Live Debate: Lords Chamber

Oral questions: The UK’s implementation of ILO Convention 190, which recognises the right to be free from violence and harassment in the workplace

Oral Question Baroness Smith of Llanfaes.

15:01

Lord Katz (Labour)

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Lords, I beg leave to ask the question. Standing in my name on the Order Paper.

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My Lords. The UK ratified ILO Convention 190 in March 2022, demonstrating its commitment to preventing and addressing violence preventing and addressing violence and harassment in the workplace. We have a robust legislative framework in place, consisting of strong in place, consisting of strong health and safety at work and discrimination laws. We're we're confident that these meet the convention's requirements. These convention's requirements. These protections will be further strengthened through the Employment Rights Act 2025, including a Rights Act 2025, including a requirement for employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment and harassment by third parties.

15:01

Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (Plaid Cymru)

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My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, the Minister, for his answer. However, if 1 in 5 workers are reporting feeling at risk of violence at work. On what basis is His Majesty's Government confident that existing legislation is sufficient to result in prevention, rather than simply rather than simply for us just responding to the harm once it has occurred?

15:02

Lord Katz (Labour)

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Well, the the noble Lady is obviously right. That and correct that we need to be concerned about preventing and building a culture of positive, positive employment at employers attitudes towards tackling harassment and victimisation in the workplace, rather than simply simply just relying on tackling harm when it's called. But I would say that we are very strong, very, very strong laws and regulations in place right now. Harassment, as I said, is covered under the Equalities Act and in 2010, which has recently strengthened, or in October 24th, to place specific duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.

And and the noble Lady will remember well the debates that we had in Committee on Employment Rights, then Bill, now act, where we may where we change the law to toughen up further. So employers must take all reasonable steps to stop sexual harassment before it starts, and to maintain workplaces free from harassment.

15:02

Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat)

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Would the Minister agree that the fact that we've got a rise in reported number of harassment, certainly of women going through that, we've either got a great rise in the number of incidents or the fact that people are being prepared to report it more. If so, could we not make sure there is an easier way of getting resolution to any complaints, because something that is merely reported and talked about will mean nothing if there is an effective enforcement regime in place.

Yeah.

15:03

Lord Katz (Labour)

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Well, the noble Lord is right that enforcement is as much a part of the problem as created and much part of tackling the issue that as, as, as creating solutions to the, to the, to the the nature of culture in the workplace. I'd point out that the Employment Rights Act does a number of things in this. In this regard as well. As I've already mentioned, it voids non-disclosure agreements between employers and workers that prevent women from speaking out about relevant harassment and discrimination, and also strengthens protection.

For whistleblowers, making it explicit sexual harassment can be the basis for protected disclosure. On top of all else, it creates the Fair Work Agency, which will monitor all these new workplace rights.

15:04

Baroness Prosser (Labour)

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That an awful lot of these incidents occur because so many people in various different kinds of workplaces either think the issue is a non-issue, they think it's funny, or they just don't get it. Now, how about when looking at companies who have been found guilty of not facing up to these problems properly and not dealing with them efficiently, that there should be some further action taken unless the company agrees and carries out proper training of their management team to ensure that they do understand what's wrong, and they spot things before it gets out of hand.

15:04

Lord Katz (Labour)

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Well, my noble friend makes a very good point that actually in in enforcement has to be seen somewhat by driven driven by example. It's really important that we don't that we don't trivialise. This issue is some as some seek to do. And I think I would widen that out past workplaces to the very issue of, of of of discrimination, harassment and violence against women and girls. And that's why I think everybody in this House should be in the your Lordships' House should be welcoming the government's Violence Against Women and Girls strategy that was published just before Christmas.

It's a we have a landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade, and that's the way that we place women's equality at the heart of the government's mission.

15:05

Lord Young of Acton (Conservative)

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I declare my interest as a director of the Free Speech Union. Can the noble Lord, the Minister, help define what harassment, what third party non sexual harassment? Employers will have a duty under section 21 of the Employment Rights Act to protect, to take all reasonable steps to protect their employees from. In the past, when I've raised the spectre of that duty being extended to indirect harassment i.e. overheard conversations, jokes, remarks, witticisms, I've been pursued. Could the noble Lord, the Minister, assure us that I was just being alarmist? And when the government does produce its guidance on this issue, which I understand it is about to do, it specifically says business owners are not responsible for protecting their employees from overheard conversations, remarks, witticisms, jokes.

Yeah. witticisms, jokes. Yeah.

15:06

Lord Katz (Labour)

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Well, I, I congratulate the noble Lord for getting through that that question without mentioning the word, the phrase banter ban. I'm going to be. Absolutely. I'm going to be absolutely clear. Employers will not be penalised for failing to anticipate the unforeseeable or to take other impractical steps. Their employers can't and are not expected to police or control every action, author or third parties. It doesn't change. Article ten of the European Convention on Human Rights applies in terms of interfering with the right to freedom of expression.

And it's you know, it's really clear that we that it's about it's not about banning banter in a pub. It's about taking action against real hate, homophobia, racism, misogyny that whether it's other customers or whether it's other other workers, shouldn't, shouldn't have to face in this day and age. in this day and age.

15:07

Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Conservative)

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Does the noble Lords Minister accept that Downing Street should actually accept that the ILO convention applies to them as well, when it comes to meting out violence and harassment on Labour colleagues, whose only crime is that they think they could run the country better than the Prime country better than the Prime Minister. Yeah, yeah.

15:07

Lord Katz (Labour)

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In a word, I in a word to answer. To answer. Yes, of course it applies in all in all workplaces. But I think, I think I'm not going business.

15:07

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Labour)

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My Lords. other people across this House, this government's focus on reducing violence and in particular, the introduction of those new measures on non-disclosure agreements that silenced thousands and thousands, particularly of women who were facing harassment. And that's serious when you're at work trying to earn a living. So we should congratulate the government for listening. But on the duty to prevent harassment. Could my noble friend, the Minister also listen to concerns that at the moment, Health and Safety Executive workplace inspectors don't have a specific role to enforce that duty? If there are other ideas, I think people would be happy to listen to them.

