hostility towards it—hostility from those who wrongly claim that the convention and the Strasbourg court are interfering with or even damaging life in the United Kingdom. Such arguments are not new, but I do not agree with them. The very strength of the convention, which is a living instrument, is that it allows individuals who are subject to unjustified interference in their rights and freedoms to hold those in power to account. I support the Strasbourg court and its work to interpret the convention in ways that maximise the rights and freedoms of individuals and that require Governments to address any violation of those rights and freedoms.

I support the rights and freedoms of all individuals, but particularly close to my heart is the issue of protecting the rights and freedoms of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. My life has been changed for the better because of this convention and the judgments from the court. The importance of the convention to LGBT people—indeed, to any minority—cannot be overstated. It has positively transformed lives, particularly those often shunned by the mainstream.

I turn to the judgments of the court. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, who sadly cannot be in his place today, has asked me to specifically state that it was precisely because of the judgment ending the ban on gays serving in the military in the United Kingdom that we were able to end centuries of prejudice within the armed services that blighted so many lives. The Etherton review and its recommendations, accepted by the previous Government and this Government, have begun to repair some of the damage. I contend that it is because of brave individuals—in this case supported by Stonewall—who had the courage to go through arduous legal procedures that we have been able to right these wrongs, but we can do more.

Currently, because the UK has not signed up to Protocol 12, people in the United Kingdom have less protection from discrimination under the convention than in many other European nations. This is an unacceptable situation. It would be highly appropriate if, on this important anniversary, the Government would commit to extending the protection of Protocol 12 to all individuals in the United Kingdom.

In conclusion, in these dark times, as we witness unimaginable human rights atrocities on a grand scale in parts of our world, we need more assurances and protections on human rights, not fewer. Complacency is the enemy of much and many, never more so in the field of human rights and civil liberties. Long may the European Convention on Human Rights speak to us, and especially to those, both here in the United Kingdom and across the world, who would diminish the human rights of others.

14:16

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Cashman. Like him, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his very powerful opening.

In a long career at the Bar, I have had the privilege of taking 11 cases to the European Court of Human Rights and assisting on two others. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that the word “paradise” is not one that immediately comes to mind when addressing the 17 judges in that court. All the cases I have been involved in have been trade union cases, most of them concerning the right to strike. Your Lordships may wonder how the right to strike could be protected by the European convention. It is simple: the European court found that the right to strike was an inherent aspect of freedom of association and the right to form and to join a trade union for the protection of one’s interests, which is spelt out in Article 11. The court derived it not by a process of a living instrument but simply in accordance with the usual law on the interpretation of treaties—Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

The issue now on the right to strike is no longer whether it exists or is protected by the convention but the legitimacy of national restrictions on it. In the years that have followed its establishment in the European court nearly a quarter of a century ago, many cases have been won and many cases have been lost, but recently there have been some very disturbing decisions by the European court upholding severe restrictions on the right to strike. I mention without discussion Barış v Turkey, Humpert v Germany, Kaya v Turkey and Almaz v Turkey.

Whatever the reasons for this line of authorities over the last couple of years, my instinct today is that, save in the most egregious cases, trade unions should avoid applications to the European court in strike cases. But unlike the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, the fact that I do not like a judgment, or a line of judgments, does not detract by one iota from my wholehearted support for the European convention and the whole vital edifice of international law covering working life and beyond.

As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, this architecture was built on the corpses of tens of millions of people in the Second World War. It begins before the United Nations declaration, with the International Labour Organization Declaration of Philadelphia in 1944 —then the UN declaration in 1948, ILO convention 87 in 1949, convention 98 in 1950, and the European convention, also in 1950. That post-war momentum carried on into the 60s, with the European charter on social rights in 1961 and the two international covenants in 1966.

These instruments are of course autonomous, but the jurisdiction each generates informs that of the others, so that there is a consistency in international human rights standards. Neoliberalism may have ended the post-war consensus, and Hayek is now more influential than Keynes, but litigators, legislators and judges have a duty to uphold, deploy and be guided by these crucial instruments of civilisation and, in particular, the European convention.

14:20

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and to take part in the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who gave a masterful introduction. I served for six years on the Council of Europe, and for two years I was the chair of a small sub-committee for the enforcement of European Court of Human Rights judgments. One of my Trivial Pursuit questions was: which country had failed the most applications to bring it into line? The answer I always got was Russia. I said no, so people said, “Well, it must be Turkey”. Actually, it was Italy. So the court does a valuable job.

I will add to the number of dates that have been mentioned. In 1966, Prime Minister Wilson accepted the jurisdiction of the court. That is also worth putting into the record because for 48 years, we have accepted its jurisdiction, and, in good times and bad, we have managed to survive.

I also had four years on the Venice Commission, which is another bit of international co-operation attached to the Council of Europe. For two years, I was its vice-chairman. I learned a lot about human rights because a lot of the Venice Commission references were concerned with one aspect or another of human rights. So I would also like the Government to reaffirm their commitment. I am sure they will, because that is the way I read the statements that have been made so far.

I will make two other observations. Where on earth is our Attorney-General? We never see him. He is the top law officer. I very much respect the noble Baroness who is here to reply to the debate, but, if ever there were a debate that needed the Government’s top lawyer, it is this one. I just make that point in passing.

I fully agree with a number of noble Lords who have said that the judges in the court, and the Council of Europe itself, have been busy with mission creep ever since it was set up. I recall that, when I went to Strasbourg as an elected MEP in 1979, the late John Silkin said to me, “Why do you want to join an outfit with no power?” I said to him, “John, put 435 politicians in a room and they’ll soon find it”. If you look at the reforms of the European Union—free movement, for instance, and all the rest—they date from that elected assembly.

I have one final point to make. The Government recently said that one of the problems was the

“exploitation of the

European Court of Human Rights

“by the human rights legal industry”.

The Government need to look at the legal industry. We need to find a way to do this because the judgment about chicken nuggets, which is often referred to, is a gross distortion of the work of the court. Maybe the Government could address this to see whether it is possible to issue some tighter guidance.

14:25

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights would have merited a celebration, even if the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that tireless champion of human rights worldwide, had not given us an occasion to do so in this Chamber today. For that, he deserves the utmost thanks.

Three things about the convention must surely not be forgotten. First, while it was the work of the collective responsibility of many European parliamentarians and lawyers, there was a major input by the British contingent, many of them Conservative members, following the lead of Sir Winston Churchill, who played such an important role in the establishment and early years of the Council of Europe. I am saddened to see that this involvement seems now to be more a cause of shame than of pleasure.

Secondly, as many noble Lords have said, the convention was drawn up in the dark shadow of some of the worst crimes against humanity, including the Holocaust—crimes perpetrated in our own continent by our own citizens. Its aim was to ensure protection for all our citizens against crimes committed, often by their own Governments.

Thirdly, when, at the end of the 1980s, the Cold War drew to a close, the convention and its court were available to provide the countries of central and eastern Europe— including at the time the Russian Federation and Belarus—the freedoms and legal protection they had never previously enjoyed under Communist Party rule. These are three achievements to be proud of and to treasure, however irritated some may feel at some of its court’s rulings.

I am afraid that I am no lawyer but my father was one, and he taught me that hard cases make bad law. It is lamentable that now, after these 75 years of achievement, some politicians and parties in this country and elsewhere in Europe are sharply critical of the convention and its court. The main bone of contention is the impact on immigration cases, as all our Governments struggle with the challenges of illegal migration and asylum seekers. It is odd, and I find it hard to justify, that these challenges are often quantifiably far greater and more acute in other European countries than in our own, but we seem to be making quite a meal of it.

Many critics here seem to be blissfully unaware of the extent to which the European Convention on Human Rights underpins fundamentally important parts of our constitutional structures and international agreements—most prominently, the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland and some of the most valuable parts of the trade and co-operation agreement between the UK and the EU, in particular those dealing with justice and home affairs. These are clearly additional reasons for all, right across the political spectrum, to share the Government’s view that withdrawal cannot be contemplated. It would be good if more voices were raised to that effect.

I have one final point. Our previous Prime Minister, the right honourable Rishi Sunak, got into the habit of calling the Europe Court of Human Rights a “foreign court”. That lamentable, dog-whistle nomenclature is not even accurate, since the court has had many admirable British judges down the years. But in any case, the terminology of speaking of a foreign court is all too typical of populist politicians of many of the main parties. It would be good if it could be taken out and buried on this 75th anniversary.

14:29

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for arranging to have this debate and for all his encouragement to me and many others in this House on human rights. I declare my interest as an ambassador working with the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security on a number of these issues. I thank also those who were kind enough to send me briefings for today.

I am pleased to speak on the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty that has safeguarded the dignity and freedom of more than 700 million people since 1950. The United Kingdom was among the first to ratify in 1951, in the aftermath of World War II, when nations were united to ensure that tyranny and injustice never prevailed again. The convention is more than a legal instrument; it is a moral compass. It enshrines fundamental freedoms and the rights to life, liberty, security and justice, and it protects individuals from discrimination, torture and unlawful imprisonment, ensuring equal protection under the law. This is not an abstract document; it has evolved to meet modern challenges while upholding its core mission—defending human dignity.

Its impact is evident particularly in Northern Ireland, where the Good Friday agreement enshrines the convention, ensuring human rights in devolved legislation. This safeguard has reinforced peace and provided independent remedies when state actions have failed. Article 6, guaranteeing a fair trial, has prevented miscarriages of justice. Landmark cases such as the exoneration of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four illustrate how the convention has rectified grave wrongs and strengthened public trust in the judicial system.

Among other cases, in JD and A v the United Kingdom in 2019, a survivor of domestic abuse faced eviction after government housing benefit reforms failed to consider the need for a protected “panic room” under a government-sponsored safety scheme. The European court ruled that this violated Article 14, which protects against discrimination, highlighting the convention’s role in ensuring that policies do not disproportionately harm vulnerable women. In VCL and AN v the United Kingdom in 2021, two Vietnamese children trafficked into forced labour were arrested and imprisoned, despite the authorities knowing they were victims. The European court found that the UK had breached Article 4 on prohibition of slavery and Article 6 on right to a fair trial, emphasising that victims of trafficking should be protected and not prosecuted.

For those reasons, we must remain committed to the convention. Some have questioned whether to withdraw from this treaty. I caution against such thoughts, as doing so would undermine decades of progress and expose vulnerable populations to renewed injustices.

The convention’s influence extends beyond national borders, guiding legislative reforms, human rights education and justice in both post-conflict regions and modern societies. In Northern Ireland, adherence to the convention has reduced sectarian violence and safeguarded minority rights. In our courts, schools and communities, the convention has ensured that human rights are not abstract ideals but real, enforceable protections. When Governments are held to these high standards, society as a whole benefits, through fairer trials, inclusive education and transparent government.

Let us renew our commitment to this vital treaty. The European Convention on Human Rights remains as relevant today as it was 75 years ago. It is a cornerstone of democracy, peace and justice. I urge this House, and all who value fairness and human dignity, to stand united in its defence, ensuring that its protections guide us to a future where every person’s rights are upheld.

14:33

[Baroness Hale of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for initiating this debate and for his terrific speech in introducing it.

Perhaps I should declare an interest. I was privileged to be among Her Majesty’s judges sitting on the Woolsack to hear the Queen’s Speech in 1997, and I well remember the quiver of excitement with which we greeted the announcement that her Government intended to legislate to incorporate the convention into UK law. This was not, or not just, because of the intellectual excitement that a new set of legal toys would be given to us to play with; it was because we were going to be given the tools to protect the fundamental rights of some of the most vulnerable people in the country.

By then, it had become apparent that UK law did not always live up to the convention standards. Others have mentioned the vital part that the UK played in setting up the Council of Europe and the convention, but some have described this as the “export theory of human rights”: foreigners needed them because they did not have them; we did not need them because we already did, so the European convention was seen as embodying all the rights which UK people already enjoyed.

Unfortunately, this was not always the case. The UK was losing an average of 18 cases a year in the European court before the implementation of the Human Rights Act. Turning the convention rights into UK law meant that we judges could speak the same language and use the same concepts. Our law was enormously enriched thereby, and far fewer cases went to Strasbourg as a result and very few succeeded. I should remind your Lordships that it was the UK that invented the principle of constitutional interpretation that constitutional documents are a living tree, capable of development within its natural limits.

As others have reminded us, the convention has done a great deal of good for vulnerable and disadvantaged people such as children, families, people with mental disorders and disabilities, victims of crime, and people who suffer discrimination for no good reason but because of, for example, their sexuality, their ethnicity or the colour of their skin. It was the convention which insisted that children whose parents were not married to each other were entitled to the same family relationships as children whose parents were married. It was the convention which insisted that if the state wished to remove children from their homes to protect them from abuse or neglect, the process had to be fair to everybody involved, both children and their families. It was the convention which insisted that people with mental disorders and disabilities should not be deprived of their liberty without proper safeguards and the opportunity to challenge it. It was the convention which insisted there should be no discrimination in the enjoyment of the convention rights because of a person’s sex, race, colour or other characteristic such as sexuality or disability. The survivor of a same-sex relationship should have the same right to remain in the family home as did the survivor of an opposite-sex relationship.

That is the essential purpose of all human rights instruments, whether contained in international treaties such as the convention or in the written constitutions of almost every developed country in the world: to guard against the infringement of a person’s fundamental rights simply because they belong to a group which the majority does not like. As I ventured to say in a judgment given in this House when it was still the highest court in the land:

“Democracy values everyone equally even if the majority does not”.


To conclude, that is why it was especially shocking when this Parliament legislated to exclude a particular group of unpopular people from the protection of their human rights. Human rights are universal and should belong to everyone.

14:38

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an adviser to DLA Piper on AI policy and regulation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for not only securing this debate but opening it with such an inspirational speech. What a huge pleasure it is to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale. I agree with every word she said.

The new Council of Europe framework convention on artificial intelligence is another living demonstration that the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights are still highly relevant after 75 years. The AI framework convention does not seek to replace the ECHR but rather to extend its protections into the digital age. AI now permeates our daily lives, making decisions that affect our privacy, liberty and dignity. These systems can perpetuate discrimination, erode privacy and challenge fundamental freedoms in a way that demands new protections. Open for signature in September 2024, the AI framework convention is the first legally binding international instrument on AI, setting clear standards for risk assessment and impact management throughout the life cycle of AI systems.

The framework convention’s principles require transparency and oversight, ensuring that AI systems cannot operate as black boxes, making decisions that affect people’s lives without accountability. They require parties to adopt specific measures for identifying, assessing, preventing and mitigating risks posed by AI systems, and a specific human rights impact assessment has been developed. The convention recognises that, in the age of AI, protecting human rights requires more than individual remedies; it demands accessible and effective remedies for human rights violations resulting from AI systems. Rather than merely reacting to harms after they occur, the framework mandates consideration of society-scale effects before AI systems are deployed. I only wish, having heard what its director had to say on Tuesday, that our AI Security Institute had the same approach.

The framework convention was achieved through unprecedented consultation, involving not just the 46 member states of the Council of Europe but observer states, civil society, academia and industry representatives. Beyond European nations, it has attracted signatories including Israel, the United States—albeit under the previous Administration—and, most recently, Japan and Canada, in February this year.

However, a framework is only as good as its implementation, and this brings me to my central question to the Government. What is their plan? The Ministry of Justice’s Report to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Government’s Response to Human Rights Judgments 2023-24 said:

“Once the treaty is ratified and brought into effect in the UK, existing laws and measures to safeguard human rights from the risks of AI will be enhanced”.


How will existing UK law be amended to align with the framework convention? What additional resources and powers will be given to our regulatory bodies? What mechanisms will be put in place to monitor and assess the impact of AI systems on vulnerable groups? The convention offers us tools to prevent such problems, but only if we implement it effectively.

As we mark 75 years of the European Convention on Human Rights, we should remember that its enduring strength lies not just in its principles but in how nations have given those principles practical effect through domestic law and institutions. The UK has long been a leader in both human rights and technological innovation. I urge the Government to present a comprehensive implementation plan for the AI framework convention. Our response to this challenge will determine whether the digital age enhances or erodes our fundamental rights. I do not need to emphasise the immense power of big tech currently. We need to see this as a time when we are rising to meet new challenges with the same vision and commitment that created the European Convention on Human Rights, 75 years ago.

14:42

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, this is a timely debate and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing it. I declare an interest as a member of Justice, and indeed a past member of its council for some years.

The European Convention on Human Rights is a significant document. It embodies important values, but, equally, important and legitimate criticisms can be made of the jurisprudence that the court has generated. What the United Kingdom should do now and in the future has become a legitimate question. The concerns that I will express in this speech go not to the convention itself but to its misapplication by the courts and the implications for our constitution.

The Strasbourg court has the task of defining convention rights in practice. In performing that task, the court has treated the convention as a living instrument. That is, of itself, not a term in the treaty. It has used that to alter the scope of rights to give effect to changes in social attitudes—matters which in the United Kingdom are generally best left to Parliament.