But can he reassure us that there will be a comprehensive enforcement regime for that duty to prevent harassment? Yeah.

15:08

Lord Katz (Labour)

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Well, my noble friend is absolutely right to recognise the importance, the important step this government has taken to avoid NDAs when it comes to prevention of speaking out about harassment and discrimination. I'm very proud. I think all our benches at least are very proud of that landmark, that that landmark piece of legislation, the Employment Rights Act. In terms of enforcement, I've already said one of the other things the Employment Rights Act does is create the Fair Work Agency, which will be which will be relevant to in terms of workplace, workplace, workplace enforcement of all the new rights it creates at work.

Having said that, the health and Safety, Health and Safety at Work legislation still covers people at work in terms of work related violence and other risks from working activities, and there will certainly be still in place enforcing those aspects.

15:09

Lord Hunt of Wirral (Conservative)

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Please share with the noble Lord, the Minister, my concern that backlogs in employment tribunals have now reached record levels. The noble Lord, the Minister, referred to the Employment Rights Act, that statute and the related work reforms will generate on the government's own analysis, at least a 17% increase in claims before employment tribunals. So I ask the noble Lord, the Minister, will he give a clear assurance that those involved with claims of violence and harassment at work will not face delayed justice because of employment tribunal backlogs, and that the government will provide the additional judges, staff and resources required to meet that expected rise in claims.

Yes.

15:10

Lord Katz (Labour)

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To talking about backlogs and underfunding in our criminal justice system. In fact, our whole our whole justice system is a certain amount of chutzpah from the from the benches opposite who spent 14 years underfunding all aspects of our justice system to actually then say, isn't this going to be a problem? We are investing in our criminal justice system. We have legislation going through your Lordships' House to do to do just that. And I don't result from the criticism of the benches opposite in their failure to invest in our justice system.

Yeah.

15:11

Oral questions: Impact of uniformed youth groups on promoting skills and resilience in young people

Third Oral Question Baroness Morgan of Drefelin.

15:11

Baroness Twycross, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour)

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I beg leave to ask the question. >> OK. >> We recognise the excellent contribution and impact of uniformed youth organisations. The uniformed youth organisations. The government has directly funded their work since 2022. There is a range of existing research that shows the positive impact of uniformed youth organisations on young people and their lives. Ipsos independently evaluated the DCMS funded Uniformed Youth Fund from 2022 to 2025. The evaluation found evidence supporting the positive impact of Uniformed Youth Organisation membership on young people's wellbeing, social and emotional development skills and community connectedness.

15:12

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour)

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I thank my noble friend, the Minister for that. Fabulous reply. I couldn't agree with her more. We know that the uniformed youth groups will play a vital role in delivering the government's new youth strategy. Groups such as the Scouts, the Girl Guides, All Our Cadets, the Jewish Lads and Girls Brigade and of course the Girls and Boys Brigades do an amazing job. Will the Minister undertake to encourage her department to look again, perhaps at the funding arrangements, so that these groups can retain staff during the transition from the Uniformed Youth Fund, which is coming to an end in March, to the new funding arrangements that will come into place with the the new youth strategy.

So, yes, it's so great to have that contribution from these groups on the record here today. Thank you.

15:12

Baroness Twycross, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour)

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I'd like to pay tribute to all those supporting uniformed youth organisations, including my noble friend. Our new National Youth Strategy has been co-designed with young people. We are engaging further with young people and youth groups, including uniformed youth organisations, to ensure their perspective needs improvement outcomes are incorporated with regard to transitional funding and funding arrangements. I'll take my noble friend's point back to the department ahead of her meeting with Minister Peacock, which I understand is taking place early next month.

next month.

15:13

Lord Bailey of Paddington (Conservative)

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It's defeated the conservative benches. Can we make her mind up? And please. interest. As the chair of the Cadet Health Check Team, the value of the uniformed services to our young people throughout the country is beyond doubt, particularly in the poorest communities in the country. But the real challenge now is adult volunteers. The whole entire service is based on adult volunteers. So what work is the government doing to improve recruitment and retention of those very valuable volunteers?

15:14

Baroness Twycross, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour)

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Yeah. noble Lord on the points you raised around the value of the of the uniformed youth youth groups. I think that one of the things our new funding arrangements will do is actually to support the development of volunteers. I'm very happy to share some examples and to discuss that further with the noble Lord.

15:14

Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (Liberal Democrat)

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Lord Lib Dem. made.

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Your Lordships Chamber about the invaluable service that Uniform Youth services provide, particularly when it comes to life skills and experiences. But my question to the Minister would be how can government change policies how can government change policies to get more young people involved in these organisations that more young people benefit from, benefit young people benefit from, benefit from this, and actually stand a better chance when it comes to the

15:14

Baroness Twycross, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour)

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world of employment? Yeah, yeah. >> The new youth strategy, the National Youth Strategy has been developed by young people precisely to make sure that as a government, we're directing funding towards area areas that young people themselves have identified. I think one of the most difficult findings from some of the work in the run up to the launch of the National Youth Strategy, was around the isolation and loneliness faced by so many young people. And the strategy is a ten year plan to make sure that every young person across the country has somewhere to go, somewhere who cares for them, and a community they feel part of.

15:15

Lord Mountevans (Crossbench)

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My Lord, my Lord. Sea Cadets and president of the successful City of London Sea Cadets, the Minister very kindly discussed the new arrangements of DCMS, but the Strategic Defence Review just six seven months ago called for a 30% increase in activity in the offer of the cadet organisations. What additional funding, if any, can the Minister point to that is going to facilitate this growth? Yeah.

15:16

Baroness Twycross, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour)

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This is a ministry of defence funding. So my understanding is that the government plans to increase military cadet forces by 30% by 2030, and this is an investment of over £70 million of new funding, as set out in the Strategic Defence Review, which the noble Lord rightly points out was published last year.

15:16

Lord West of Spithead (Labour)

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My Lord Lord Lisvane. >> My Lord Lord Lisvane. >> Interest as president of the Bollington and Macclesfield Sea Bollington and Macclesfield Sea Cadets. So there is a northern aspect to me, as you can see. And I have to say, I have been amazed whenever involved with the Uniform Cadet Forces, how they actually have changed the lives of many of our young people. But my question for my noble friend, Minister is could she confirm that Sea cadets now will carry rifles when members of a guard, and that they will do range firing practices like the other cadet units?

15:17

Baroness Twycross, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour)

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So I have to say, I've got >> So I have to say, I've got absolutely no idea. I'm not I'm not going to sort of come up with a going to sort of come up with a fudge answer, but I will write to my noble friend to give him outline, to outline whether or not that is the case.

15:17

Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-affiliated)

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Foster. Foster. >> Foster. Foster. >> As a former brownie guide and

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As a former brownie guide and guide leader. I absolutely agree with all that has been said about the worth of belonging to uniformed organisations, particularly in relation to self esteem for our young people and the resilience that is built up there. I visited my local guide unit just two weeks ago during Parliament week, and I was very concerned to learn that a number of units have actually closed recently because of the lack of volunteers. Is there more that government can do to help with the lack of volunteers and working with the devolved administrations to help highlight that? Yes.

15:18

Baroness Twycross, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour)

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I think the noble Lady makes a really valuable point, as previous speakers have done, in relation to the really vital role of volunteers in this. You can't have these uniformed youth groups without the volunteers who who do this. I think that most of the funding that's outlined within the National Youth Strategy is around a focus on England. But what I will do is, is take back the noble Lady points, because obviously it is a national organisation and I'd like to thank her and everyone else in your Lordships House who've actually sort of contributed through volunteering for these groups.

15:18

Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour)

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My Lords, my Lords, I refer to

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my. Preparedness Commission in. 1908, scouting.

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For boys, and then in 1912, the companion edition for called How companion edition for called How Girls Can Help Build up the Empire. Was very explicit about the Was very explicit about the importance of being prepared, and that remains very much at the heart of the work that those two of the work that those two uniformed organisations are, and all the others that have been mentioned. But this isn't going to be increasingly important for the nation, given all the threats and hazards that we face.

So can my noble friend indicate whether or not that philosophy is both going to be supported in in terms of those organisations, but also other youth organisations and more generally within schools, to ensure that young people are equipped both with the personal resilience skills, but also with the skills that may be necessary to support the country in terms of the threats and hazards that we face.

15:19

Baroness Twycross, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour)

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I think Be Prepared could usefully be used as a motto for Ministers standing at the Dispatch Box your Lordships' House as well. I think that the there is clearly a role by cadet forces and other uniformed youth organisations in terms of that broader resilience piece. But I think that throughout a thread that goes through all our policies on youth is around that resilience that young people so desperately need, and all Lords from across your Lordships' House be aware of the crisis so many young people are feeling, and we want to make sure that they do feel equipped for the challenges they face ahead.

15:20

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative)

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The noble Lady, the Minister said in her initial answer. The last conservative government set up last conservative government set up the Uniformed Youth Fund to give young people these life changing skills and opportunities, and I was glad to hear about the evaluation she mentioned. It's sad, therefore, that the fund is is ending in March and in the transition to the new funding arrangements. Can she guarantee, as she said in response to her noble friend, that all of the organisations, including the Sea Cadets, Saint John Ambulance, the Guides and Scouts and others will continue to receive funding support so that young people can continue to have these life changing opportunities.

15:21

Baroness Twycross, The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour)

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Yeah, yeah. transitional funding back to the department. However, as the noble Lord be aware, the Uniformed Youth Fund was announced in the immediate aftermath of Covid and was intended to sort of allow the groups to set up additional units, and it was only ever intended to run until 2025. So the additional year has been while we've been setting up the programmes under the and the funds under the new National Youth Strategy, which we're proud to say we've co-produced with young people.

And that's why the focus has shifted to a different way of of rolling out funds.

15:22

Oral questions: Plans to regulate the development of superintelligent AI

Fourth Oral Question Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. Order Paper.

15:22

Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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AI superintelligence.

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Is a subject of ongoing debate regarding its definition and whether it is achievable. Advanced transformative AI presents both significant opportunities, such as improvements in health care and climate action and risks. The AI Security Institute helps government assess and identify potential assess and identify potential emerging risks as frontier AI evolves, which would include pathways towards any kind of superintelligence, the government superintelligence, the government will remain vigilant and prepare for new AI risks, including rapid advancements that could affect society and national security and AI, regulated by existing expert regulators, will be informed by the Institute's findings.

15:22

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour)

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My Lords, I'm grateful to my noble friend for that considered answer. Clearly, AI has great potential. The UK is third in the global league of AI investment, and I understand the government's response, which essentially is a nuanced approach to encourage both proper regulation but also investment. But, my Lords, superintelligent AI does undoubtedly present risks. She will know that the director general of MI5 has warned the potential future risks from non-human autonomous AI systems, which may evade human oversight and control, and the UK's AI Security Institute, which she mentioned, warned in a worst case scenario, this could lead to catastrophic, irreversible loss of control over advanced AI systems I lost.

The problem is that the companies developing superintelligence do not know the outcome, and there are no barriers at the moment to the development. Can I urge the government to actually take this really seriously and start talking to other countries about putting some safety controls in?

15:24

Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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Thank you. Yeah. mention the research of the AI Security Institute, and that is advice that the government listens to and takes very seriously. AI is a general purpose technology with a wide range of applications, which is why the UK believes that the vast majority of AI should be regulated at the point of use. My noble friend is also right. That collaboration with other countries is critical, and that is the approach that the UK is taking by, by, by, by engaging with many other countries and in of course, engaging through the AI Security Institute with developers.

So it has good insight into what is happening in development today.