I will give some examples. In Scoppola v Italy (No. 3), the Strasbourg court declared the statute which barred serving prisoners from voting at elections to be incompatible with the convention. It seems startling that the electoral franchise is not a matter on which the representatives of the general body of citizens have any say. Another example is the recent extraordinary climate change decision in KlimaSeniorinnen v Switzerland, which the Swiss Parliament, unsurprisingly, voted to ignore.

Articles 8 and 10 have been used to gag the press. In the case of Al-Skeini, the House of Lords excluded claims against the Army because the victims had not been within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. Strasbourg overturned that decision, but I suggest that the parties to the convention never intended that it should apply to warlike operations carried out by member states in foreign jurisdictions. Strasbourg has expanded the range of the convention and interpreted it in ways well beyond anything envisaged when it was made.

Issues of public policy involve choices between competing considerations—that is the essence of government and legislation; it is what our Parliament is there to decide. But where do we go? We are on the horns of a dilemma. The constitutional effects of leaving the convention would be serious. The United Kingdom would likely be expelled from the Council of Europe, which I do not endorse. Withdrawal would put the United Kingdom in breach of the Good Friday agreement, written into the Northern Ireland Act 1998, and none of us would want that. The convention is also baked into the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement—the TCA. The United Kingdom denouncing the ECHR would be grounds for the EU to terminate the part of the TCA on law enforcement and judicial co-operation in criminal matters, which would be a serious problem for us all.

However, something must be done. At a minimum, we must look again at the Human Rights Act. It should be amended to mitigate the constitutional problems to which it gives rise—but that is for another speech.

14:46

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I too extend my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his truly magnificent opening.

I declare an interest: I was a government lawyer for 34 years, and the ECHR often presented legal obstacles for the Government of the day, who I was advising. I understand, therefore, why some would like to withdraw from the ECHR.

One of the reasons often given for withdrawal is around Article 3, which, as interpreted by Strasbourg, prevents the UK sending failed asylum seekers, and others, back to their countries of origin where there are grounds for believing there is a risk that they will be ill-treated, however compelling the public interest reasons for removing them. This is the non-refoulement principle. I do not see how withdrawing from the ECHR would be the answer.

Politically, it would cause difficulties for the Belfast agreement, which assumes continued ECHR membership, and, as we have heard, it would risk ending criminal justice co-operation with the EU. Legally, in addition to many other international treaties that replicate the effect of Article 3, we are bound by customary international law arising from the “constant and uniform practice” of states, including the United Kingdom, complying with the non-refoulement principle, at least where the risk of severe ill-treatment is concerned. Leaving the ECHR to try to get around Article 3 would raise questions about our future compliance with customary international law.

There is no doubt that the Strasbourg court has used the living instrument doctrine in ways with which some contracting states may now disagree. A good example of that is the line of case law beginning with Al-Skeini, which has been referred to, on the extraterritorial effect of the convention. However, the answer to any perceived undesirable effects of the living instrument doctrine is not to leave the convention but to reform it, by bringing together contracting states to instigate reform, as was done recently with Protocol 15 on subsidiarity.

For example, where a specific piece of international law governs an issue, then perhaps the more general ECHR either should not apply or the Strasbourg court should be required to take account of it—which is a recognised principle of international law. This could be the case in respect of the Geneva conventions on armed conflict, the Paris Agreement on climate change and possibly even the refugee convention, where, unlike under Article 3 as interpreted by Strasbourg, narrow exceptions on grounds of security can apply in certain circumstances.

In addition, we must ensure our rich human rights heritage is preserved for future generations by a programme of civic and constitutional education on human rights and the balance to be struck between such rights and individual responsibilities, as recommended by Sir Peter Gross’s independent review of the Human Rights Act in 2021.

In conclusion, as we look at the increasing number of human rights abuses taking place around the world, which are totally blind to the rule of law, the scales are now weighted strongly in favour of continued membership of the ECHR, while seeking any reforms which will bring the convention more in line with what the contracting states may seek now in 2025.

14:50

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and I am glad to begin my remarks by stating that bald fact. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, that, if there were tick boxes for their speeches, I would put a tick in and sit down because I do not want to say any more than that.

There was a debate recently in Strasbourg, entitled, rather quaintly, “Multiperspectivity in the field of journalism”, which was all about how journalists can see the same facts and report two entirely different stories. I want to apply it now to the House of Lords: people see the same facts and draw entirely different narratives from them. I have always felt a bit fragile in your Lordships’ House, since I have no political experience and certainly no legal experience. Consequently, I listen to the debate in order to hear where things stand.

And multiperspectivity has marked this debate. In the political sphere, all I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, is that it is such a relief to me that two rows behind him sits the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, whose remarks on the Council of Europe and the convention were so positive. He has served with such distinction in Europe, and he is widely honoured for the contribution he has made to its affairs. So, there is multiperspectivity straight in my eye as I look across the Chamber.

Similarly on the legal arguments, we had all those debates about immigration during the tenure of the last Government. From the government side, the noble Lord, Lord Murray—who is here—was obliged by convention not to disclose what legal advice the Government were receiving, but he did a doughty job at the Dispatch Box. It was always difficult for me as a non-lawyer to hear distinguished lawyers on each side of the argument and then for those of us who stand listening to know how to make the distinctions we needed to make.

I have just joined the Constitution Committee, so the future of Britain is under threat.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

But the rule of law is what we have set ourselves as our first project. Last week, I had breakfast at the Supreme Court. Never have I been surrounded by so many stars in the galaxy as I was then. I made the point that the United Nations charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European convention all have as Article 6 access to a fair trial.

I started my remarks on that occasion by stipulating that the architecture of my entire life has been built on the fact that, when I was five and a half years of age, a letter from my father’s solicitor to my mother indicated that, because she was the guilty party in their relationship, she should leave his client’s—my father’s—house within one week and take her children with her. My mother could not defend herself against that because she did not have two pennies to put together to get the legal counsel or support. In any case, the law was different then.

Out of that little exchange in the Supreme Court has come a magnificent response from one of the justices, who specialises in access to justice and brought out a report in 2016 about how to deal with people not having access to justice and wanting to have its recommendations implemented all these years later.

I look forward to the future—all those voices to listen to and all those cases to weigh up. I have to say that politicians should try a little harder, and the lawyers should try a little harder, to realise that not everybody is one of them.

14:55

[Lord Trevethin and Oaksey (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I wish to say a few words about the relationship between judicial protection of human rights and the rule of law and, in particular, about the way in which Parliament should respond to declarations of incompatibility in cases of constitutional importance.

In his classic work on The Rule of Law, Lord Bingham identified important distinctions between what one might call the primary articles, which confer an unqualified right to a defined outcome—not to be tortured and a right to a fair trial—and articles such as Article 8. Article 8 guarantees not a defined outcome but a respect for private and family life. It is subject to an important qualification, which Lord Bingham calls

“a community exception, a recognition that the rights of the individual may properly be restricted, in the interests of the community at large, if certain … conditions are satisfied”.

When judges are asked to give effect to and protect qualified rights, such as those conferred by Article 8, they are being asked to make an evaluation of the relevant, competing considerations, which necessarily involves moral and political analysis.

The danger is obvious. It is highlighted by a different chapter in Lord Bingham’s book, entitled “Law not Discretion”. There, he wrote:

“Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of discretion”.


The balance is held, or should be held, by the fundamental constitutional principle that Parliament is sovereign. The Human Rights Act was carefully drafted in a way that reflects this. Judges are not able to strike down Acts of Parliament. Senior judges can make declarations of incompatibility. In most such cases, Parliament properly reacts by amending the legislation in question, in accordance with the court’s judgment. It is not obliged to do so and has not always done so.

As a matter of procedure, following the making of a declaration of incompatibility, Section 10 of the Act permits the Government to amend legislation by a remedial order, which will normally go through on the nod. The Act states, importantly, that this form of fast-track amendment is permissible only where the Minister considers that there are

“compelling reasons for proceeding under this section”.

I turn to a current matter, in which the Government propose to make a remedial order of this nature. In short summary, a few years ago the Supreme Court held in the Adams case that Mr Adams’s internment in the 1970s had been unlawful because the relevant certificate had been signed by the wrong Minister. This rather technical point, taken over 40 years late, opened an unappealing vista of many thousands of claims for compensation. A provision was introduced into the legacy Act with the support of all major parties, which—put colloquially—neutralised the Adams decision.

In 2024, a single judge of the Northern Ireland High Court made a declaration that this provision was incompatible with the claimant’s rights. That decision may have been right; it may well have been wrong. It has been the subject of penetrating—some might think lethal—criticism in a Policy Exchange paper written by Professor Ekins and Stephen Laws. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, provided an illuminating preface, in which he supported the views expressed and explained precisely why it was inappropriate to respond to the declaration of incompatibility by making a remedial order pursuant to Section 10.

The Government appealed the Northern Ireland decision. It is beyond question that that appeal raised issues of fundamental constitutional importance. In summer 2024, the new Government withdrew the appeal. The reasons for that decision are obscure. Now it is proposed that a remedial order be made whose effect will be to remove the neutralising provision. As I have explained, this can lawfully be done only if there is a compelling reason to use the Section 10 fast-track procedure. There is plainly no such compelling reason. On the contrary, there are compelling reasons why the primary legislation should be amended in the usual way, which will give Parliament the opportunity to consider the matter carefully, as clearly needs to happen. If the Minister were able to update the House as to the Government’s plans in this respect, that would be of great interest.

15:00

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I join others in warmly commending the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate and for his excellent speech, which has set off a very valuable debate. The noble Lord is a true liberal, whatever his current location. It is unusual for a Member of the House of Lords to have the honour to chair the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but it is a tribute to him and an honour for this House that he does so. I should record my interest, which is in the register, as a vice-president to my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, of the organisation Justice.

We have heard voices today calling for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, or at least to seek to change it or the Human Rights Act. Do we really want our country to be bracketed with outlaws such as Russia, Belarus and Hungary in ignoring and rubbishing human rights? That would be a regressive and deplorable step.

I agree with the comment by Amnesty—and I do not always—that the conduct of the current Russian Government should be a reminder to us all of our good fortune to live in a country with respect for the rule of law and which, in the main, complies with the rulings of independent courts. The UK leaving the convention would be exactly what Putin wants.

The convention, and the court system that it is attached to, forms a core part of the framework of the long-standing international alliance of states gathered together in the Council of Europe, dedicated to the pursuit of the common goals of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. I commend noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Brinton, who take part in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which I have never had the honour to do.

I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley—I am grateful he is still in his place, as I know he has other commitments—that Commonwealth countries are not in the ECHR system because they are not, except for Malta, Cyprus and the UK, located in Europe.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for replying to that point. The point is that they do not rely on an international agreement to provide very good human rights to their citizens. Why should we be different?

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I think answering that might set up another mini-debate, and I am not going to be tempted to go down that road.

For a major power such as us, a founding member of this European system, to leave the convention—and thus the Council of Europe, a point made by several noble Lords—would sow division and confusion among liberal states just when we need solidarity. It would demonstrate that the protection of individual rights against the excesses of state power is an unimportant and futile endeavour.

Indeed, our membership, along with that of all the other liberal democracies in Europe, of the council and its convention is part of the system of regional security that is so vital now. It creates the preconditions for peace through the promotion of democracy, the rule of law and human rights, and helps inoculate people and Governments against the pernicious propaganda coming out of Moscow and elsewhere.

The ECHR is not some remote, foreign product to be resisted as an imposition. That point was made by one noble Lord—I apologise, but I have forgotten who. We should celebrate the fact that the UK has played a pivotal role in not only creating but shaping the ECHR. I noted that several of the lawyers involved, such as the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, seem to come from Merseyside. That must be a fertile source of human rights inspiration. Our judges continue to contribute to the future of the convention system and the wider protection of human rights. I hope that the Government will highlight the UK’s role and work to combat negative rhetoric, misrepresentation and misunderstanding.

The UK’s commitment to the ECHR, and more widely to the rule of law, boosts not only our international reputation but our attractiveness as a place to do business, by emphasising that individual and business rights are protected. Our commitment to the international rule of law underpins our global economic competitiveness and attractiveness as a destination for investment, which the Government are rightly emphasising. It is also part of the Government’s growth mission.

I was intrigued to read an article in the Times this week by the noble Lord, Lord Hague of Richmond. He is not in his place but, as this article was published, I feel able to comment on it without being discourteous. The article’s headline began, “I'm no fan but”, and such a “but” always puts one on notice. His declaration that

“Trump’s effect may be positive … prompting a startling realignment of ideas”


was a jolt, because I must confess that I can see nothing positive coming from President Trump. One of the positive nudges that the noble Lord felt was a result of President Trump was that the ECHR should be rewritten. He did not say how. If he meant that it would be rewritten only in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, referred to, that might be sensible. We are all open to any useful reforms.

The noble Lord, Lord Hague, then confused me by stressing that these actions of Trump are

“a reminder that an effective democratic state is part of a moral order in which its policies should be anchored; that its reach and respect in the world rely on being able to distinguish right from wrong; that the abuse of great power brings resistance and rejection”.

I thoroughly agree with the noble Lord in those remarks. My contention would be that, far from rewriting the ECHR as a reaction to President Trump, we should treasure it all the more as guarding against the kind of developments that, sadly, we are seeing in the United States.

The Human Rights Act brought rights home, as has been said. It was one of the products of the talks on political and constitutional reform 30 years ago between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, known as the Cook-Maclennan talks—after Robin Cook and Robert Maclennan. I am very proud of that and other products. I was delighted to hear the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, stress the value of the Human Rights Act.

We have heard that applications to Strasbourg have been on a general downward trend over the last 10 years. The Human Rights Act has contributed to that, as a lot of those cases have not gone to Strasbourg but have been settled domestically. In 2024, there were only three cases against the UK heard by the court, and only one found a violation. The victor was the Daily Mail, in a freedom of expression case. There were no interim measures or injunctions issued against the UK last year. This is a testament to the strength of our national system of human rights protections. One of the reasons for this harmonious state of affairs is that a productive dialogue has taken place between the Strasbourg and UK courts to deal with any tensions or disagreements. This was confirmed in the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale.

For some people, no bill of rights, whether the European Convention or any other, will be acceptable in the UK system of a political constitution and parliamentary sovereignty. These arguments are always presented as concerns about democracy and democratic accountability. However, they almost always end in arguments for centralising power in the Executive. A lot of human rights challenges are to call the Executive to account. References to the court going too far as a reason to leave the convention system more generally are almost always based in choosing to emphasise the occasional controversial case where the speaker disagrees of the outcome.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I emphasise that any upset to our relationship with the ECHR would affect the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which is a crucial instrument. Under that agreement, the UK Government committed to the incorporation of the convention into Northern Irish law. Proposals to legislate for the continued application of the convention into Northern Irish law while withdrawing the UK as a whole from the convention are fundamentally flawed, and there is no practical way of legislating for partial implementation.

In addition, the UK is obliged under the Windsor Framework, following our withdrawal from the EU, to observe a non-diminution of rights as set out in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. There are also, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, commitments in the trade and co-operation agreement to our continued adhesion to the ECHR. Any damage to our human rights observance could imperil the renewal of our data adequacy agreement, crucial to both business and law enforcement co-operation with the EU. For all these reasons, we should not imperil our positive engagement with the European convention and court but instead celebrate our great achievement and good fortune in creating it and sustaining it for 75 years.

15:10

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak for these Benches in this debate procured by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, whose work in the field of human rights needs no introduction. In fact, I remember that when I grew up in Liverpool—I do not know whether, in the eyes of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, that now makes me a human rights lawyer—the noble Lord, Lord Alton, was campaigning for the rights of Jews and Christians in the USSR to practise their religion. Therefore, I am especially grateful to him for today’s debate, in which we have had the privilege of hearing a number of very fine speeches, some of which have relied on the undoubted human right to push the boundaries of the advisory time limits.

Today’s debate is about not human rights per se but the European Convention on Human Rights, and the two are not the same. To make the obvious point, we had human rights in this country before we signed the European Convention on Human Rights, and many countries in this world that are not signatories to that convention still have and champion human rights. But the European Convention on Human Rights has a long history, and we played a central role in its inception. We were one of the original signatories and, as your Lordships have heard, we helped to draft it.

In 1951 two important things happened in the field of human rights in this country. First, we as a state signed the European Convention on Human Rights and, secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, was born. We were one of the first states to ratify the convention, and since 1965 we have also accepted the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg court—the European Court of Human Rights. I am proud of our role in building the more just future for Europe from which we all benefit today.

I have mentioned the dates because they are important for context and background. When the ECHR was being drafted, Europe was still recovering from the horrors and destruction of the Second World War. It was only two years after the Nuremberg trials that in 1948 the United Nations promulgated its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, from which the ECHR’s founding principles flowed. I therefore suggest that it is appropriate that on the annunciator right now we have both the anniversary of the ECHR and the Holocaust Memorial Bill.