15:24

Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)

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Lib-dems. >> Lib Dems. >> And Conservative benches.

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And Conservative benches. Thank you my Lords. I declare an interest as a consultant to do a interest as a consultant to do a paper on AI regulation and policy. In its manifesto, the government promised binding regulation for companies developing the most powerful AI models. Yet 18 months later, even in the light of the harmful activities of standalone AI bots, we've seen neither the promised consultation nor any draft legislation. My Lords, how can the government credibly claim to be taking superintelligence seriously when they can't even get round to publish a consultation, let alone legislating a.

15:25

Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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As I as I as I mentioned a little moment ago, most AI systems are regulated by our existing expert regulators and they are already acting. The ICO has released guidance on AI and data protection. The MHRA is is taking action to allow a sandbox for AI as a medical device product, and we are working with regulators to boost their capabilities as part of the AI Opportunities Action plan and where we need to take action. For example, as we have under the Online Safety Act, we will do so.

We do not speculate on legislation ahead of future parliamentary sessions, but we will keep the House updated. My noble Lords updated shouldn't when we bring forward a consultation ahead of any potential legislation?

15:26

Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Conservative)

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My Lord of. >> My Lord of. >> Lords, in 1982, the then government commissioned a government commissioned a philosopher, Dame Mary Warnock, to explore the moral and ethical frameworks around human embryology and fertilisation, long before many of the developments were really possible. I worry that the AI Security Institute is just trying to work out what they do, rather than what they should do. Would the government consider a similar commission to establish the ethical frameworks for superintelligence?

15:27

Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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The AI Security Institute looks at the science, and it also looks at the implications for AI. And I think it also collaborates with many other research institutes examining some of the questions with implications for our society as well as our economy. And I think that approach is bearing great fruit. And it, it, it it publishes this so that we can all take account of its findings.

15:27

Lord St John of Bletso (Crossbench)

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Can the noble Baroness, the Minister, elaborate on what economic and labour market risks are associated with superintelligent AI, as distinct from generative AI?

15:27

Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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I think, as I mentioned at the start, there is a lot of debate about the pathway that AI development will take and the pace at which it is developing, what the AI Security Institute has reported is a sharp rise in AI capabilities over the past 18 months, with continued growth almost certain, and it is looking at a number of the questions of the implications of this. For example, one of its research focuses is tracking the development of AI capabilities that would test the limits of human control, which is one of the most pertinent questions, I think, for anybody thinking about the implications of superintelligence.

15:28

Viscount Camrose (Conservative)

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Well. Build on the, I think, very important point raised.

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By the noble Lord, Lord hunt, given that AI research and development can effectively be development can effectively be conducted anywhere, regulation of the development of superintelligent the development of superintelligent AI is going to have to be global. So does the noble Lady. The Minister feel that the UK is Minister feel that the UK is genuinely taking full advantage of our considerable convening power in our considerable convening power in this space to drive forward the global AI safety agenda, and may there further be grounds for concern that our convening power may be diminished over time by the emerging political uncertainty that came to the fore over the weekend?

15:29

Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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Yeah. extremely successful relationships as evidence, for example, by the number of trade deals that we have secured in the last 18 months or so. These relationships with the EU, with the US and with many other countries are evident also in our discussions on AI with the countries I mentioned, with India, with France. In addition, the UK is the coordinator specifically on questions of coordination of the International Network for the advanced AI measurement, Evaluation and Science, which aims to shape and advance the science of AI evaluations globally.

So both in terms of our engagement at all levels and specifically on the technical level, we are well engaged because the noble Lord makes an extremely important point. This is an effort of global development, and it is important that we engage both with the developers globally and with the countries.

15:30

Lord Browne of Ladyton (Labour)

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My Lord, my Lord, my Lord, my Lords.

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My Lords, given the pace. I defer it.

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defer it. Lord Hanson I am. And always have been a faithful.

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And I. Take the regulation in the future. Confidently can. Be anticipated.

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anticipated. Is it not often the case that its absence in the presence can impede innovation rather than impede innovation rather than foster it, given that many of those responsible for the development of AI, and some the development of AI superintelligence repeatedly have requested tighter controls on their activities, my noble friend, the Minister assure your Lordships' House that the existing regulatory structures are adequate. And can she describe the mechanisms through which their salience and the strength are kept under constant review?

15:31

Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)

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My noble friend makes a very good point that our regulators need to be equipped, and they need to have the capabilities and the capacity and the expertise to regulate a fast advancing technology. We have put in place many actions and convening powers as part of the action plan to make sure our regulators have that capacity and capability through the AI Security Institute, we are making sure that they have the information they need in order to to regulate.

And and many departments are thinking about this in concert with their regulators to ensure that we are taking advantage of the opportunities and preparing for the risks that AI will

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undoubtedly bring. My Lords, that concludes oral questions for today.

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Moment for noble. Lords who wish to leave the chamber to do so now, As As we As we now come to some instruments previously debated in committee. United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (Exclusions from Market Access Principles: Glue Traps) Regulations 2025. The Lord Katz.

15:34

Business of the House

My Lords, I beg to move the

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motion. Standing in my name on the Order Paper. The question is that this motion be agreed to. As many as are of be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content the contrary not content. The contents have it Local Government (Exclusion of Non-commercial Considerations) (England) Order 2026. The Baroness

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(England) Order 2026. The Baroness Taylor of Stevenage. I beg to move the motion standing in my name on the Order

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Paper. The question is of this motion be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content the contrary, not content. The contents have it motion for debate. Holocaust Memorial Day Baroness Taylor of Stevenage.

15:34

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Labour)

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My Lords, it is with great respect and solemn reflection that I move the motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. My Lords, as I rise today, I do so with a heavy heart and a deep sense of responsibility. Before I introduce the debate, as noble Lords will be aware, gradually, as time moves on, we lose many of the first hand survivors of the Holocaust who were so engaged in education of our young people and the rest of us.

I would, with the permission of the house, just like to read the names of some of those who we've lost during this year. Eva Schloss MBE, who died on the 3rd of January 2026, a co-founder and honorary president of the Anne Frank trust UK and stepsister of Anne Frank, Manfred Goldberg RM, who died on the 6th of November, 2025. A Holocaust survivor and educator who died aged 95, Manfred's story is part of the Holocaust Education Trust Virtual Reality 360 Education programme.

Harry Ulmer, who died on the 15th of January, 2026, a Holocaust survivor and Holocaust educator. Vera Sheffield, M.B.E. who died in January 2026, aged 95, who came to the UK on the Kindertransport, shared her story up and down the country, including with our staff at the Department of Ministry, housing, Communities and Local Government. Eve Kugler, BEM Holocaust survivor who witnessed Kristallnacht and shared her story again, including with staff in my department, Suzanne Rapaport Ripton, who died in June 2025.

She was a founder member of the Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association, now Holocaust Centre North, and Ruth Posner, who died in September 2025. An extraordinary woman, Ruth survived the Red ghetto, slave labour and life in hiding under a false identity. By the end of the war, Ruth and her aunt were the only surviving members of her family. After a dazzling career in theatre and dance, Ruth decided to begin sharing her testimony as a response to rising levels of anti-Semitism in the UK.

My Lords, I'd like to thank all of those who share their testimony and who help us remember and who will continue to make their mark on our remembrance of Holocaust and its victims. Dear. Tomorrow's Holocaust Memorial Day is not only a date in the diary for me, it's a moment I return to each year with humility and resolve, a day that makes me reflect and pause on the stories I grew up hearing and the lessons my parents impressed upon me about the horrors of hatred.

Tomorrow we remember the 6 million Jewish men, women, and children murdered in the Holocaust and the Roma, Sinti, disabled people, Jehovah's Witnesses, gay men and political opponents who were also persecuted and killed. Each one had a name. Each had a story, each was loved. Behind every number was a human being whose life was cut short by hatred and a machinery of persecution that sought to erase entire communities. We also remember those who, against all the odds, survived.

Many, rebuilt their lives in the UK and dedicated themselves to sharing their testimony, ensuring that future generations understood both the horrors they endured and the hope that they managed to hold on to. Many of us in this room have been privileged to hear these survivors speak with honesty, courage and an often extraordinary generosity of spirit. My own family roots are in the East End of London, once home to a vibrant and close knit Jewish community. Even those of us whose families were not directly targeted felt the shockwaves as news of the camps emerged in homes.

Like my parents and grandparents, the stories of what happened were spoken about with a kind of hushed reverence and understanding that something beyond comprehension had taken place. They taught us that while we could never fully feel that depth of pain, we had an absolute duty to learn about it, remember it, and pass the lessons on. This year's Holocaust Memorial Day theme, Bridging Generations, feels especially poignant as we move into a time when survivors voices are fading. Many have now fallen silent, yet it is our responsibility to ensure their legacy does not fade with them.

Bridging generations is not an abstract concept. It is the quiet question from a child trying to understand why people were hated for who they were. It's the moment in a school assembly when a survivor's words changed the entire mood of the room. It is the recognition that truth, when spoken plainly, has the power to transform hearts. The Holocaust did not begin with camps and crematoria. It began with words with prejudice that became normalised, then embedded in policy, then allowed to flourish unchecked.

It moved from insult to exclusion, from exclusion to persecution, and from persecution to genocide. My Lord's memory is our safeguard. Forgetting is the first step towards repeating history. I feel a profound personal responsibility to ensure that these stories are never lost. That is why I'm proud that in 2024, the Prime Minister pledged that every student in the country should have the opportunity to hear recorded survivor testimony by enabling every young person to access first person accounts, we build resilience against distortion and denial.

The Holocaust Educational Trust Testimony 360 programme will allow students to virtually meet survivors and explore historical sites using virtual reality, long after survivors can no longer be with us, young people will be able to hear their voices, ask questions, and engage with history in a way that feels deeply personal and immediate. The Holocaust Testimony Portal, created by the Association of Jewish Refugees and supported by the government, is another vital initiative. The portal brings together thousands of interviews with survivors, refugees, rescuers, liberators providing user friendly access to decades of testimony.

Generations to come will be able to learn from those accounts. Initiatives like generation to generation ensure descendants of survivors continue sharing family histories, preserving the human threads that connect past and present. When I was a council leader, I set up a Holocaust memorial event in Stevenage. It was over 15 years ago, and I've been privileged to listen firsthand and to family and first hand testament at that event each year. A couple of years ago, I listened to Anita Peleg speak about her mother, the sculptor Naomi Blake.

I remember the hush in the room as Anita played a recording of her mother's own words. It was the kind of silence that falls when truth settles on the heart, heavy yet somehow illuminating. Naomi Blake, who survived Auschwitz and went on to create art filled with hope and renewal, embodied the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. Hearing her voice reminded me that testimony is not merely information. It is a gift, a gift of courage, of memory, and of humanity.

And listening to our Lord Lieutenant Robert Voss, whose parents escaped Nazi Germany, but who told when he came to our meeting, told us his account of his paternal grandparents murdered in the gas chambers of Sobibor in June 1942. That moment touched me deeply, and it strengthened my resolve to ensure these stories are never allowed to fade. Other projects, such as Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Journeys, a collaboration between the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, National Holocaust Centre and Museum and the Jewish Museum of Greece show how even everyday belongings can bear witness.

A pair of glasses, a letter, a suitcase. These objects speak when words feel short. They provide a tangible link to lives interrupted, and remind us of the profound human cost of anti-Semitism and hatred. Restoring names to victims is another sacred responsibility. Yad Vashem's project to identify the 6 million murdered Jews is a monumental effort, grounded in the belief that every person deserves to be remembered. A name is the most personal thing we have chosen, with love often carried through generations.