I want to move from the history to the ECHR today. I agree with a lot of what my noble friend Lord Lilley—who explained to me why he had to leave—said about the history. There is sometimes a pretence about the history—it is not all as people say it was—but let me move to today’s position.

There can be no doubt, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, explained, that the ECHR has led to legal advances. It has enabled judges to make innovative and expansive rulings in the fields of sexual equality, privacy and personal autonomy, to pick just a few topics. But we also have to accept that the approach of the ECHR is to entrust such lawmaking to a court—the Strasbourg court—that is accountable to no one. And while that might be good if you prefer its decisions to those that Governments might otherwise have made, it creates an obvious conflict between parliamentary democracy and an unelected court, especially when that court has gone on to adopt what I suggest to be a very expansive interpretation of the convention, as my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth explained.

Those conflicts range far and wide, and well beyond the scope of this speech, but you can get a sense of the issue from an analysis of 25 leading cases from that court, analysed by Professor Richard Ekins and others in an illuminating paper published by Policy Exchange. It is important to appreciate that it is not a bug; it is a feature. The lack of accountability of the European Court of Human Rights was precisely what made it appealing to those who set it up in the aftermath of fascism and Nazism. They saw the court as providing a check on elected Governments who might otherwise abuse their power. I understand that desire and I share it to an extent, but there are limits, and I wonder whether last year’s decision of the court in the Swiss climate change case has shown that we have reached those limits and perhaps gone beyond them.

Let me explain why. In 2021 the Swiss electorate rejected in a referendum an Act of the Swiss Parliament that called for a 30% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2030. That Act, rejected by the electorate, was then replaced by an Act that provided for a staged reduction by 2050. That more moderate Act was approved by the Swiss people in a referendum. There is nothing in the convention about public health and certainly no mention of climate change, but that did not stand in the way of the Strasbourg court, which held that the Article 8 right to private and family life required Governments to take what it called effective measures to combat climate change, and those measures had to be consistent with the views of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

That of course is the answer to the oft-made challenge, first made today by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws: “Which rights don’t you like?”. I like them all as drafted, but not as interpreted expansively.

The court held in that case that Swiss law was inconsistent with the convention. What about the fact that the Swiss people and their parliament had twice had a say in referenda? The court said that

“democracy cannot be reduced to the will of the majority of the electorate and elected representatives, in disregard of the requirements of the rule of law”.

I give way to no one when it comes to the rule of law, but the rule of law does not require judges to have a roving commission over whole areas of contested and contestable national public policy in complete disregard of the expressed wishes of both parliaments and the people. As our judges on the court have been mentioned, I should add that the UK judge on the court wrote a powerful and principled dissent to this decision that repays careful reading.

The question is not whether the decision is right or wrong on the facts. It is not about whether climate change is real—it is—or whether we should take it seriously; we should. It is about whether and how we make laws on such issues in a democracy. As my noble friend Lord Sandhurst pointed out, in cases where you have contested issues of public policy and you have to balance a lot of factors, the effect of the court’s decision is that these arrangements are arrogated only to the court. Not only must the Swiss change their statute but it seems that they must also take steps to ensure that the changed statute is not itself rejected in a referendum by voters. To pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, this does not centralise power in the Executive; it centralises power in a court—contrary to the expressed wishes, in that case, of both the parliament and the people. Nor, I suggest, is it consistent with the rule of law. Some of the principles of the rule of law are that it must be stable, clear, publicly accessible and not retrospective. The decision of the Strasbourg court in that case is none of those things. As the UK judge said in his dissent, his

“disagreement is of a more fundamental nature and … goes to the very heart of the role of the Court within the Convention system”.

He ended,

“I fear that in this judgment the majority has gone beyond what it is legitimate and permissible for this Court to do and, unfortunately, in doing so, may well have achieved exactly the opposite effect to what was intended”.

Those of us who have concerns about the approach of the Strasbourg court have those concerns because we believe in human rights, not because we have concerns about human rights.

Our party has made a powerful and lasting contribution to law and justice in Europe and beyond. We remain committed to those values of law and justice, but we need to recognise that the Europe that gave birth to the convention is a Europe of the past. We need new international or improved agreements—as the noble Lord, Lord Carter, identified—that are fit for the present challenges we face and appropriate for those of the future.

I know that over the past couple of years we had long and heated debates in this House on immigration policy. The fact is that over the past years our ability to manage immigration has been hindered by interpretations of international laws, including the ECHR, which are a long way from the intentions of the states when they signed up to those treaties and conventions. I may not be the only one who has had a little wry smile over the past months at hearing echoes of what I used to say from that Dispatch Box repeated in press summaries from No. 10. Things look different when you are in government, as I think the party opposite is now finding. I accept that press reporting of judgments is often exaggerated and sometimes plain wrong, but those who deny that there is a problem at all are also wrong.

That is why we tabled an amendment in the other place to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill that would disapply the Human Rights Act from immigration matters. It is ultimately important that Parliament and Ministers have effective control over our borders.

I will end on a note where we all agree. In a world where the threat of totalitarianism remains, we must not disavow our moral duty to promote justice. That principled stand is entirely compatible with work, perhaps across the House, to ensure that our international agreements remain appropriate for the challenges of today and the future. I again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on initiating this debate and wish him many more years of fighting, in good health, for the causes close to his heart, both in this House and outside it.

15:21

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for that speech. It is good to see him, and I am very sorry to have learned of the death of his father recently—may his memory be a blessing. I enjoyed the noble Lord’s speech very much. I did not agree with some of it, but he is always entertaining and speaks with passion.

I would gently say on the issue of immigration, about which I argued with very many Ministers over the 14 years we enjoyed in opposition, that the previous Government completely lost control of the system. They had an expensive distraction with Rwanda. There was no co-ordination across Whitehall and minimal engagement with foreign Governments on the topic. I wonder what some of the Ministers were doing: they made speeches about immigration but then did precious little to deal with the problem. What the noble Lord says about the ECHR may or may not be right but there were so many other things that could and should have been done that were not, so we have plenty to do when it comes to tackling immigration before we get to ECHR reform.

Having said all that, I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton. He has inspired many people, inside and outside this Chamber, over very many years. I thought he set out his argument most convincingly and I thank him for securing this debate.

I begin by completely reinforcing the assertion from the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that we always start with history; yes, we often do. I will begin not as far back as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans with the 10 commandments, but with March 1951 when the UK became the first country to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights—the ECHR. Signed in Rome on 4 November 1950, it came into force in the United Kingdom in 1953. Although some commentators would have us believe that the ECHR was imposed on us unwillingly by our neighbours, this is not the case.

In response to the horrors of the Second World War, which engulfed the world in a generation, Winston Churchill was a leading proponent of the Council of Europe, which made this convention the first order of business. Indeed, I know that the Lord Speaker and many of my noble colleagues recently commemorated the historic moment when the treaty that led to the creation of the Council of Europe was signed at St James’s Palace in 1949. I recognise the contributions made by Members of both Houses who serve on the delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe under the able chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig.

Furthermore, a British Conservative MP and lawyer, David Maxwell Fyfe, played a leading role in drafting the convention. The pioneering Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin was active in shaping the convention, and the first president of the European Court of Human Rights was British too, Arnold McNair—Lord McNair.

The Government are proud of Britain’s role in the formation of the European Convention on Human Rights, and of all that it has made possible for our individual rights and freedoms in the decades since. That spans everything from forming an important pillar of the devolution settlements to underpinning guarantees in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and supporting the safety and security of British citizens by facilitating cross-border law enforcement and judicial co-operation in the trade and co-operation agreement.

Yet so much of what the ECHR does for us goes unsung, precisely because so much of it sounds so abstract. So, noble Lords have today shone a light on some of the ways it has made a difference to the lives of people across our country for decades by reminding us of some of those stories. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti explained movingly the impact of the convention on victims of sexual violence. My noble friends Lady Kennedy and Lady Goudie, the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, reminded us how central the ECHR is to stability in Northern Ireland. My noble friend Lord Rook spoke about freedom of religion and belief. The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, spoke about how the ECHR has literally changed his life. My noble friend Lord Hendy reminded us of the impact of the convention on trade union activity.

We also considered the abolition of corporal punishment in the UK. In 1982, it was an ECHR ruling that put an end to schoolchildren being beaten against their parents’ wishes and paved the way for the eventual abolition of corporal punishment in all state and private schools in the UK. There is also the status of homosexuality in Northern Ireland. Male homosexual acts were a crime in Northern Ireland until 1982, yet a human rights case brought to the ECHR by a gay rights activist from Belfast argued that the criminal law in Northern Ireland amounted to an unjustified interference with his right to respect for his private life. It was rightly decriminalised.

Then there is the duty of states to protect the right to life. The families of the 97 football fans who lost their lives in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster relied on that right while they campaigned for the truth to obtain a new inquest, which concluded that the fans were unlawfully killed. There is also the lifting of the ban on LGBT people joining the military, following a landmark case in 2000 brought by two British servicemen who had been dismissed from the army simply for being gay. The law changed, allowing members of the Armed Forces to be open about their sexuality.

Then there is the protection of religious belief in the workplace. When an employee of British Airways wore a small cross around her neck as a sign of her religious faith, she was suspended from work without pay because the cross violated its uniform policy. Yet, in 2013, the ECHR ruled that this was an unreasonable interference with this woman’s right to freedom of religion, leading to a change in relevant standards in the UK.

Indeed, the ECHR continues to provide protections to the rights of British citizens at home and abroad. Only last month the court ruled that the Cypriot authorities had failed a British woman who alleged that she had suffered horrific sexual violence in Cyprus in 2019, finding that there had been a lack of effective investigation and a violation of her right to respect for a private and family life.

These stories remind us of just a few of the ways our country and our people have benefited from the protections of the European Court of Human Rights over the years. It is important that, as well as applying the law consistently and working in partnership with others well beyond our continent, we tell these stories.

Sadly, there are some who seek to paint a picture of the UK constantly under attack by the European Court of Human Rights. I am not saying that that is what the noble Lord opposite did today—his comments were considered—but it is worth noting too that the UK has one of the lowest rates of applications to the court per million inhabitants, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said. Last year, only one adverse judgment was given, finding one violation against the UK.

The Human Rights Act, which a Labour Government put in place, gives effect to the ECHR in UK law. It was wonderful to hear the recollection from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, of the Queen’s Speech that made this announcement. It is an important part of our constitutional arrangements and fundamental to human rights protections in the UK.

Of course, no organisation is perfect; neither the ECHR nor the European Court of Human Rights is static or frozen in time. The ECHR is a living instrument that evolves in response to emerging challenges and challenging times. The European Court of Human Rights has shown itself to be open to change. Indeed, during the UK’s presidency in 2012, Council of Europe member states adopted a substantial package of reform measures, and only last year, the European Court of Human Rights introduced more fairness and accountability into its approach to interim measures following consultation with member states. There is one accepted principle of dialogue between national courts and the European Court of Human Rights, through which the UK continues to influence the direction and impact of the ECHR. Our respect for the rule of law domestically and internationally is profound, as we are demonstrating through our actions. That is more important than ever at a time where we have been dealt a stark reminder of what is at stake for all of us.

The noble Earl, Lord Dundee, asked about development and education. I can confirm our commitment and support along the lines of his comments, and partnerships in higher education. He put a helpful question. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, invited me to talk about AI regulation. He will forgive me if I do not, but I am sure that a DSIT Minister will be along very shortly and will be happy to take his questions on that.

There are things that we all need for a good life: security, prosperity, equality, human rights and the rule of law. I am afraid I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, but I agree with many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Griffiths, Lord Carter, Lord Balfe, Lord Hannay, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said, and as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said we should, this Government are firmly committed to the European Convention on Human Rights and we will never leave it. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has said, quoting former Labour Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, it is self-evident that a world where every individual’s rights are respected is a world that will be more peaceful, and where Britain will be more prosperous and more secure.

As we reset and deepen our relationships with friends across Europe and beyond to help us face the challenges and opportunities of our times, in this 75th year of the European Convention on Human Rights, we welcome this chance to reflect on all we have achieved and to look forward to what needs to come next. We are a Government with a progressive, realistic outlook, meeting the world as it is and working towards how we want it to be in the months and years ahead. We look forward to the celebrations in Strasbourg in November.

15:32

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, referred to his childhood, when I was his family’s constituency Member of Parliament in Liverpool. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, in her reply to the debate referred to something which deeply affected me during my time as a Member of Parliament; I never expected to have to visit families whose children had died at a football match, as they had done at Hillsborough.

So I have been enormously grateful for the effect of the European convention in helping to shift the law, and to the Government for the commitment they gave at the general election to enact the so-called Hillsborough law. It is an issue the Joint Committee on Human Rights has engaged with. Indeed, we recently published correspondence between the committee and the Government on the duty of candour. It is a good example of how events that take place here in our own jurisdiction can have implications elsewhere, and of how they can be affected from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and from person to person.

Some very kind words have been said by noble Lords today, not least about my longevity. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, and to the noble Lord, Lord Rook, who said that he hoped one day to grow up to be like me. I do not wish that on him or anybody else. I feel a bit like Methuselah at the end of today’s debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, for whom I have great fondness and admiration, made a very good speech about why we should keep our feet firmly on the ground and never lose sight of the human impact of the decisions that we make. He told us that he had been to the Supreme Court and felt as though he had been surrounded by stars in the galaxy. You do not need to go all the way to the Supreme Court to feel as though you are surrounded by stars in the galaxy. I pay particular tribute to some of the distinguished and celebrated Peers who have spoken in today’s debate. These have been wise voices, and we would be foolish not to study carefully what has been said to us from all sides of the argument. This debate has been worthy of the anniversary, but also worthy of your Lordships’ House.

Obviously, I will not try to respond to every speech, so I will be brief. Reference was made to Article 3. My noble friend Lord Carter was right that even if we did not have the ECHR, the 1951 convention on the treatment of refugees would still be in place. We were also cautioned by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and others about the dangers of building a whole argument on one or two cases—such as the so-called chicken nuggets case, which was referred to. Noble Lords should go away and read Joshua Rozenberg’s article this week, where he reminds us that in that case, a lower-tier tribunal got it wrong and an upper-tier tribunal got it right. He writes that the argument presented in that case will not prevent the deportation of someone who may be here illegally and therefore should not be resident in the United Kingdom. So let us not build a case for total deconstruction on cases such as that one. Again, a noble Lord reminded us—I think it was my noble friend Lord Hannay—that hard cases make bad law.

When you start to unravel and disrupt, it carries consequences, but that is not an argument against reform. I take the arguments that have been made today, particularly from the Conservative Benches, that this is not a static instrument which is incapable of reform. Things such as the Swiss case are for the Joint Committee on Human Rights to go back and look at and take evidence over. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and I will agree on that, and will find ways for us to look at that kind of judgment and decide whether we are going too far in some circumstances—but that should not become an argument for the destruction of the European Convention on Human Rights. Confronted in our own generation by a new breed of dictators who again threaten the foundations of democracy, it would be sheer defeatism and an act of vandalism to abandon the legacy that has been entrusted to us.

I renew my thanks to everyone who has participated in today’s debate and, in closing this Cross-Bench debate marking the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights, I thank all those who have made such excellent contributions in your Lordships’ House.

Motion agreed.

Royal Assent

Royal Assent
Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

15:37

Royal Assent was notified for the following Act:

Finance Act.

Covid-19: Day of Reflection

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

15:39

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of London]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the COVID-19 Day of Reflection, what steps they are taking to improve support offered to people bereaved as a result of COVID-19.

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the former chair of the UK Commission on Bereavement and other interests as set out in the register. Though we are small in number, I am grateful for the opportunity to hold this debate. I am aware that reflection on the impact of Covid-19 is no longer a particularly attractive subject, but I feel strongly that the impact of this world-changing event will continue to be felt in the years to come.

In our nation’s living memory, there has not been a moment in which so many of us have experienced bereavement at the same time. Over the course of 2020 and 2021 alone, there were an additional 750,000 deaths over what would ordinarily be expected based on the previous five-year period. By the end of 2022, an estimated 16,700 children and young people in the UK had been bereaved of their parent or a primary caregiver through the deaths associated with the pandemic.

On Sunday 9 March, we marked five years since the start of the pandemic with a day of reflection, on which communities up and down the country remembered our national and personal loss. Many of these wounds are still raw, and the BBC reported that sobbing could be heard at the National Covid Memorial Wall. This afternoon, I will discuss the particular disruption to bereavement during the pandemic and the long-term impacts of restricted bereavement.

The UK Commission on Bereavement was launched in June 2021 and, in October 2022, we produced our report, Bereavement Is Everyone’s Business. The report identified a number of key ways that the pandemic disrupted the grieving process of those bereaved. The first, and perhaps the most obvious, is funerals. Restrictions meant that there were delays, restrictions in numbers, social distancing of attendees and changes to collective end-of-life rituals: wakes, shivahs, collective recitation at home, nine nights, and the viewing and embalming of bodies at home were not possible.