But the Nazis names became tools of persecution. For us, restoring them is an act of dignity, remembrance and defiance against those who sought to erase an entire people. Yet today, all too sadly, Holocaust denial and distortion persist. We still see anti-Semitic slogans and graffiti on our streets and trivialisation of the Holocaust in public discourse, online spaces, and even protests. Anti-Semitism is not new to Britain. We know that it stretches back to medieval times, and tragically, it has never disappeared.

The Community Security Trust recorded more than 1500 antisemitic incidents in just the first half of 2025. This rise demands a clear and courageous response. And can I pay tribute to the CST for all the work that they do in supporting our Jewish community? Education, my Lords, remains our strongest defence. Young people are bombarded daily with information, some unreliable, some deliberately misleading. We must ensure they have the tools to distinguish truth from manipulation and history from distortion. Teaching about the Holocaust is not simply about understanding the past.

It's about shaping a future where hatred cannot take root so easily. That's why I believe the National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre at the heart of our capital, beside Parliament, matters so deeply it will stand as a daily reminder to decision makers, visitors and future generations that this country takes its responsibility to remember seriously. There are differing views and it is right that Parliament has debated them so fully. But I feel the duty my parents and grandparents felt to ensure the lessons of the Holocaust are carried forward with honesty and with integrity.

We cannot change the history behind us, but we can shape the history ahead. And so I make this commitment. I will listen, I will learn, I will speak, and I will help those who come after us to do the same. My Lords, I look forward to the debate ahead of us this afternoon I move.

15:46

Lord Pickles (Conservative)

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Oh my Lord. >> This motion be agreed to. >> Lord Bassam draw attention to

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Lord Bassam draw attention to the fact that I'm the co-chairman of the UK Holocaust Memorial of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation. It's a great pleasure to follow the hon. Lady. I thought it was a wonderful way to start a speech to remind us of the survivors that we've lost this year. Many of them were were friends, people that we knew, people that we'd shared a joke with, shared a meal with, and worked together for Holocaust remembrance.

I, I mourn them all, but I particularly mourn. Did such a outstanding work. May I? All of their memories be a blessing? Whatever the circumstances, we have got ourselves a whole day's debate here, and I hope that the government will think long and hard next year and ensure that, if not the precise circumstances, how this debates occurred, that we get a whole day's debate. I agree with the sentiments of the hon. Lady. I agree with the speech and as someone once said, I even agreed with the punctuation.

Holocaust

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Memorial Day. Challenges to confront one of

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Challenges to confront one of the darkest chapters in human history. But remembrance requires history. But remembrance requires more than ritual. It's not enough simply to speak solemnly in simply to speak solemnly in Parliament, to stand in silence or to light a candle once a year. to light a candle once a year. Ceremony without action becomes ceremony without meaning. True remembrance demands leadership, moral, civic and institutional, and leadership willing to resist hatred in all its modern forms.

In 2025, Britain received a series of wake up calls that showed how fragile our complacency had become a violent attack on Jews in Manchester, the conviction of terrorists who planned the mass murder of Jewish people, the shocking murders of Bondi Beach, a pop star calling for the killing of Jews, broadcast on the nation's media, and the disturbing failure of West Midlands police who chose ideology of evidence in describing an anti-Semitic attack. Each incident triggered brief outrage, followed by national amnesia, shock, condemnation, forgetting and then the cycle begins again.

But the danger is not past. Britain, like much of the world, is sleepwalking into disaster. We hear the word genocide thrown around, casually stripped of its precise and grave legal meaning. This trivialisation obscures the real genocidal ideologies, including those openly embraced by Hamas, who whose intent is clear from both their words and their actions. Jew hatred has returned violently in Israel. Genteelly on British streets and through silence is its response to atrocities against Jews elsewhere.

The events of the 7th of October marked a turning point. The massacre that day was driven by a murderous ideology with deep historic roots. It reveals itself in acts of brutality that defy language murder, mutilation, rape, the kidnapping of children and the elderly. And yet, almost immediately, the world saw denial, distortion, and the inversion of victims and are predicated. Those are ancient patterns. And together with modern disinformation, they threaten not only Jewish communities, but the principles of liberal democracy.

That is why we must confront the reality of anti-Semitism today. Measurable, documented and rising. The data speaks with clarity. More than 1500 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the first half of 2025. As a noble Lady said, the second highest total ever for that period. More than 200 incidents every month, and they saw sharp spikes following high profile provocations, including the chants at Glastonbury, proving how cultural platforms can amplify extremism. University campuses show a slight reduction from the recorded highs of 2024, but a drop from crisis levels is not normal.

A campus where Jewish students hide their identity. Avoid events or face intimidation is not a safe campus, and it is not. It is and it is not does not respect academic freedoms. Antisemitism is not a metropolitan phenomenon. The numbers in Manchester have been described as sickening, but incidents occur in cities, towns and rural communities across the country. This is a national problem. Institutional responses remain inconsistent. Policing varies dramatically from place to place.

Public bodies hesitate. Cultural institutions falter under political pressures, and inconsistency creates space in which extremism grows. We can legislate against crime, but we can't legislate away hatred. The long term defence is education. Yet this is where new challenges have emerged. The number of schools marking Holocaust Memorial Day has fallen sharply from 2000. In 2023 to 1200 in 2024. And only 850 in 2025. Teachers express uncertainty about discussing modern conflicts.

Some refuse to mark Holocaust Memorial Day unless reframed. This is not just a moment to reflect. It's a warning. And it's a duty to deal warning. And it's a duty to deal with it. We see. We. We are at a crossroads at which we have to which we have to address this clearly. We need to ensure that we leadership is there because we cannot educate children about the Holocaust unless those children are prepared to be in classrooms.

We must ensure. That we recognise that this is something that is going to affect all of us. Now, I'd like to conclude by dealing with a question that we've grappled with. We've that we've grappled with. We've been worried about some. The nature of the Holocaust and whether it's going to be somehow it's going to be diluted by other subsequent holocausts. And we're worried that somehow we're going to do Holocaust lite. And I think the the debate that we had the other day was was clear.

That's not our intention, but we mustn't, I think, forget the Roma genocide. I think it was Danny Dan that reminded me most forcefully that the characteristics of the Holocaust applied almost exclusively as well to the Roma genocide. It showed that people were selected not on the basis of who they were or what they did or where they lived, but on the basis of the Nazis views on race. He reminded me that. Adolf Eichmann, in his trial in Israel in the 1960s, faced charges against him for the for the Roma genocide.

And I think it is I sincerely hope that the Roma will find themselves able to commemorate their genocide at the new national memorial. When it's built. I'm also pleased to announce that the sure foundation from the United States are in negotiations with the Foundation in order to ensure that we have and have become one of the main service of that institution's enormous records of Holocaust testimony, which will ensure that the United Kingdom can bring with it many of its methods of remembrance of the Holocaust.

To me. There are many photographs that bring the the Holocaust to mine, but for me, there are really two main photographs that always bring it back to me. The first one, I suspect, to be familiar to members right around the house. The first one is the young boy at the Warsaw Uprising that's been arrested. And you see this little boy with his hands in the air, surrendering to large German soldiers. I'm pleased to say that there's good evidence to say that young man survived.

The second is of a frightened young girl peering out of a cattle truck with a with a with a scarf. She's Roma, she's on the way to Auschwitz, and she will not survive. Those two young people show what we lost. They show the possibilities that we didn't have. We must confront. We must do more than light candles. We must ensure that our children and our grandchildren and those that survive in a multicultural Britain.

Remember the Holocaust. Remember what happens when government goes bad, and we will ensure that they

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remember their memory will always be kept. Sorry.

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Sorry. May I just add an article which appeared in the Financial Times?

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My Lords, I thank the noble Lady, the Minister, and the noble Lord Lord Pickles for their impressive speeches. And I very much agree speeches. And I very much agree with noble Lord Lord Pickles that we must do more than light candles.

15:59

Baroness Ludford (Liberal Democrat)

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I also look forward to the maiden speech of the Right Reverend Prelate, Bishop of Coventry. I want Prelate, Bishop of Coventry. I want to talk about the need based on the experience of the Holocaust. Not only, of course, for constant only, of course, for constant vigilance against anti-Semitism, but also for the perception and but also for the perception and courage to swim against a tide and stand up to the mob. That vigilance stand up to the mob. That vigilance and resolve must, of course, extend to all prejudice and hate based on race, religion, ethnicity or any other characteristic.

But there is something unique and specific about the 2000 year history of demonisation of Jews and the depths of anti-Semitism which led to the Shoah, which must not be overlooked or forgotten. How could we forget, in fact, that we are holding this debate? Not only two and a half years after the massacres of October the 7th, 2023, but shortly after the terrorist atrocities at Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester and in Sydney, the dishonourable conduct of West Midlands Police towards the Israeli football fans and numerous anti-Semitic incidents.

I attended this morning the event to mark this year's International Holocaust Memorial Day, hosted by the FCDO and the Embassy of Israel. And I'll come back to some of the words spoken at this event. But I fell to wondering how many of those attending marches and demos, supposedly in favour of Palestinians in Gaza, who chanted not only from the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free, which implies the destruction of the State of Israel, but also globalise the intifada, which implies worldwide violence against Jews, actually felt uneasy about one or both of those chants, but suppressed their doubts in order to be one of the in-crowd.

I have watched three films about the Holocaust within the last ten days. I belatedly caught Nuremberg at the cinema, and then both Schindler's List and The Zone of Interest have been on the television. But I watched them again in my speech on this day two years ago. I quoted Dov Forman, great grandson of Holocaust survivor, the late, great Lily Ebert, and I do so again. This dark chapter in history wasn't only about mass murder, it was a destruction of a rich Jewish culture, and civilisations had thrived for thousands of years.

To remember the Holocaust is to acknowledge both, both the Jewish lives and the Jewish life that was lost. But I noticed, to my surprise, that Schindler's List was not only broadcast pretty late, finishing at nearly 2 a.m. as it had to wait for the live snooker to finish. But both it and Nuremberg had a classification of 15 from the British Board of Film Classification. The justification for a minimum age of 15 for Nuremberg included that it contained quote images of real dead bodies, while for Schindler's List it was that quote based on a true story.

Younger viewers may find the films depictions of persecution and the Holocaust emotionally upsetting. Well, yes, that is the point of Holocaust education to teach people what happened in terms of dead bodies and physical and emotional horror, if they are not in consequence, upset, distressed, outraged, despairing at what inhuman persecution, murder and destruction people are capable of perpetrating against their fellow human beings, then the basis for action to stop indifference is not laid. I think at least all secondary age children should watch these films at school, as well as at home, as the basis for a discussion about the horror of the Holocaust and other genocides.

I was six years old when I watched a serial on the TV called The Silver Sword, 1958, about child refugees from the Nazis. This is a synopsis I found online on a cold night, cold, dark night in Warsaw in 1942. The children watch in horror as Nazi stormtroopers arrest their mother. Now they are alone with the war raging around them. Food and shelter are hard to come by. They live in constant fear. Finally, they get word that their father is alive.

He has made it to Switzerland. Edik and Ruth are determined to find him, though they know how dangerous the long trip from Warsaw will be. But they also know that if they don't make it, they never they may never see their parents again. I don't actually remember much of the plot, with only snapshots remaining imprinted on my memory. And unlike so many histories of the period, this fictional story had a happy ending. But notwithstanding that, what is persisted with me is the sense of fear and desperation, or, in the words of one online comment, just an image, an image of devastation and loss, and a knowledge that this was something powerful and important.

This is, of course, nothing compared to the ghastly memories of those who endured the Holocaust, or the real and terrible losses of those whose families perished in it. I think it's important that those deep feelings of fear, devastation and desperation continue to strike a chord with people of all kinds, both within and beyond the Jewish community. If the pledge of never again is to have any meaning. Hence the essential need for Holocaust education. And I am grieved and disappointed to hear that fewer schools are delivering that.