As with many aspects of the pandemic, not everyone’s experience was the same. Many religious and ethnic-minority groups faced more significant barriers to organising funerals. Many people reported that finding funeral directors or bereavement organisations with culturally appropriate funeral services was difficult, and that not being able to participate in usual rituals prevented them grieving properly.

Being able to access a meaningful and affordable funeral was already a challenge before the pandemic, and it remained so afterwards. According to SunLife’s Cost of Dying report 2025, the average cost of a simple funeral was £4,285, which is a rise of 134% since data collection began in 2004. It also found that a third of people said that the cost of living crisis had impacted on how they organised a funeral. Almost half said that paying for a funeral had impacted on their mental health. The funeral support service Down to Earth, which is run by Quaker Social Action, notes that a complex relationship exists between somebody’s grief and their paying for a funeral. If somebody gets into debt doing so, that debt can last for years and has a profound impact on their feelings around their bereavement. I have serious concern that people’s ability to access the funeral that they may like is financially determined.

A second way in which the grieving process was disrupted was in the most common experience of social isolation and loneliness. A significant part of the bereavement process for many is being with family and friends to support one another in grief, but 74% of adults who were bereaved during the pandemic said that they experienced social isolation and loneliness after the death of a loved one.

Thirdly, having contact with the dying person at the end of life was heavily restricted, as so many people died in hospital. Some said to the commission that knowing that their loved one was alone in hospital before they died was the hardest part of the bereavement process at the time. Those were the impacts that we saw in our work in 2022, but further work has been undertaken since then and there is more to learn.

New research published in 2023 examined the longer-term impact of grief among those who had lost loved ones during the pandemic. It found that, two years after their bereavement, 29% of people studied met the criteria for prolonged grief disorder. In particular, the social isolation and loneliness in early bereavement contributed to higher levels of prolonged grief symptoms.

According to another study on prolonged grief disorder during Covid 19, there may be a detrimental, long-term psychological outcome for those bereaved individuals regardless of the cause of death of their loved one. We do not yet fully understand all this, but there is a growing body of evidence detailing the ongoing impacts of the pandemic on bereaved people and the difference that accessible, timely and effective bereavement support can have on their bereavement symptoms. In addition, we should not forget those with long Covid who grieve the loss of who they were before they contracted the virus. It is important that we support the ongoing impacts in this area as well.

Following the recommendations of the bereavement commission, there has been much progress which we can commend. This has been and is being worked on by different Governments, including the previous Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Markham. We are glad to see the introduction in the Employment Rights Bill of a new right to bereavement leave for people who have lost a close relative. The Government are also introducing the facility for people to register a death online. The Department for Education in England has consulted on proposals to include grief education in the curriculum. On the housing front, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has an amendment to the Renters’ Rights Bill to prevent the use of ground 7 as a ground for eviction—that is, death of a tenant. This increases housing security for bereaved tenants in the private rented sector. It is very welcome.

However, there is more that can be done to support bereaved people. One of the initial recommendations from the UKCB report was for the Government to establish and deliver a cross-departmental strategy for bereavement. It is clear that bereavement and its surrounding issues are multifaceted and in need of cross-government working. A strategy could be a useful way to give this issue the attention it deserves.

The cross-governmental working group was established in 2021 and is a useful space to discuss bereavement-related issues, but there must be much more of a focus if we really are to support bereaved people. There is also the need for wider investment in bereavement services, especially for black, Asian and minority-ethnic communities and others who have been demonstrated as being poorly served. This is particularly significant given that some communities experienced much heavier loss than others during the pandemic, especially in London. If the findings I mentioned earlier prove true, this may mean that some communities are more adversely affected by symptoms of prolonged grief than others, which, of course, leads to poor mental health.

Finally, it seems that everyone, when asked, agrees that it is healthy and good for us as a society to talk about death. However, we are still poor at doing it. I am not going to talk about the substance of the assisted dying debate here, but it has prompted us as a nation to talk about death and dying, though this is still far from a normalised topic for many of us. That is reflected in our planning for and focus on bereavement, both nationally and perhaps personally.

My own experiences as a cancer nurse and as a priest mean that I have sat with people in the final hours of their lives and with people coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. To grieve is a universal experience and part of what it is to be human. My faith prompts me to believe that our feelings and relationships and the grief that comes when we lose somebody important to us are important. These experiences and emotions must be tended to. It is the role of us all, including the state, to do so.

I am grateful to your Lordships’ House for providing the time for this very important debate. Will the Minister agree to meet me and perhaps some of my key colleagues in the bereavement policy space to discuss this further? I hope that the national day of reflection will not confine our thinking on supporting bereaved people to a future crisis or as a thing of the past but that we will take this opportunity to cast a renewed focus on bereavement, because it remains everyone’s business.

15:49

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London on securing this important topical debate and on her excellent introduction to the very wide range of issues contained in it. I shall divide my time into two areas: first, bereavement support to people since Covid but not only because of Covid; and, secondly, the effect of Covid deaths on their loved ones and on wider society.

On deaths at the beginning of Covid during lockdown, through our social conventions for grieving and marking the life of a special person who has died, saying goodbye to a loved one on a phone or a tablet via a nurse holding it up in hospital was extremely hard. Then there were the limited numbers of people being permitted to be at a funeral. However, I have to say that the one benefit has been Zoom funerals. If you cannot be there in person, it is now normal to be able to join online or even see it afterwards, which is an important part of the grieving process.

On new styles of funerals and their cost, to which the right reverend Prelate referred, I am concerned about the advertisements for extremely cheap funerals that are constantly on TV at the moment. I notice that they are just beginning slightly to qualify what is on offer. People do not understand what is on offer. I wonder whether we need to address the issue about advertising regulation for these funerals, because people often buy in advance and then discover that there is literally no service or gathering whatever and there is no way they can mark the cremation of the person either—there is nothing. For some people, it may be the right thing, but I know that many funeral directors are frustrated, because they can offer cheaper funerals than most people imagine. The average price was cited earlier, but they are certainly trying to make sure that they can provide it.

The other big issue is the British style of mourning, if I may put it that way; to call it restrained would be an understatement. There are cultural differences in our own communities, but also in Europe. The first open-coffin funeral that I went to was for a Latvian relative, and everybody at the funeral went up to kiss the person in the coffin. I was 20, and I think it would be fair to say that I was horrified, because it is just not within our culture. One problem with Covid was that all those different cultural ways of saying farewell were probably even more inappropriate. Covid removed our ability to mourn, and I therefore welcome the growth of “grief cafés”, where people can come together to talk about preparing for grief, recognising that somebody is going to die, but also, after they have died, having a safe space where people can come together in an entirely safe and relaxed environment to chat about death and how it is affecting them.

I also want to mark the role of leaders of religions and belief in supporting families and friends and the individual on that journey to death and afterwards. That was one of the hardest things that we lost during Covid. Being on the end of a phone was extremely difficult—unless the weather was fine and you could have a meeting outside—and it transformed the experience, and not in a good way.

I also want to talk about how grief affects children. That journey of grief and saying farewell is very different for anybody under about 16. We fostered two children of a friend of ours, and the vicar and the chaplain of the hospice guided them, aged 10 and 12, and ourselves in what was going to happen. They encouraged us to take the children to see their mother after she had died, when our natural reaction would have been not to do that. But it was the right thing to do, because they were happy to do it, and it helped them to recognise that she was gone for ever. The support that we got from our faith leaders and our wider church community made an enormous difference.

I turn now to the consequences of Covid. I was health spokesperson for what we might describe as the whole of the first big period of Covid, up until December 2022. The most shocking thing that happened was that certain doctors abused the DNACPR decision-making. Never again must these be taken without something on a patient’s file showing that they have explicitly been part of the decision-making, even if it was not their decision, or, if they do not have capacity, that their attorney or next of kin has also been part of it. It was particularly unfortunate that many very elderly people with dementia and those with learning disabilities were given DNACPRs without their and their families’ knowledge.

For those families who lost people who were on the front line during Covid without proper PPE, can the Minister say whether the Government will follow the recommendations for pandemic preparedness in the first report of the Covid-19 inquiry, to ensure that we can protect front-line staff when—not if—the next pandemic arrives? I add to that the front-line staff who survived severe Covid but have been medically retired and are now fighting the NHS, which says that, because these well-loved staff—who served for many years and are important to our NHS—cannot confirm when they caught Covid, they are therefore not entitled to compensation. This is unjust. I know two people whom that has affected very badly. They were in PPE made of black plastic bags right at the start, and both caught Covid within the first three weeks.

Those who died very early on, pre-vaccination, were overrepresented by, as I am sure you will remember, those described as “clinically vulnerable”—I am one of that number and I survived Covid. They are still overrepresented in deaths today, even though the number of Covid deaths is much lower. This winter, we have seen a large number of deaths from flu and pneumonia. Part of the problem is that Ministers, past and present, tell us that Covid is over, but it is not. The consequence of that is sometimes long Covid, but it also affects decisions about whether Covid is airborne or not.

UKHSA and NHS England tell us that Covid is not airborne transmitted and that the main transmission is usually through contact with droplets. The WHO disagrees with this and changed its definition two years ago. Why? Because the WHO realised that the size of the virus was small enough to mean that it is airborne. That is important because that requires masks and ventilation for those who may be at risk. The WHO says that we should consider using masks if at risk. I would love us to get to the stage of Japan and China, where if you have a bad cold and you are going on the underground, you put a mask on. That has not been in our culture, but it would help those who remain at home because they are so clinically vulnerable that they do not feel safe going out.

That would also reduce transmission of various viruses in schools. My regular hospital is Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, which during lockdown devised a very cheap but effective ventilator that is now available on every ward. The staff also mask up very early on. However, in schools there is a large amount of transmission, not of Covid but of other viruses, because there is no ventilation in classrooms except that ordained by the head teacher.

That frustration is born out of the death of a very dear friend of mine who survived a major lung transplant at Papworth. When he went home, his care worker did not wear a mask and she gave him Covid. He died, after the long period he had spent in hospital and after all the NHS work to try to take care of him. The equation does not seem right there.

Can the Minister say, therefore, whether the Government will make sure that all the recommendations that come out of the Covid inquiry—not only those in the first report, which we have seen—mean that we keep our people safer, not only from Covid, and encourage our front-line staff, including those in the NHS, that where they work they will be able to work safely? Above all, given the tone and nature of this debate, will we be able to support people as they face death and the loss of loved ones in the future?

15:59

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London for securing this debate on this important matter. I thank her and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for their moving remarks about the lessons they feel we ought to learn.

Listening to the moving opening remarks from the right reverend Prelate, I was reminded that we all have experience of losing people during Covid and of grief, or perhaps delayed grief. I will share my own experience, if I may, not for therapy but for reflection. On 20 September 2020, I lost my father-in-law and then, four hours later, I lost my father; my children lost both their grandfathers on the same night. Both of them lived abroad, and so we were not able to grieve in the usual way. We had to watch the funerals, one day after the other, on a WhatsApp video. It was not until July 2022 that I was able to visit my father’s grave in America and break down and cry, and to scatter the ashes of my father-in-law in another country. You realise when you break down and cry the feelings that you had been holding back all these years, and how that has been debilitating in some ways. I had not realised that until that time.

Given that, I want to take the opportunity to express my condolences and sympathy to all those who suffered personally or lost loved ones during the pandemic. I pay tribute to all the wonderful health and care workers who looked after us and those suffering from Covid-19. We should acknowledge the work of public and private sector workers who carried on working to deliver essential services—some of which are not always considered essential services, whether it be driving buses or home delivery. While others were able to isolate quite safely in their own homes, they put themselves at risk.

Noble Lords will be aware that, when in Government, we announced the NHS and social care coronavirus life assurance scheme to protect the families of front-line NHS and social care workers who sadly died while providing essential work. Initially, it was a payment of £60,000 to the families in England, with funding for similar schemes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but we felt it was important to increase that level of support to families facing bereavement. Sadly, uptake was not as high as it could have been, and we had to extend the scheme to September 2023 to ensure that more families could benefit.

While money can help in many cases, other types of support are, as the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness discussed, important for bereaved people. In 2021, research indicated that, for every Covid-19 death, there were up to nine people affected by bereavement, highlighting the importance of bereavement care. There are those who are still experiencing ongoing bereavement. As I say, it took me two years, and there are others who still have not found closure in their own lives on these issues. It is really important that they continue to receive the necessary support and care.

The world-renowned Mayo Clinic has defined “ongoing bereavement” as when

“feelings of loss are debilitating and don’t improve even after time passes”.

We are often told that time heals all wounds; in many cases, those wounds still have not healed for people. Many of us have lost loved ones or friends, but those with ongoing bereavement find it incredibly difficult and challenging to get on with their daily lives and to do even the simplest things.

Noble Lords may be aware that the very first recommendation of the UK Commission on Covid Commemoration was the introduction of a UK-wide day of reflection, to be held on the first Sunday of March, to commemorate the anniversary of the first lockdown. The report says—I think it is worth repeating—that this is to

“remember and commemorate those who lost their lives since the pandemic began … reflect on the sacrifices made by many, and on the impact of the pandemic on us all … pay tribute to the work of health and social care staff, frontline workers and researchers … appreciate those who volunteered and showed acts of kindness during this unprecedented time”.

I know that in all our faiths there are always references to small acts of kindness, and we saw some amazing acts of kindness throughout, even though it was a horrible time and a time of great grief and uncertainty for many people. We welcome the Government’s decision to continue the commitment of the last Government to commemorate this anniversary. It is important to remember all those who were lost, and the Government should be credited with continuing to recognise this.

One topic I would like to ask the Minister about is bereavement education, which was raised by both the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness. As others have said, in many cultures, death may be celebrated or simply accepted as part of the circle of life, with young children attending funerals or ceremonies to understand the inevitability of death. In our culture, we are not so open about these issues. We often do not deal with death until a friend or loved one passes away, especially when it is unexpected.

I sometimes think about the New Orleans funerals: they start off in a very sombre mood, with marching, but then suddenly the mood changes to one of a celebration of a life. I have often said to my wife—I do not envy her, if she survives me—that I want a combination of a Muslim funeral and a New Orleans funeral. I am not sure how that would go down, or whether the imam would appreciate the switch-over. We should celebrate life, and make sure that we remember to discuss death earlier in our lives.

I was a bit worried about making people laugh, because, until now, it felt as though we were at a funeral, but I am very pleased that we can have a laugh. Sometimes people laugh when they celebrate a life; they tell stories and have fond memories of the person who has passed away. That is a wonderful way of making sure that we celebrate people. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, faith leaders—indeed, the right reverend Prelate is one herself—are very good at helping families to face grief and bereavement.

What more can be done? On the review of the relationship, sex and health education—RSHE—statutory guidance, can the Minister update the House on whether some thought is being given to include specific content on grief and bereavement education? If not, can she share any current thinking on the options being considered? Both the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness discussed the importance of this. Sometimes, it is not very easy to do that in a top-down, government-led way, so how do we create a space to ensure that we talk about these issues? I know it is not an easy subject to tackle, and it needs to be treated with the utmost sensitivity. Anything that the Minister can share with us today, or in writing later, would be gratefully received.

Finally, given the importance of the issues that we have discussed in this debate, can the Minister give the House a firm date for when a response to the UK Commission on Covid Commemoration’s final report will be published?

The subjects we are discussing are part of an understandably complex and sensitive area. We were all touched by Covid, either directly or indirectly. We all lost loved ones or friends, or we heard stories from those who did, and some of us suffered from delayed or extended bereavements. The best thing we can take from the debate is this: let us not forget those who passed away; let us not forget those who are still suffering from the effects of long Covid; and let us not forget those who are still experiencing bereavement.

16:07

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the right reverend Prelate on securing this important and touching debate, which was somewhat inevitable, considering the subject. I acknowledge her ongoing dedication. Since chairing the UK Commission on Bereavement and the publication of the report, the right reverend Prelate and the commission have continued to champion this important issue. I am very happy to agree to the meeting that she requested.

I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness on the Front Benches, not only for sharing their personal experiences and reflections, which is what this subject is about, but for raising the points that they did. I know that they, like me and the right reverend Prelate, want to improve support for those who are bereaved.

The right reverend Prelate made the very good point that there is bereavement through the loss of a loved one, but there is also bereavement through the loss of what might have been. One such example of that, writ large, is those who have long Covid—and I am sure that we can all think of others. It is always right to think about loss in those terms. As has been said, we all have and will experience grief through the course of our lives. It is absolutely vital that bereaved families and friends have access to the support that they need, and when they need it. That can come from a variety of sources, as noble Lords have described, and I will return to that later.

I assure your Lordships’ House that the Government are looking for the best ways to support those in grief, including those bereaved as a result of Covid-19. On behalf of the Government, I also associate myself with the thanks to those who provided services with full public spirit, no matter what sector they were from. Whether private, public, charitable or voluntary, they were public spirited to the core and they kept us going. I am deeply grateful. I also reiterate the condolences to all those who were bereaved and all those who suffered loss of some kind and have been affected by the pandemic.

Noble Lords have referred to the day of reflection. This year marked the fifth such event since the outbreak of the pandemic. As we have heard, it is a significant milestone and an opportunity to form one’s thoughts, memories and actions as we remember all those who were affected.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, chaired the UK Commission on Covid Commemoration to consider appropriate ways to remember those who have died and how we should mark such a sombre time in our history. Of course, it is not history for those who are bereaved; it continues to be with them. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the commission for their extensive work in speaking with those who are most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, including representatives from bereaved family organisations. I am grateful to those organisations for their work.

The commission’s first recommendation of 10 is that:

“A UK-wide day of reflection should be established and held annually on the first Sunday of March”.


On 9 March this year there were more than 200 events in communities across the country, and we saw how important this day was to so many. The noble Lord, Lord Kamall, asked about a day of reflection in the future. We see how much this day matters to people and how many communities took part, and I thank all those local organisations and communities for contributing to that. We very much hope that will create a foundation for future years.

The day of reflection allowed people to remember the many losses in a way that was appropriate and meaningful for them. It struck me to be very much in contrast to our experiences during the pandemic, which for that period of time were ones of isolation, separation and the loss of the lives we used to lead. There was close working with charities, faith groups and other voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations. That was very much the mark of the day of reflection, and I appreciate the role of those organisations, not just in the day of reflection but in supporting those who experience grief. I am sure we all pay tribute to them and their work.

In Sheffield the city council continues to work in partnership with Compassionate Sheffield, which aims to improve people’s experiences of life, loss and death. Access to support is certainly important; it has been referred to throughout this debate. To give just one example, of which noble Lords will be aware, the Government are prioritising funding to expand NHS talking therapies. That is something to which people can self-refer, or they can consult their GP in order to get to that point, and it is a tremendous service for people.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, rightly referred to the issue of children and young people’s mental health. Again, I mention the expansion of mental health support teams in schools, putting in place Young Futures hubs, which will provide access to mental health support, and the recruitment of 8,500 new mental health workers to treat children and adults. In all these ways, we hope to support children and young people who are bereaved.

On the point the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised about PPE, we are responding to each of the reports from the inquiries, and that will be dealt with. I totally agree about keeping people safer and the matter of Zoom. That has provided comfort in a way we could not possibly have anticipated. I noted her comments about ads for very cheap funerals, and I will raise them with the appropriate ministerial colleagues.

The noble Lord, Lord Kamall, talked about culture. Indeed, different religions and communities have different cultures. As he will know, in the Jewish tradition, it is tradition to sit shiva for around a week, where support can be freely given by visiting the home of the bereaved. As my noble friend Lady Anderson reminded me, it is hard to get a group of people together and not feel some form of celebration while giving that support. All these models are ones that we can look to.

On the points made about long Covid—which is a very real issue and will not be going away—we have invested £314 million to expand treatment and rehabilitation services and established 100 long Covid services for adults and 13 specialist paediatric hubs for children and young people. They assess people with long Covid and direct them into ways of care, to provide the right support, treatment and rehabilitation. We have also invested £50 million in 22 research projects for long Covid. In all this, I hope people can be reassured that we continue to support people.

On the question about adding bereavement to the national curriculum, we are reviewing the RSHE curriculum and will look carefully at responses to the consultation on the draft revised RSHE statutory guidance, which ended in July. I will take a particular interest, with my ministerial colleagues, about where that sits.

My department brings together government colleagues to discuss bereavement as part of a government working group on bereavement. It is a forum to share best practice. Today’s debate will feed into that very well. We take the reports from the UK Commission on Bereavement very seriously and continue to engage with them.

On the right reverend Prelate’s point about end of life, dying well is a fundamental right in regard to human dignity and compassion. We have a responsibility to ensure the best possible care. That includes supporting families and carers, including young people, who are involved in that.

NHS England has developed guidance to support ICBs with their duty to commission palliative care services within integrated care systems. That guidance requires commissioners to ensure that significant access to bereavement services be available for families and carers, including children and young people.

I turn to ongoing research. The pandemic made clear the need for bereavement services to offer both practical and emotional support, as noble Lords have referred to. Noble Lords will not be surprised that not everybody knows about these services. Many services are particularly not reaching those from ethnically diverse communities. Through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Government have commissioned a study investigating how to improve bereavement services for those from ethnically diverse groups. That includes those from black African, black Caribbean, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Somali, Chinese and Roma backgrounds. I certainly look forward to the study’s findings, which will be published later this year.

Finally, we need to take an evidence-based approach to health, and NICE balances best care with value for money across the NHS. Decisions on whether NICE will create new or update existing guidance are overseen by a prioritisation board chaired by NICE’s chief medical officer, and the prioritisation board is considering bereavement as a potential topic for guidance development.

In reiterating my sympathies to all those who were bereaved and all those who continue to be affected directly or indirectly by the Covid-19 pandemic, I feel that it is incumbent on us to look to make further progress on bereavement support services. I look forward to continued cross-government working—and, I am sure, cross-party working—to achieve this.

Crown Court Criminal Case Backlog

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note

16:21

Moved by

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

That this House takes note of the Crown Court criminal case backlog, and the impact of delays on reliability of evidence, experience of victims and fairness of proceedings for defendants.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, it is an honour to introduce this debate on the troubling issue of the backlog in the Crown Courts. I am grateful to those who have indicated that they wish to speak in this debate, many with extensive knowledge of the subject. I am especially looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield. Her experience, skill and reputation concerning issues affecting children, including those who have in some way come into contact with the criminal justice system, go before her. I know that she will have very important contributions to make in your Lordships’ House, today and in the future.

In recent days the Government have made a welcome announcement, which was repeated in your Lordships’ House. They indicated that their attention is focused on the subject of this debate and that they intend to take appropriate steps to reduce delays in the Crown Court—and without diluting justice.

They have appointed the distinguished retired judge Sir Brian Leveson to prepare recommendations on this difficult subject. Like Sir Brian, I was there when the Crown Court started in 1971, often appearing in cases alongside him. So was the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. We may have been in the very same courtroom on the first day of the Crown Court. He and I, with the late Lord Hooson, were in a set of provincial chambers that produced as many Peers as Blackpool. Sir Brian’s many years in the Court of Appeal, as well as his practical experience in the Crown Court in the past, will have given him a view, as it were, from the bridge of the criminal justice system. I know that he will be paying close attention to the advice and help offered to him by those ratings who have spent the recent post-Covid years on the deck in the Crown Court, watching the delays accumulate.

I have some statistics. In September 2024 there were 73,105 open criminal cases, nearly double the figure for 2019. Seriously delayed cases included 21% for violence and 18% for sexual offences. Public funding for justice declined by 22.4% in real per person terms between 2010 and 2023. This is an unacceptable situation.

As it happens, last Friday I attended the valediction of a judge at the Maidstone Crown Court. His honour, Judge Philip Statman, is not a famous judge, but he has been an exceptionally good one, admired over 20 years in two Crown Courts. Those who were there took the trouble of attending because we knew that he was an outstanding member of the judiciary who should be listened to.

In a courtroom with standing room only, we congregated to say a reluctant farewell to someone who has been the very model of a modern circuit judge. He has tried everything—for example, murders—but, like all circuit judges, he has tried cases small as well as great. He has dealt with many of the short hearings that unreasonably and unnecessarily interrupt almost every judge’s working day and increase the backlog, but more of that later. He told us of how in his last three weeks as a circuit judge in what he described jocularly as “the bits and pieces court”, he dealt with 10 cases each day, 150 in his last three weeks—one judge, 150 cases. He commented that too much judge time is spent filling the roles of case progression officers and that:

“Every hour spent on administration is an hour away from judge craft, from getting it right for all those coming before the court to seek justice”.


Judge Statman was not grumbling, but he was giving a gentle plea for change to enable judges to judge in accordance with their oaths to do right to all manner of people. He described the effect of delay on victims as he had seen it, on survivors, on defendants and on those who conduct cases. As he said, we need more judges, more and competent criminal advocates and more sitting days. Otherwise, how does one explain inordinate delay to grieving families in cases of murder, death by dangerous driving or sexual abuse?

I adopt for this debate his reference to the case of R v ZA of 2023 in the Court of Appeal. Two experienced appellate judges commented:

“All too often judges’ lists allow too little time to prepare for a sentencing hearing, for the hearing itself and then for the judge to take time to reflect and to weigh up all relevant, often conflicting, considerations in arriving at the appropriate sentence”.


Today I received through an email a message from a judge who will remain anonymous, who described how they had done 30 hours of unpaid preparation for a case they were about to see in the Crown Court. In ZA, the Court of Appeal said:

“Court listing should ensure that there is sufficient time for the judge, even if that judge heard the trial and knows the case well, to read and consider all reports and to prepare sentencing remarks”


in age and intelligence-appropriate language. Judges must have time to think—wise and correct words.

Again, I reflect the views expressed by Judge Statman when I say, without any risk of serious contradiction, something about juries. The jury trial is the jewel in the crown of the Crown Court. As Statman reminded us:

“Rights took centuries to earn but they can be brushed away at a stroke”.


That we should remove the right of jury trial from some triable either-way cases to save time and cost is easily said but, in my view, neither proved nor justified. There is no need to replace jury trial for smaller cases. In any event, what is a small case? A small case to some is a huge case to others. A small case for some means the end of their working life, their reputation, their marriage or their family. If a police officer in a case of assault that is triable either way is accused of behaviour that would end his career, should that attract a lesser tribunal than asking for a trial by his peers? If a teacher, a doctor or one of us is accused of a relatively minor offence of dishonesty, conviction will likely end our professional lives and destroy our reputations. Should we deny such people trial by their peers? Having been there in the courtroom conducting such cases for the defence and the prosecution on numerous occasions in over half a century of my legal career, I challenge in principle the removal of jury trial, especially because it is completely unnecessary.

What are the time savings that it is asserted would take place if jury trial was removed from some potentially significant cases? If a judge were sitting either alone or with magistrates, unlike a jury’s verdict the judgment would have to be reasoned. We could not simply have “guilty” or “not guilty” without any explanation. That reasoning would be very similar to the legal directions and summary of the evidence given by the judge in jury trials and would take just as much time. There might be a very small net saving in court time dealing with a jury after it is retired, but, generally, that represents only a tiny slice of time taken up in court.

Indeed, it is very likely that decisions from such intermediate courts—as I think they are called—would give rise to a significant increase in appeals and thus more use of court time. It would be difficult fairly to exclude appeals on questions of fact which are not appealable from jury verdicts, save in the event of important new evidence arising after the jury verdict. I know that subsequent speakers will address alternative ways to use judges more effectively.

In addition, time can be saved by the use of amended Crown Court rules. Prosecution and defence advocates should be required to provide short skeleton arguments well ahead of the hearing date for all cases, including guilty-plea cases not requiring a jury. The prosecution should be required to indicate in advance any sentencing guidelines that are relevant. The defence should be required to indicate the nub of their mitigation submissions, including an indication of what they submit should be an appropriate sentence in the case. Advocates should be paid for the work they do on such intermediate documents. Currently, almost the entire fee payment in a criminal case is loaded into the final trial or plea hearing. I welcome the presence in this debate of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, who has done valuable work in relation to legal aid, and look forward to hearing what he says about payment of advocates.

Advocates should be required to adhere tightly to the time-saving rules and remunerated for that currently unpaid work they do on pre-hearing documentation. I have no doubt that there would be a favourable cost-benefit evaluation of such work. I am sure from my experience that that sort of exchange of information would mean that many cases would be over in minutes with such a system. There should be a target of no more than two hearings in every ordinary case—you would not believe how many hearings there are sometimes in small cases in the Crown Court.

In an excellent House of Lords Library briefing, produced on 13 March this year, one of the three causes of the current situation was described as “more ineffective trials”, saying that 27% of trials do not go ahead on the day scheduled—almost a doubling since 2017. Key reasons included witness and defendant unavailability and the late arrival or non-arrival of prisoner transport. This shocking figure calls for severe contractual financial penalties for such failures.

Another cause of the backlog is the decline in the number of criminal law barristers available for publicly paid criminal work. Declaring my interest as a member of a chambers conducting predominantly criminal work, I suggest that remunerating criminal advocates proportionately to comparable activities elsewhere in their profession would produce sharper, quicker, better prepared cases.

Sitting days need to be increased, which, in my view, would show a cost-benefit gain. Part of the cost-benefit analyses should factor in the paraphernalia of problems for everyone involved, including witnesses and victims facing worsening mental health until the case is determined, and 20% of defendants being retained in custody but acquitted later, with considerable financial loss.

We have to recognise that sometimes the work can be done better. Doing cases a little faster can improve the quality of a trial, and that should be subject to judicial directions, particularly where there is interminable documentary evidence that could be summarised more effectively and which juries struggle with.

A major area for further possible change is in relation to very complex fraud cases—those expected to last more than 20 days. I have done a number that have lasted months and months, far more than 20 days. In cases where it can be agreed between prosecution and defence that a non-jury trial would be satisfactory, subject to specific provisions that would be acceptable, we could speed up the courts. Such provisions might include a maximum sentence of, say, seven years’ imprisonment; a judge sitting with two experts, along the lines of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which was presided over by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, when I became a chair of that tribunal; and a full written judgment on Competition Appeal Tribunal lines. These courts could be separated from the general Crown Court.

In addition, there should be more and earlier diversion orders in suitable cases, to ensure that young defendants especially can be diverted from crime; more efficient listing schemes, such as the trial blitz at Manchester Crown Court; and increasing the credit for guilty pleas where the case has not yet reached trial.

Unfortunately, we have a crisis in the Crown Court, but we should not waste that crisis. I suggest that careful, moderate modernisation of the Crown Court system, including more efficient management at every level, from the courtroom to the Lord Chancellor’s Department, can solve current problems without damaging the fundamentals of our trusted justice standards and principles.

16:36

[Baroness Longfield (Lab) (Maiden)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register. It is a privilege to be part of this debate today, and an honour of my life to be giving my maiden speech in this great House.

I start with thanks to all my new colleagues on these Benches and to noble Lords from across the House for their warm welcome. I thank my sponsors, my noble friends Lady Armstrong and Lady Andrews, for their huge support and encouragement, not just lately but over the years. I thank the House staff for being so helpful and kind as I find my way around this place, with its corridors and procedures. They have been tolerant and courteous, and have always pointed me in the right direction.

I chose this debate today because it relates to so many of the issues that I have spent 40 years of my working life focusing on: families and children growing up in poverty, in poor housing, with poor mental health, living with domestic abuse and addiction—those children most likely to fall through the gaps.

I will come back to that, but I wanted first to give noble Lords an idea of my own journey to this place. I grew up in Otley, a small town in West Yorkshire. My father’s family worked as engineers, and he designed engines for aviation. My mother was a carer for her parents, who had lost their sight early on in life. We all lived in the same house, so I knew first hand the challenges that life could bring, and how vital support was. Their values of hard work, enterprise, caring for your community and a strong dose of that Yorkshire “get on with it” spirit, alongside a good deal of encouragement from some great teachers, were what I took with me when I left home to be the first in my family to go to university, and afterwards, as I threw myself into working with children and families in communities in east and west London.

New to the capital in the 1980s, I found the inequalities of childhood experiences stark. The families that I worked with in the East End had no expectations that the explosion of creativity, enterprise and wealth happening along the river in Canary Wharf would change their lives at all. However, they showed me how things might be different: how, with the right support at the right time, families can overcome challenges and share in the opportunities available in this great country.

I have spent the last four decades working to enhance those opportunities for all children. I led a national children’s charity and worked with the noble Baronesses, Lady Harman and Lady Hodge, on the delivery of the Sure Start programme in the No. 10 strategy unit. I campaigned for many years for better childcare at a time when many saw the issue as quite niche.

As Children’s Commissioner for England, I spent six years championing the rights and interests of children with those in power who make decisions about children’s lives. I am particularly proud of the pioneering work that my office did in highlighting the barriers that hold back children and their life chances.

My last year as Children’s Commissioner coincided with the Covid pandemic. I saw then how children can too often slip from view and be an afterthought. We should of course celebrate that most children and families in our country are doing well, but a sizeable group are not, and we need to be ambitious for them too. We have lost so many of the early intervention programmes—Sure Start, youth clubs, family support projects—and now pour billions into acute late intervention services. These are the £1 million kids who come into care too late and cost £250,000 a year and more to care for. We should also pay attention to the corrosive impact of issues of misogyny and violence online, so powerfully portrayed on our screens at the moment in the drama “Adolescence”. If your Lordships have not seen it, please tune in.

That brings me to this debate today and young people in the criminal justice system. When I have asked children in prison how they ended up there, almost every one can pinpoint when things got worse and what could have been done differently. It is almost like a blueprint: the first exclusion at school, mum losing her job, the professional interventions that came too late. Some four in 10 children in custody now are on remand and most will not receive an immediate custodial sentence once they get to court. That is why I have argued that we should do everything we can to keep most children out of custody during remand. We are seeing promising results from a Ministry of Justice pilot that keeps children on remand in the community in Manchester. It would be great to see more of those.

It will not surprise noble Lords to hear that I will continue to work on causes such as this in the House. I believe in the potential of public services to stand alongside people to bring about that positive change. I also believe—as my mother used to say to me quite often—that where there is a will, there is a way. I know everyone in this House wants children in our country to flourish, but experience has taught me that it will not happen on its own for a lot of children. They need help to prevent problems becoming barriers. I will be doing all I can to ensure that we in this House do all we can to provide the kind of help and support that can change those lives.

16:42

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure and an honour to follow the maiden speech from my noble friend Lady Longfield. She is a legend. She has spent decades tirelessly campaigning to improve the experience of children. In her powerful and moving speech she demonstrated her continued determination to fight for the rights of some of our most vulnerable citizens. Her persuasive expertise will make her a valued Member of your Lordships’ House and I very much look forward to working with her in the future.

Other noble Lords have and will express concern at the effects of the backlog on victims and defendants. What is less well known is that there is a looming recruitment and retention crisis in the judiciary because, as your Lordships have heard, the caseload of Crown Court judges is unsustainable. The recent Judicial Attitude Survey, conducted by Professor Cheryl Thomas, found very high levels of stress and disillusionment in judges, with 35% of them planning to take early retirement. When you add this to those who will retire by virtue of age, 42% of Crown Court judges will be gone by 2029. Of the part-time judges, from whom new judges are appointed, only 22% are planning to apply for a full-time role.

There are things that can be done, and some of them do not need to cost much money. It just requires the system to think about things differently. It has been a tenet of faith over many years that what is needed is judicial case management. Untold hours have been spent by senior judges and others devising Criminal Procedure Rules which set out timetables. But I hate to have to break it to them that they have been wasting much of their time. Most of the parties to a criminal trial have barely heard of the rules, far less read them. The reason: in the Crown Court there are no sticks and precious few carrots. You cannot make the parties comply and there is no incentive for them to do so, because they are paid the same whether they do or do not.

The result is a large number of pointless hearings in court, achieving little other than both increased blood pressure and an increased backlog. I do not have to imagine these problems because, until just before Christmas, I was one of those judges. I used to think constantly, “I’ve got 35 years’ experience as a criminal barrister, 12 of which were as a KC. I never thought that I would sit in hearing after hearing, day after day, saying to counsel, ‘So, you’ve done none of the things you were ordered to do. Okay, let’s set a new timetable, which you and I both know you are not going to comply with either’”.

Crown Court judges are a precious resource. Many of them came to it because they regard it as public service. Yet they cannot get on with the things they ought to be doing, because they are—to be frank—spending a large proportion of their working lives messing around, setting timetables.

I too have reservations about an intermediate court with no jury. My concerns include the impact on diversity and thus on public confidence. Most juries are economically and socially diverse, the judiciary less so. So, my proposal is not an intermediate court but an intermediate judge: the criminal master, who could, for example, be a district judge interested in promotion to the Crown Court. The master could hear all the small routine applications, leaving the judges free to do what they ought to be doing: presiding over jury trials and passing sentence.

16:46

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, on an outstanding maiden speech and welcome her again to this House. Indeed, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for leading this debate. In response to his invitation, I briefly say that in my view we have two fundamental problems with the court system. First, there are not enough criminal lawyers to go around—whether it is CPS, prosecution or defence. Secondly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, also said, there are many inefficiencies in the court system. If we can tackle those, we may not need radical reform.

I will take four points very briefly. Despite the recent increase in sitting days, I understand that in 2025, Snaresbrook Crown Court will still be unable to use more than 15 out of 20 courts: in other words, 25% below capacity. Isleworth Crown Court reportedly closed five courts last month, and, according to today’s Times, last Friday, only eight out of 20 courts at the Old Bailey were working. At present, the court backlog is an emergency. There is no justification in such an emergency for allowing outdated accounting rules to restrict court sittings.

On the question of costs, the court system has high fixed costs—buildings, permanent judges, staff, and so forth. But the marginal costs are relatively low: a part-time recorder’s fee is £800 a day. So, 10 recorders, sitting remotely, could do at least 50 extra court cases or directions hearings a day for less than £10,000. It is basic economics that, with high fixed costs and low marginal costs, the correct economic response is to maximise throughput—to reduce unit costs. But the present restrictions lead absurdly to the opposite result: higher unit costs per court disposal. That is not an efficient system.

More fundamentally, under the Courts Act 2003 and the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, the Lord Chancellor has a statutory duty to ensure an “efficient and effective system” of courts and tribunals. Under Section 17 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 the Lord Chancellor takes a formal oath,

“to ensure the provision of resources for the efficient and effective support of the courts”.

That is an absolute obligation, not subject to Treasury whim or political change in the wind. So, would the Minister accept that, by virtue of those statutes, resources must be ring-fenced from spending cuts and funded properly?

Lastly, given the astonishing figure from the NAO that 27% of court trials are ineffective, as already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, does the Minister agree that although listing is traditionally regarded as “a judicial function”, the general efficiency of listing practices, as distinct from decisions on individual cases, is a legitimate subject of public debate and scrutiny by Parliament?

16:50

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, to her place and congratulate her on an excellent maiden speech; we look forward to hearing more from her.

The Lady Chief Justice, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Carr, told the Constitution Committee on 26 February that dealing with the backlog felt like

“running up a down escalator”.

She said:

“We cannot, even sitting to maximum capacity at the moment, diminish the backlogs”.


Cases are now being listed as far forward as 2028. Two inquiries are under way. The very principle of access to justice is threatened, with all the effects that this has on victims and witnesses and on lawyers and judges.

Giving evidence, as I have on a number of occasions, is not easy. The very fact that your account is to be challenged both for truth and accuracy is very daunting. The further you are from the events you are attempting to describe, the greater the pressure and the greater the possibility of self-doubt—a weakness any competent cross-examiner will exploit.

As for lawyers, according to the National Audit Office’s report on 4 March, 1,441 trials were cancelled on the hearing day in 2023, compared with 71 in 2019, because no legal professionals were available. The average time taken for a case in the Crown Court has increased in four years from 480 days to 695 days. I will say something about short listing. For the last trial I was involved in, I went five times to the Crown Court for nothing because my junior had something paid to do. I am sure you can feel the hurt as I speak.

The remuneration at the criminal Bar is so pitiful that it reminds me of the days of the dock trial. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who is to be congratulated on securing this very important debate, is too young to remember the line of ageing barristers whose careers had been wrecked by the war and who sat in the Birkenhead quarter sessions in their yellowing wigs, hoping to be picked by a defendant for the princely sum of two guineas—with five shillings, of course, for the clerk. We are back to those days.

As for judges, the Judicial Attitude Survey, published in February, found that more than three-quarters of serving judges suffer from work-related stress symptoms, with higher figures for females and minority judges. Some 30% said they are suffering from burnout. In addition, the survey showed that court buildings and equipment are in a mess and that such buildings are not fit places to work in.

This is not the time for wringing hands. I do not apply my family motto, ar bwy mae’r bai—who can we blame? It is a time for action. What are the Government going to do?

16:53

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, it is humbling to speak in this debate in the company of those better qualified than me to make comment, but I rise to speak particularly about the impact on victims. From London, I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, to her place.

It continues to be a great shame that criminal justice is one of those Cinderella public services. We often talk or feel that spending money on things such as schools and healthcare is good, and of course it is. However, talking about spending money on prisons, probation and the courts is much less frequently affirmed, despite the fact that not spending in the courts has a terrible implication for victims. I wonder whether improving public understanding of the importance of a well-functioning court system for victims and defendants may be key to winning wider support and gaining resources that are so desperately needed. What consideration have the Government given to improving public understanding in this way?

As has already been mentioned, the new report by the Victims’ Commissioner lays bare the extent of the impact. It includes a significant toll on victims’ mental and physical health, with the risk that they may, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, give up on seeking justice altogether—a second injustice compounding the first. The Public Accounts Committee report published last week details particular distress experienced by victims of rape, serious sexual offences and violent crimes. Many found the court delays so traumatic that they withdrew from the process. In adult rape cases, 59% of victims were dropping out pre-charge in June 2024.

Perhaps the most distressing part, as already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, is the increasing number of ineffective trials—scheduled trials that do not go ahead on the day. As we have heard, according to the report published by the National Audit Office last month, the proportion of ineffective trials has increased from 16% in 2019 to 27% in 2023, with some of the reasons mentioned including failed or delayed transport. I wonder whether money is being saved in one part of the system at the cost of another. What steps are the Government taking to look at spending holistically across the system so that increased investment can be shown to pay for itself in the longer term?

Finally, I welcome the Government’s wider focus on reforming criminal justice and the call for creative thinking. This is seen especially through the sentencing review, to which my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester submitted a paper proposing a new approach to sentencing reform. I hope we will continue to think creatively, but always with victims and defendants in mind, to reduce the Crown Court blockage.

16:56

[Lord Burnett of Maldon (CB)]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, on her instructive maiden speech.

The outstanding case load in the Crown Court has reached a level that is irretrievable without a radical change to the way in which many Crown Court trials are conducted. I will repeat just a few figures. In January 2019, the outstanding case load was 33,000; it rose to 40,000 as Covid lockdown engulfed us in 2020, and by the end of September 2024, it was over 73,000. The December figure will soon be published by the Ministry of Justice, and there is no doubt that it will be significantly higher. The backlog continues to grow because the volume of cases coming into the system has greatly increased, and there is no sign of that volume diminishing. The proportion of cases taking more than a year to conclude in the Crown Court has roughly doubled over the same period.

All those involved in the system are working hard to iron out problems that result in too many hearings, ineffective trials or late guilty pleas—and much else that has been referred to. I am afraid that those changes and improvements will not solve the problem, but they would help. Similarly, extra sitting days would not solve the problem but would help.

There is an obvious solution, and in this I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who must be congratulated on securing this debate. A substantial proportion of cases that can be tried either in the magistrates’ court or in the Crown Court, but which currently go to the Crown Court, should be decided in that court by the same composition that deals with appeals from the magistrates’ court—a judge and two magistrates. Obvious cases for such trials would be all offences that carry a maximum of two years’ imprisonment. It is the accident of the maximum sentence that enables a defendant to elect for jury trial.

Many other cases—including drugs offences, criminal damage, regulatory offences and others where, on conviction, the sentence would inevitably be non-custodial or a short term of imprisonment—might also be considered for such trials. Such trials would take hours rather than a couple of days, because that is how long they take in the magistrates’ court. Perhaps more importantly, many of the tactical not guilty pleas that are entered in the Crown Court at the moment would evaporate.

The limit on these speeches today, which I notice I have reached, makes it impossible to develop the arguments or deal with the reasoned arguments in opposition. But, having pondered this question for some time, I note that this solution, first mooted 25 years ago by Sir Robin Auld, stands a good chance of reversing what is otherwise an inexorable decline.

17:00

[Baroness Hazarika (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lady Longfield on her excellent maiden speech. She has been such a force for good in public life, speaking up for young people, and I know she will make a fantastic contribution. She is also my roommate; I do not know whether that is a blessing or a curse for her, but it is certainly very lucky from my point of view.

We are all rightly concerned about the huge backlogs in the court system. As we heard, there are reports of cases being heard in 2028. It is profoundly shocking, and we all know that justice delayed is justice denied. How can we look victims of crime in the eye and say that we do care when their trial could take years and they have to live in limbo waiting for their day in court—particularly female victims of sexual violence? These delays cause anger, hurt and frustration to all parties, and we have heard that they can also make people drop their cases.

The system that this new Government have inherited is broken. That is why it is good that some radical thinking is going on, and I welcome the fact that the Government have asked Brian Leveson to conduct this review. I know that many noble Lords and noble Baronesses will disagree, but I think it is time to examine whether we can move away from trial by jury in some but not all cases. I ask this question: how can it be right that a class C drugs offence sits in the Crown Court while a vulnerable rape victim has to wait five years from report to court?

I also hope that we can use magistrates’ courts more. They do excellent work and, having spoken with many in the profession, I know that they would be keen to step up. Can the Minister tell us whether there are plans to recruit more magistrates, as we may need more of them if we are to change the system? Can he also update us on plans to improve court infrastructure, including crumbling buildings and the national computer system, which often goes down and causes delays?

We all have a shared interest in sorting this out. Our country is built on the rule of law, and we believe in having a strong legal system. But, if we do not find a way to clear these backlogs in a reasonable time-space, there is a real danger that people will not only lose trust in our system but feel that we now live in a society that is essentially lawless, and that crimes go unpunished for years and years, and then maybe just wither away. That is something that none of us wants.

17:03

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, on her excellent speech. I declare an interest as a practising barrister and a former recorder of the Crown Court. There is no doubt about the disastrous consequences of delays. They are unfair to defendants and to witnesses, particularly complainants, and they bring the whole justice system into disrepute.

The Constitution Committee considered the effect of Covid on court backlogs when I was a member of it. It was right to do so; it is a constitutional issue. I was anxious to explore the possibility of reducing jury trials and replacing them with a mode of trial by judge only, or by a judge and two magistrates. My colleagues were a little uneasy about this suggestion, although I spoke about it in your Lordships’ House. I even asked a question addressed to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy. I suggested that a defendant at least should have the right to choose to be tried by a judge rather than a jury—a pretty modest proposal, but I was met with a very firm response in the negative.

It is time to think quite seriously about jury trial. Of course we have a strong romantic attachment to it. We know very little about why juries come to their decisions. Anecdotes about the process are not always reassuring. We infantilise juries by only allowing the admission of evidence that we think they can handle, rather than allowing them to decide what is important. We do not require any reasons to be given for their decisions, which makes the appeal process difficult.

It is worth standing back and considering why it is desirable that more than 90% of all offences are tried by those with expertise—either district judges or magistrates who are trained and have a legal adviser—but, for the 5% or so of the most serious offences, we think it wise to allow them to be tried by a random selection of citizens who will, no doubt, do their best. It should, perhaps, be borne in mind that we used to have jury trials for personal injury and libel cases. Their absence is not missed. Nor are juries a universal feature of the criminal justice system. Of course, I pay regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said about this. I congratulate him on bringing forward this debate.

Three minutes is not long enough to develop this important topic, but I would commend a chapter by the late and much missed Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood in his book, Second Helpings. It was more than 50 years ago that Lord Roskill suggested that fraud cases should not be tried by juries.

These backlogs allow us to think about the future of this mode of trial. I hope this Government are rather more amenable than their predecessor to the possibility of at least restricting trial by jury, perhaps through intermediate trials. It is not a good idea to abolish something because of the backlogs, but the backlogs allow us to think carefully about what we need to do by way of trials.

17:06

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, the failure to use professional qualified interpreters in our courts often results in cases being adjourned. This adds to the backlog, not to mention the costs.

I declare an interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Modern Languages and as vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. I warmly welcome this week’s publication by the MoJ of the review of qualifications and experience required by public service interpreters. I thank the Government for accepting all its recommendations.

During the Covid lockdown there was a major shift towards remote court hearings, but a series of reports found serious concerns about remote interpreting, with misunderstandings, delays, poorly performing technology, and missed verbal and non-verbal cues. The University of Surrey’s Centre for Translation Studies has produced cutting-edge research on the use of technology in court interpreting. This research and best practice guidance have been provided to the MoJ. Can the Minister say whether these have been distributed to the courts? There will always be certain situations where remote interpreting is appropriate or unavoidable. Remote interpreting generally takes more time and slows things down, so if the primary driver is cost saving then the impact on court time and, therefore, backlog clearing must be factored in when weighing up the imagined savings versus true costs.

The other strategy which might well backfire and cause greater delays is the uncontrolled use of AI-enabled machine translation, rather than a qualified human being. Accuracy must be non-negotiable but, according to the CIOL, for interpreting—as opposed to translation —it is very unlikely in the near term that AI or machine translation will be usable as anything other than a support tool for human interpreters without major risks and the likelihood of appeals and legal challenges. It works pretty well for the standard European Romance languages and for German, but significantly less so for languages with many dialects, such as Arabic. It can be nearly useless for languages which are rarely included in AI training data, including many Asian and African languages.

Given this disparity, it would be almost impossible for the courts to maintain equality of treatment before the law. AI and machine translation commonly fail to detect sarcasm, irony or humour, not to mention slang and euphemisms—often used in crime to disguise meaning —which human interpreters readily understand but which leave AI befuddled and hallucinating. Is the MoJ fully engaged with DSIT in its work to develop policy on AI, including for machine translation, so that the courts can derive the benefits without the pitfalls? Can the Minister also reassure the House that the amendments to the victims’ code to ensure the use of only professional qualified translators and interpreters, which he supported so strongly in opposition, will be brought into practice without any further delay?

17:10

[Baroness Porter of Fulwood (Con)]

My Lords, I also start by welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, and thanking her for an important maiden speech. The issues of sentencing, prisons and the court system simply cannot be separated. The backlogs that have triggered this debate must be looked at in that wider context. The recent Public Accounts Committee report, looking specifically at the Crown Court backlog, made the point that, at the end of last year, 11% of the prison population was made up of remand inmates, the highest level in 50 years. Some 32% of the remand population have been held on remand beyond six months, with 5% on remand for more than two years. The report makes the point that even getting levels down to where they were in 2019, just six years ago, would free up as many as 8,000 prison places.

The state of our prisons and the very difficult and important work of helping to equip people for a life beyond their release is made even harder with such a high proportion of inmates there on remand. The situation is also not helping the remand prisoners themselves; the longer someone waits before coming to court for resolution of their guilt or innocence in the eyes of the law, the more removed they often become from the day-to-day fabric of their life, job, family and friends. That helps no one.

There has been political consensus for a long time now that much sentencing is not optimal, with people being sent to prison when in many cases other sentences would be more appropriate. The courts sit at the heart of this conversation. The sentencing review that has been referenced and is being undertaken by David Gauke is hugely important, but these reforms should not be looked at piecemeal. As Leveson also undertakes his review into this issue around backlogs and the criminal courts more broadly, the two reviews absolutely must be dovetailed together into one coherent whole.

Reform is long overdue, and it requires us to look at the system as a whole: sentencing and courts. With court backlogs and prison capacity forcing these issues to be addressed, we should see this as an opportunity. I ask the Minister two specific questions. First, what is being done to consider the impact of the large number of remand prisoners on the wider pressures and capacity issues in the prison system? Secondly, can he commit that the Government will respond in an integrated way to the two reviews when they report, and consider changes to sentencing and the courts system as a whole?

17:12

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, the essential causes of the backlog we are debating are clear enough. They are to be found in prevalent austerity measures, underfunding of legal aid, sales of the court estate and underinvestment in the remainder—and what has been described as the unmitigated disaster of the privatisation of the Probation Service. A bad situation was made worse for the courts and their users by the pandemic, some of which I spent in a subterranean Nightingale court. The response of all court staff to the pandemic was impressive and should be acknowledged.

The effects of the backlog are also clear, particularly for victims. The courts have to prioritise some types of case, inevitably to the disadvantage of others. Delays impair the court process: evidence gets mislaid, witnesses disappear or disengage, and juries require specific necessary directions on the effect of passing time on memories of events and on the availability and reliability of witnesses. Of particular concern to family judges are cases in which there are parallel proceedings in a criminal and family court. It used to be possible to defer hearing a family case likely to be determined by the outcome of a criminal case. Delays now mean that that simply cannot be done. The situation is now reversed, with charging decisions often awaiting the decision of a fact-finding hearing in the family court. That produces yet further delay in the criminal case and prolonged uncertainty for the family, and the children in particular.

In the short term, clearly courts and the court estate should be worked to full capacity without artificial and frustrating restrictions on permitted sitting days. That would allow for the use of trial and sentencing blitzes, and more use of part-time judges, including those authorised to sit in retirement. However, I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, that it is really time to end the fiction that listing is a judicial function.

Longer term, consideration should be given to the Bar Council proposal requiring Crown Court trials to start within six months of the first hearing. In time, this will prove no more unrealistic than the 26 weeks for disposal of public law children’s cases in the family court, to which legal and other professionals have responded resolutely. That should be underpinned by rigorous case management by procedural judges, relieving the full-time judiciary—particularly in smaller court centres—from work which cuts into and holds up listed and ongoing trials.

Time does not permit the consideration of the longer-term suggested solutions eroding jury trials, but we should recall the Lammy review and research that concluded that the one stage in the criminal justice system at which minority groups do not face disproportionality is when a jury reaches a verdict.

17:16

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My Lords, I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Longfield on her maiden speech. I greatly welcome the arrival in your Lordships’ House of such a powerful advocate for children. I declare my own interest: I have been lead non-executive director of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service since 2018. I welcome the Government’s efforts to reduce the court backlog, and a timely court system is fundamental to public confidence in justice. However, this is only one of the steps needed for a sustainable criminal justice system.

Prisons are at bursting point; very soon, offenders will once more be held in police cells, under Operation Safeguard. The Ministry of Justice has introduced various early-release measures, otherwise offenders would have no prison to go to. The logistical challenges and public protection risks involved in deciding who to release, and when, are obviously tremendously complex. Prison building will not resolve this crisis, and certainly not soon, as I think the Lord Chancellor has recognised. Normally, prisons would operate at about 90% occupancy, not 99%-plus. Even these lower levels often mean serious crowding in Victorian prisons, such as HMP Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs. The normal regimes of education and work are often restricted, particularly when there are staff shortages. The consequences are starting to appear in boredom, disorder and violence.

The truth is that the whole system of courts, prisons and probation is operating way beyond capacity, and increasing activity in one part of the chain simply increases demand pressure elsewhere. We need much more than temporary fixes. Locking up more and more people for longer and longer has led to the current crisis, but it has done little to reassure the public that they are adequately protected. I eagerly anticipate the reviews by Sir Brian Leveson into court backlog and David Gauke into sentencing.

The way to square the vicious circle is through the greater use of non-custodial punishment. I use the word “punishment” deliberately, to convey the seriousness of the intent. Currently, fewer than 10% of offenders are tagged and fewer than 2% are on home-detention curfews. In my view, we will need a new branch of the probation service to supervise considerably increased numbers of offenders in the community. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the criminal justice system can be brought back into a long-term sustainable balance only by a fundamentally reconceived and radically improved probation service, which will need considerable investment?

17:19

[Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, on an excellent speech and look forward to hearing a little more from her later on.

We must accept that the criminal justice system currently does not have the capacity—in the CPS, defence lawyers or prison places—to get a grip and deal with the delays we have in the judicial system. As a former commissioner, I want to talk about what is happening now on the streets in relation to policing.

The Minister has heard from me previously on rape cases and others that took place 10 days ago. It takes four years for a rape case to arrive at the Crown Court. At the present time, 91 trials listed at Snaresbrook will not be heard until the latter part of 2028. These are the same delays they have at Southwark, Woolwich, Wood Green and the Central Criminal Court.

What is the answer to this? Obviously, we must have one. There is, in my view, some low-hanging fruit. The first would be the reopening and continuation of the Nightingale courts. The second would be turning magistrates’ courts into more of a Crown Court, which is what happened at Hendon when Harrow was closed.

We have to build additional courts and they have to be at the right standard. I recently went to some courts; they were filthy, the toilets were disgraceful, and the whole atmosphere was not one that you would want to spend much time in. I believe that the court hearings should go from 10 am to 4 pm.

In addition, greater credit should be given to a defendant pleading guilty on the first day of his or her appearance, rather than the third appearance or when he or she turns up for trial.

The question of determining trials either way should be decided by a judge and not the defendant. Greater consistency should be given to listing the process, allowing the police to prioritise case types at given times. They have made a plea for me to talk about that today.

The only way that this can be dealt with is by a cross-party and cross-departmental attack, chaired by someone who has the power to get different departments to deal with the problem. It must be solved; it is a scandal at the present time.

17:22

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a former chair of the Bar Council and recorder of the Crown Court. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, and welcome her to this House.

The context today was set for me by the survey just published showing that one in three criminal barristers is considering leaving criminal work because they say they work too hard for too little. That will only make things worse.

From 2009-10 to 2022-23, the last year we have, public funding for justice in England and Wales had declined by over 22% in real terms. It is worth noting that the Ministry of Justice budget is about 1% of the health budget. Obviously, some backlog in the Crown Court is inevitable. Cases waiting to be tried need time for proper preparation. The issue is not the backlog but the deficit—the failure—in the system to properly cope with it.

The backlog, we have heard, is caused by many different factors, but especially, I suggest, reduced court sitting days and too few criminal barristers and those with the right certification and approval to take serious criminal cases, such as rape cases and so on. I welcome the Government’s recent decision to raise the sitting-day cap to 110,000 in the next financial year, but there must be adequate funding to ensure that these new available sitting days are properly used.

The number of cases coming into the Crown Court routinely exceeds disposals. In the third quarter of 2024, over 31,000 cases were received into the Crown Court—a 12% increase on the previous year. This rising tide must be controlled and reversed. The number of cases in the backlog, as we have seen, has continued to rise over time.

What are we going to do to tackle that backlog? We have had a number of suggestions. One made by the Bar Council was that the CPS must give more consideration to the better use of cautions and conditional cautions for low-level offending by those of relatively good character who are not likely to receive prison sentences. The CPS should also consider whether a summary charge, with the consequences of summary trial, may be sufficient for many cases, particularly now that the jurisdiction of the magistrates’ courts has been increased.

I endorse the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, with his experience as Lord Chief Justice, that we should look very seriously at an intermediate court of a judge sitting with justices.

The court estate must be used to full capacity. The cap on sitting days for the Crown Court must be removed. Better fees must be paid to criminal and defence barristers to ensure that we have enough to meet the demand. Some 20 years ago, as chair of the Bar Council, I urged the then Department for Constitutional Affairs to pay properly for pretrial case management—nothing was done, and we have the current mess because of that.

There we are. Delay damages victims, witnesses and defendants, and it destroys this country’s reputation for justice. We must do better.

17:26

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my new colleague, my noble friend Lady Longfield, on her maiden speech and give her a very big welcome to your Lordships’ House.

I rarely speak in Thursday Back-Bench debates, for I fear that I do not have the necessary expertise. I am not sure that I have the necessary expertise for this debate, but, long ago, I practised as a young barrister in the Courts of Assize and the Courts of Quarter Sessions—later the Crown Courts—in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, I was not aware of any backlog at all of criminal cases waiting for trial, but it is now a big problem. As is recorded in the briefing notes provided by our Library, 73,205 criminal cases were awaiting trial in September of last year.

A Bar student, who was my guest last night, told me that he worked recently in the Birmingham Crown Court, which has 12 courts altogether but only three ushers. The result was a great underuse of those courts. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, made that point in relation to other courts, and I endorse all that he said. Clearly, something is wrong.

The great difference between those days of long ago, when I was in practice at the Bar, and these days, is the length of trials. Murder trials then seldom went over a week and were often much shorter; now they are double or treble the time, or even longer. It is exactly the same with other criminal trials. Indeed, a colleague who works on civil matters told me the other day that he could not make further commitments because he was about to start a trial that was scheduled for a year. That was quite unheard of in those days of long ago.

It is very difficult to cut down the length of criminal trials—it will be perceived that there is too much at stake for both the prosecution and defence—but we have to play our part in reducing this terrible backlog. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, identified in his excellent opening speech, greater efficiency in court processes could be of real help.

17:29

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a wide-ranging and impressive debate, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for securing it and for the comprehensive and persuasive way in which he opened it. I also join with everyone in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, on her excellent and moving maiden speech. Her long experience with the charity 4Children and as Children’s Commissioner will be invaluable, and she has shown today how she will give us a fuller insight into how the criminal justice system impacts on the lives of children and young people.

The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, rightly concentrates on the impact of delays on evidence, victims and the fairness of proceedings for defendants. Last Tuesday, following the Lord Chancellor’s Statement to the House of Commons, I described the current backlog of 73,000 cases awaiting trial as “an utter disgrace”. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, have given us some more of the figures.

I maintain that the Government could mitigate these delays with determined and urgent action to reduce them. Every lawyer who has worked in trials, civil and criminal, as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, well knows that evidence becomes less accurate with the passage of time. The accounts of honest witnesses often differ markedly, even when events are recent and reasonably fresh. Discerning the truth becomes much more difficult as time passes. Recollections fade, witnesses become unavailable, and details are forgotten—often, details which could help distinguish accuracy from falsehood, whether deliberate or unintended. Then, documents get lost, or their meaning and import are not recalled.

Unreliable evidence means unreliable trials, often leading to surprising acquittals where juries cannot be sure of guilt. There is also a risk of unsafe convictions, particularly where defence evidence cannot be found or witnesses traced and called. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, pointed out, the problems are compounded by our having a demoralised, frustrated and often overstressed judiciary, and, as my noble friend Lord Thomas and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, said, an underpaid and unhappy cadre of barristers.

The Motion speaks of the effect on victims. In that context, we rightly stress the effect of years of delay on victims of sexual violence, with many dropping out of prosecutions because they simply cannot take the strain, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London described. That is desperately unjust for the victims, who feel they have no option but to let the perpetrators go free and to live with the guilt that goes with the fear that those same perpetrators will reoffend against other victims. So, perpetrators are not brought to justice, and that means a widespread lack of public confidence in the justice system as a whole.

The Minister mentioned last week that there were courts—he mentioned Bristol—where sexual violence cases were treated separately and brought on faster than other cases. Should not that be a general practice? But it is not just in sexual violence cases where victims suffer from these delays; court delays blight the entire system.

Then, the Motion speaks of unfairness to defendants. Innocent defendants are deprived, sometimes for years, of the chance to clear their names. They and their families suffer unjustly through the process, often ostracised by friends, losing employment and suffering intolerable strain for extended periods. Defendants who are guilty can lose the chance of early access to rehabilitative services, sometimes in ways that might be surprising.

Many defendants, as we all know, need help with mental health issues, but they can be cut off from treatment. My daughter, an NHS doctor, has referred me to the exclusion criteria of one NHS trust for access to talking therapies. Such therapies are not available to

“Individuals who are undergoing court or legal proceedings which involves harm to others”,

and I do not believe this is atypical. So, defendants to a charge of violence cannot access, sometimes for years of delay, a service that might really help them to address the mental issues that brought them before the court in the first place. Thus, the cruelty of justice delayed takes a serious toll on the lives of all those affected.

What is to be done? First, the MoJ must take up all the sitting days the Lady Chief Justice says are available. My noble friend Lord Thomas referred to her views, and I have no doubt that she is right: whatever the exact figure, there are several thousand extra days that could be utilised.

The first reason given by the Minister last week for not taking up those extra days was competition for resources, but long delays in court hearings do not save money—they cost money. The delayed trials have to be paid for in the end, and meanwhile there are more defendants in prison on remand, as the noble Baroness, Lady Porter, said. They may be acquitted or receive community sentences at the end. There are more defendants, victims and families with their lives on hold, making greater demands on public resources as they await delayed trials. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, on increasing efficiency to reduce costs in this area.

The second reason given by the Minister last week was the need to have some headroom in the system to accommodate surges in demand for court time, caused by events such as the riots last summer. That argument has some force, but it would be better for such headroom to be provided—if the need arises—by emergency measures in the short term, rather than by tolerating unjust and unacceptable delays in the long term.

As others have pointed out, the court maintenance programme needs to be put on an emergency footing so that our, frankly, decrepit courts—many unusable and unused, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, pointed out—can be restored to full service, with temporary buildings used while the necessary repairs are undertaken.

Last week I suggested that the Government should consider evening and weekend sittings for uncontested cases, leaving more court days available for trials. Might the Minister respond to that suggestion?

I also agree with the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, that we should have criminal masters to deal with a raft of applications that do not need the attention of judges. More of the Nightingale courts may have to remain open for longer than planned—even if they are not ideal, as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, pointed out. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said, they can be used.

We need to improve procedures, so that fewer cases are adjourned because of the listing errors and prison transport mistakes that currently bedevil the Crown Courts. I also agree with the procedural suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for more advanced notice of skeleton arguments to be deployed. I have always agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on the need for efficient interpretation.

The Government accept that more must be done and that, even with the measures they are taking, the backlogs will grow. They pin their hopes on proposals for structural reform, but we cannot rely only on the hope that the Leveson review will solve the problem. Certainly, in time, structural reform of the system may help. For my part, I am loath to restrict jury trials, not least for the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, that juries are multiracial and tend to be non-discriminatory.

I see the possibilities, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, of a new solution for long fraud trials. When it comes, Sir Brian’s report will have to be carefully considered, the Government will need to respond and any reforms will take time to implement, and even more time to have an effect on the backlogs. Given the urgency, we do not have that time.

17:39

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by extending my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, for her maiden speech and for the insight she gave on the issue of children in the justice system, an area where I know she will continue to make very important contributions to the proceedings of this House. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, for securing this debate on such an urgent and important issue.

I shall not seek to repeat all the damning statistics that we have heard already. In a sense, they speak for themselves. For far too many victims, justice now feels out of touch. For far too many accused, the resolution of a criminal complaint feels out of reach. Victims of serious crimes such as rape, murder and robbery are told that their cases will not be heard until 2027—or, indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, pointed out, in some instances, 2028. Half of victims have had their Crown Court trials adjourned or rescheduled. This is not just a matter of inconvenience or inefficiency; it is a failure of society to deliver the justice that victims deserve and expect, and it is a failure of our society to give accused their right to resolution of a criminal complaint within a reasonable and rational time.

Listening to these contributions, I note that some would adopt the view that there is somehow an absolute right to trial by jury. I would not accept that proposition. Almost 90% of criminal complaints are disposed of without the requirement for a jury. It may be regarded as some sort of fundamental right, but it is not absolute, and we should not regard it as something that is inviolate.

We face a situation in which the proposal for modest change or careful and moderate improvements is simply not going to be enough. The present Lady Chief Justice has pointed out that the backlog continues to increase, despite the best efforts of the Ministry of Justice, the courts and the legal profession to see it go otherwise. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, her predecessor as Lord Chief Justice, again pointed to the situation we are in as being, in essence, in need of “radical change”. Radical change is the only thing that is going to improve matters in the present situation.

We heard from a number of noble Lords about the difficulty of maintaining the appropriate number of lawyers at the criminal Bar. Indeed, it is clear that, over many years now, recruitment to the criminal Bar has been rendered far more difficult by reason of the very limited legal aid made available to those who practise in that critical and important area. The noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, also made the point that there is an impact not only on the practising Bar but on the judiciary themselves, who in many instances feel overburdened by the situation that has been allowed to develop in the last few years.

We have to look at how we can approach this. I would respectfully adopt the view already expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, and touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that we should look at some sort of intermediary court structure. There is clearly room to deal with the either-way cases that, I understand, represent some 40% of the existing backlog in the Crown Court.

There are a number of ways in which it could be done. The adoption of something similar to the Diplock courts, with a Crown Court judge sitting with two magistrates, for example, would be one way forward. Whether that should deal with only specified offences or whether it should deal with, for example, a sentencing power of up to two years, or, I might venture, up to five years, is a matter for debate and cannot be resolved at this time, but there is clearly a need to address that issue and to potentially introduce such an intermediary court.

With respect, I do not accept the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that this would give rise to a greater number of appeals. As I understand it, that was not the experience with the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland but again, that issue bears examination. It will also be necessary to take into account the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, on the impact of non-jury trials on certain parts of our society. I appreciate the importance of that, but it can be examined going forward.

The reality is that we cannot continue as we do at the present time. We cannot continue with a backlog in the Crown Court that is simply increasing. It is out of control. There are some interim measures that can be taken. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, referred to the Nightingale courts. I understand that about 60 were established, of which only about 16 are in use at present. The question then arises of whether we have the judiciary to man those additional courts. Do we have the practitioners at the criminal Bar who will be available to prosecute and defend in those additional courts? There are so many factors coming together here that create not just one problem but a chemistry of problems, which cannot be resolved by one or two simple steps. It will take a leap of imagination by the Minister and his department to address this in a capable, credible and effective way.

My noble friend Lady Porter of Fulwood and the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, made an important point. There is an inextricable link between the present, increasing backlog and the immediate problem that we face with our prison population. I understand from the Library statistics that something like 20% of our prison places are taken up by prisoners on remand. Of those, a very large proportion represent what would be regarded as either-way cases. If we can relieve the backlog, one immediate advantage may be that we take some of the pressure off our present prison estate.

We must look at this in the round. It is not just a case of saying that we need more judges. It is not just a case of saying that we need more to pay lawyers more—although I always think that is a very good idea. It is not a case of saying that we need more courtrooms, or of saying that we can just introduce an intermediate court. We have to bring all these features together. Having regard to that, we are immediately faced with the issue of resources.

Can I make this request of the Minister? Will he ensure that he passes the Hansard report of this debate to his colleagues in His Majesty’s Treasury?

17:48

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede) (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a fantastic debate. It has been wide-ranging and extremely well informed. My noble friend Lady Longfield made an excellent maiden speech. I very much look forward to working with her and learning from her in the future as we discuss youth justice and young people. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for securing this debate. There is no doubt that the Government face a profound challenge in the Crown Courts. Our ability to provide justice to the public is of utmost importance and I am very glad that we have had this debate here today.

I will rehearse some of the statistics, even though other noble Lords have given them. When the Government came to power, we inherited a record and rising courts backlog which today stands at over 73,000 cases. It was around half of that figure five years ago.

The issue is more difficult to tackle than just rising numbers. Receipts are increasingly high and the outstanding case load is different from before the pandemic, as it is made up of a greater proportion of more serious and complex offences. Those offences take up more court time and tend to have a lower guilty-plea rate.

In July, the Lord Chancellor made an immediate decision upon entering office to increase Crown Court sitting days by 500 on top of the allocation provided by the previous Lord Chancellor in the previous Government. This was followed by a further increase of 2,000 sitting days in December of last year. We also increased magistrates’ courts’ sentencing powers for a single triable either-way offence: previously, they could only impose a six-month prison sentence for these offences; that has now been increased to 12 months and, in doing so, we have freed up capacity in the Crown Court to hear more of the most serious cases. The capacity that will be freed is equivalent to an extra 2,000 sitting days in the Crown Court. We did not stop there. Earlier this month, we announced funding for a record high allocation of 110,000 sitting days in the next financial year to deliver swifter justice for victims. This is 4,000 more days than the previous Government funded.

However, we are aware that increased capacity alone is not enough and only fundamental reform will tackle the issue. That is why we appointed Sir Brian Leveson, one of our most distinguished judges, to conduct a wholesale review of our criminal courts and propose long-term reforms. Tackling the outstanding case load in the Crown Court is a top priority for this Government, and we will look to act on recommendations from the report as soon as possible.

I want to touch on other jurisdictions. The department has been focused on tackling demand within the Crown Court, but it is important to recognise that it is part of an interlinking court system and we must work to tackle demand across the whole system. More than 90% of all criminal cases are dealt with in magistrates’ courts, where cases continue to be completed swiftly. Although the case load rose from 72,151 cases to 333,349 cases between September 2023 and September 2024, the timeliness in getting through that increased case load within magistrates’ courts has remained stable. That is a real achievement, which we should acknowledge, of the MoJ in managing the issue and of the magistrates’ courts themselves.

To deal with increased demand, we continue to invest in the recruitment of more magistrates. On the point made by my noble friend Lady Hazarika, we are aiming to recruit 2,000 new and diverse magistrates this year and similar numbers in the next couple of years. But we need to increase that figure, and one of the things I spend my time doing is working out how we can increase the recruitment of magistrates. When I started as a magistrate about 20 years ago, there were 30,000 magistrates in England and Wales; there are now 14,000. We need to get the numbers back up to over 20,000, and then up again, depending on what Sir Brian recommends.

In family courts, the case load in both public and private is reducing a bit, so that is a good story. There are other problems within the family court arena, which I am very aware of, but there is not the emergency situation in family courts which we are seeing in the Crown Court.

To return to the issue of the Crown Court backlog, many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Marks, asked about the impact of delays on the reliability of evidence. This affects victims and witnesses, and of course many witnesses are victims as well. There are measures in place to support them in giving their evidence.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London asked about support for victims. We regard that as important and we accept that victims tend to drop out the longer that a case is delayed. The criminal justice system already works together to give vulnerable and intimidated victims an earlier opportunity to provide their evidence after a not guilty plea is entered. Under Section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, eligible victims can have their cross-examination pre-recorded, enabling victims or witnesses to give evidence at an earlier stage, when their recollection of events is likely to be better. In addition, the police, the CPS and HMCTS employ a joint protocol to expedite cases involving witnesses under 10 years old, thereby maximising the opportunity for them to provide their best evidence and minimising the stress and emotional impact of the criminal justice system.

Prosecutors have guidance on allowing witnesses to refresh their memory. This usually involves the witness rereading their witness statement on the day of the trial. The department’s funding of the national Witness Service means that crucial emotional and practical support is provided to both prosecution and defence witnesses in all criminal courts in England and Wales, to enable them to give best evidence.

I wish to address the undeniable impact that court backlogs have on victims. The human cost of these delays is considerable, and witnesses—who are often victims as well—play a crucial role in ensuring that justice is served. Indeed, as the Victims’ Commissioner mentioned in her report, the delays in the court system can have a particularly adverse impact on victims of rape and serious sexual offences. To ensure ongoing communication with victims in the pretrial period, every CPS area now has at least one dedicated victim liaison officer in its rape and serious sexual offence unit, and pretrial meetings are offered to all adult victims of these crimes. This Government have committed to introducing free, independent legal advice for victims and survivors of adult rape across England and Wales to help them understand and uphold their legal rights. We aim to begin a phased rollout of that service later this year.

The Government have committed to implementing the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024. The Act contains a package of measures that, once implemented, will improve victims’ experience of the criminal justice system and offer better access to information. The first tranche of victim-related measures from the Act commenced in January this year. They simplify the complaints process for victims and enhance the Victims’ Commissioner’s ability to hold criminal justice agencies to account. We are implementing provisions to ensure that local commissioners collaborate on support services for certain victims. We will consult on a new victims’ code, so that every victim of crime knows the rights they should receive under the code.

Lastly, on support to victims, I agree with the Victims’ Commissioner that support services have an important role in keeping victims engaged with the criminal justice system, and that this can help mitigate the impacts of court delays. That is why, in the upcoming financial year, we have protected dedicated spending in the department by maintaining this year’s funding levels for ring-fenced sexual violence and domestic abuse support.

Moving on to the fairness of proceedings for defendants, we recognise that the prolonged uncertainty of waiting for a trial can be overwhelming for some defendants, and we do not underestimate the impact that this has on the defendants and their families. The judiciary and the Crown Court are responsible for ensuring that cases are heard as promptly and efficiently as possible. They continue to work to prioritise cases, including those involving custody time limits. Custody time limits safeguard defendants by preventing them being held on remand in prison for an excessive amount of time prior to their trial. If the trial cannot be heard before the limit expires, the court must release the person on bail, unless the prosecution successfully applies to extend it.

Fairness is integral to the criminal justice system. While miscarriages of justice are, thankfully, rare, it is important that our appeal system, including the possibility to apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, functions well. Last month, the Law Commission launched a public consultation on the law relating to criminal appeals, aimed at ensuring that the system is fair and effective. We look forward to receiving the final recommendations from the Law Commission once the consultation exercise has concluded.

Reducing the Crown Court backlog and improving the experience of victims through the process of seeking justice continues to be the priority of this Government. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for raising this subject.

I turn to contributions from noble Lords in the debate. Both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, expressed scepticism about the judicial function of listing. The noble and learned Lord argued that general listing was a legitimate subject for debate in Parliament and generally. He said that specific listing of specific cases should remain a matter for judges. That was an interesting point—I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Meston, agrees with it—and I will make sure that it is fed back to colleagues.

The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, spoke about the time for action. We agree with that, of course, and we are acting: we have these two extremely important reviews under way. I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Porter, that we think daily about dovetailing these two reviews and how they will work together, because this is an integrated system—a point that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, made. You really need to look at the whole system to try to get the benefits we hope to achieve through the reforms.

The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, pointed out that there are a number of areas where jury trials have stopped and the world has not stopped turning. We wait to see what Sir Brian recommends, but there may be a recommendation for an intermediate court for cases up to, say, two years’ sentencing—or maybe five years, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, suggested. We wait to see on that matter.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, asked about interpreters. There is of course an absolute requirement in the code for professional translators. The Government will consult on a new code in due course. I recognise her point about the importance of interpreters to enable fair trials and fair hearings in courts.

I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for raising the Lammy review, which quite rightly pointed out the trust that people have in jury trials, particularly people from ethnic minorities. I and the Government recognise that it is a gold standard. However, it does not necessarily mean that all trials, or the same proportion of trials as now, will continue to be jury trials. The point was well made and is one that we need to reflect on as we consider proposals as they come forward. I add that magistrates, of course, are more diverse than the rest of the judiciary, particularly here in London. We—I was a magistrate—were a pretty diverse bunch within London. Nevertheless, I thank the noble Lord for making that point.

My noble friend Lord Lemos spoke with great authority about the problems of overcrowding. Of course I aspire to great investment within the whole system, but his points about the knock-on problems of overcrowding in the Prison Service were absolutely right.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, made a number of detailed proposals. I am sure the officials will read them with great interest, but I will not comment on them individually now. I thought they were points well made.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, spoke about there being too few criminal barristers. That is obviously right. There is no shortage of trade unionists for the criminal barristers in this House, I have to say, although that does not mean it is not merited. The noble Lord also advocated for the increased use of out-of-court disposals. It is worth reflecting that one of the great successes over the last 20 years is the reduction in the number of youths in custody. That is very much driven by the increased use of out-of-court disposals for youths.

When I started as a youth magistrate, there were 3,000 youths in custody; now, it is a matter of a few hundred, and out-of-court disposals were a part of that transition, if I may put it like that.

My noble friend Lord Hacking gave me one of his usual history lessons, for which I am very grateful. The point he made about trials getting longer and longer were of course absolutely right.

There are other points I would like to make. My noble friend Lady Levitt and the noble Lords, Lord Thomas and Lord Marks, spoke about the Judicial Attitudes Survey and asked what the Government are going to do with it. One thing the Government will do, obviously, is continue to invest in regular recruitment and recognise the factors that have come up through that survey. There will be a major review of judicial pay, which has been commissioned, and it will look at the issues affecting judges and particular judge types. So, we recognise the point that my noble friend made.

The other point, which was made by the noble, Lord Carlile, was about prisoner transport and how—as I know from my own experience—this is often a source of delay. I can confirm that, in respect of the transport supplier, when the delays are unacceptable and there is performance failure, then direct action can be taken by the MoJ. That is done occasionally, and it is recognised that a completely unreasonable number of delays are caused by prisoners or defendants simply not getting to court on time—I absolutely recognise that point.

I have already welcomed my noble friend Lady Longfield, but I want to say that I am very glad she will be joining my colleague the honourable Nic Dakin for his round-table discussion on the topic of youth in the criminal justice system. My office is literally next door to Nic Dakin’s, so I am sure I will hear all about it.

The big point to close on—this has been accepted by all noble Lords who have spoken—is that that we really have a very profound challenge in front of us. As a Government, we are taking bold actions to try and address the two main problems that affect our criminal justice system, which are Crown Court backlogs and prisoner overcrowding. These two problems are hugely interlinked, and we are determined to address these problems and turn the tanker around. But there are many aspects to this, and I look forward to the interest of noble Lords as we continue along this road.

18:08

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I shall say just a few short points in closing. First, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for his considered reply. May I gently urge him to look at the research of Professor Cheryl Thomas of University College into rape cases where the victim does not give evidence in the presence of the court? The results of that research are very unfavourable to the procedure. It is just not working well.

Secondly, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, for her maiden speech. I will simply say that she did not disappoint.

I noted the right reverend Prelate’s comment about creative thinking. There should be some creative thinking that does not immediately assume that we must get rid of jury trials in a large number of cases because we are so pessimistic about the future. We can be optimistic, and indeed, surely, as one noble Lord said, it is time to get on with what can be done now, without waiting for Sir Brian Leveson’s report. Some of it is staring us in the face.

For example, my noble kinswoman and others’ suggestion of the introduction of criminal masters or procedural judges could be started tomorrow. It would make a huge difference in courts such as Snaresbrook, which has been much mentioned. I would also urge upon the Government that my noble friend Lord Meston’s reference to allowing criminal and family courts to work much more closely together could also be used with civil courts and major fraud trials. There is a great deal of work that can be done that would shorten lists and delays.

The noble Lord, Lord Hacking, in his interesting historical analysis—it was before my time but, like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, I had heard all about it when I started at the Bar—urged that there should be ushers in every court. It is such a simple thing. If there is an usher and a clerk in the court, the work gets done. If they are not there, the witnesses cannot be brought in, the charges cannot be read out properly and there are unreasonable burdens placed on the judges. Those are simple things we can do immediately.

We have a difference about juries. I say both to my noble friend Lord Faulks and to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, that in my view they are wrong about juries. First, the reference to civil juries is irrelevant to this discussion. Civil juries did not send people to prison for a long time, in effect, and judges have to send people to prison if they have been convicted by a jury of a serious offence.

In relation to the Diplock courts, I say with enormous respect to the noble and learned Lord, whom I admire greatly, that it is a poor analogy. The Diplock courts deal only with the most serious cases and were created in an atmosphere that did not want to get rid of a single jury trial, but it was because you could not get a fair trial in Northern Ireland at that time for special reasons. I do not think that Diplock courts take us anywhere.

I hope I will be forgiven for not referring to everyone who has spoken, but in closing, I simply want to thank all noble Lords who have taken part and say that the Government have a very big task on their hands.

Motion agreed.

Online Procedure Rules (Specified Proceedings) Regulations 2025

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Civil Proceedings and Magistrates’ Courts Fees (Amendment) Order 2025

Motions to Approve

18:12

Moved by

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede]

That the draft Regulations and Order laid before the House on 29 January and 6 February be approved.

Relevant document: 18th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 17 March.

Motions agreed.

House adjourned at 6.12 pm.