I have always believed that Nazism, fascism and the like, with the combination of obedience to authoritarian rule and callousness towards human suffering, is a virus which can be caught anywhere in any country. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney last week quoted in his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos from Vaclav Havel's 1978 essay The Power of the Power, The Power of the powerless, which is about how the communist system sustained itself. Prime Minister Carney quoted, and his answer began with a greengrocer.

Every morning this shopkeeper places a sign in his window workers of the world unite. He doesn't believe it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false. Havel called this living within a lie. The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true.

Rudolf HÃ¶ss, the commandant of Auschwitz, apparently saw himself as a cog in the wheel of the great extermination machine created by the Third Reich. American military psychologist Gustave Gilbert wrote of his discussions with Hirst during the Nuremberg Trials, at which he testified that, quote, in all of the discussions, Hirst is quite matter of fact an apathetic show, some belated interest in the enormity of his crime gives gives the impression that it never would have occurred to him if somebody hadn't asked him.

In a remark this morning at the Holocaust Memorial Day event at the Foreign Office, Meg Davis, A Young Holocaust, a Holocaust Educational Trust young ambassador, struck a similar, similar a similar note when she talked of how compliance is the enabler. To my mind, Holocaust education needs to encompass not only the terrible history of anti-Semitism and where it laid, but also the importance of an instinct and resolve against compliance and conformity. People who refuse to go with the flow, who have the guts to say this is not right, who are difficult and even objectionable to some minds, are essential grit in our pledge of never again, because the warning signs tend to come long before the atrocities.

The grandfather of the present noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, was the second Lord Russell of Liverpool. He was the Deputy Judge Advocate General to the British Army of the Rhine, one of the chief legal advisers during the war crimes trials in Nuremberg, and wrote a book, The Scourge of the swastika, on his experiences and with the kind agreement of the current noble Lord. I would like to quote some passages from that book. Firstly, the author noted that a few months before the outbreak of war, a quote menacing German Foreign Office circular must have clearly pointed out the course of future events to all but those who did not wish to see it.

The circular read. It is certainly no coincidence that the fateful year of 1938 has brought nearer the solution of the Jewish question, simultaneously with the realisation of the idea of Greater Germany, the advance made by Jewish influence and destructive Jewish Jewish spirit in politics, economy and culture paralysed the power and will of the German people to rise again. The healing of this sickness among the people was therefore certainly one of the most important requirements for exerting the force, which in the year 1938 resulted in the joining together of Greater Germany in defiance of the world.

So, you know, we we were warned. And the second Lord Russell of Liverpool thus observed, quite rightly, that the persecution of the Jews in the countries which the Nazis invaded and occupied between 1939 and 1945 was indeed on a stupendous scale. But it cannot have taken anyone by surprise who had followed the rise of the Nazis to power in 1933, or their party program. Point four of that program declared, only a member of the race can be a citizen.

A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood without consideration of creed. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of that race. So that was six years before the outbreak of the war. And these reflections strike a deep chord in me. After the period since October, the seventh intensified the fears about how an attitude explained as anti-Zionism and opposition to Israel. The blood libel of our times transformed so easily into raw anti-Semitism and the dehumanisation of Jews.

An interview in today's Telegraph with Professor Sir Simon Schama, notes that his TV programme about the Holocaust, The Road to Auschwitz, was rigorous in its examination of how the Nazis found willing accomplices in mass murder, while others looked away. The journalist notes how Marian Turski, one of the last survivors of Auschwitz, said Auschwitz did not fall from the sky. Evil comes step by step and Professor Sir Simon Schama says there has been a qualitative shift towards the sense that the Jews are kind of enemies among us.

I think there's been a shift from the fury about what Israel said to have done in Gaza, to essentially dehumanising Jews generally, and Holocaust survivor Mala Trebitsch told us this morning of her experience at Ravensbruck. We were stripped of our identifiers and totally dehumanised. Let's react this time before we know precisely how bad it can get.

16:11

Baroness Deech (Crossbench)

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My Lords, for some of us, every day is Holocaust Remembrance Day. day is Holocaust Remembrance Day. It's a pain we carry within our

16:11

Baroness Ludford (Liberal Democrat)

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bodies like a physical pain, and it would be alleviated if only my

16:11

Baroness Deech (Crossbench)

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parents had lived to see me in the House of Lords. And an event like today marking the grievous effect that the Holocaust had on them, and of course, their relatives and of course, their relatives and parents and wider family. We are grateful for national efforts to grateful for national efforts to commemorate the Holocaust, but we remain troubled by the way the story of our lost families and the destruction of much of Central European Jewish life is often presented.

I begin by paying tribute to the more than 1200 victims of the atrocities of 7th October, and to the more than 200 people who were taken hostage, the worst massacre of Jews since the Second World War. Those killings were carried out with genocidal intent. Hamas has pledged to repeat them if able, and its charter explicitly calls for the killing of Jews, not merely Israelis. As with the Holocaust, there are those who deny that the killings of October the 7th occurred, or who falsely attribute them to Israel.

That denial can be countered, amongst other sources, by the meticulous report on each victim authored by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Mayfair. I hope the national commemorations this week will include reference to the 7th of October. That's important because anti-Semitism is a continuum. It didn't begin in Germany in the 1930s, and it didn't end in 1945. It has existed for at least two millennia, and arguably longer. The Holocaust was not a historical aberration, but an eruption of a hatred that had long been embedded across societies.

Today, anti-Semitism again re-emerging using the Gaza war as a pretext. Those who blame Israel for rising anti-Semitism ignore the historical reality that mass killings, pogroms and expulsions occurred long before Israel existed and would persist even if it did not. So what should we truly be remembering? Condemning the Nazi regime alone is both too narrow and too superficial. Research by the University College London Centre for Holocaust Education shows that Holocaust education, while essential, does not reliably reduce anti-Semitism.

The UK has invested heavily in museums, memorials, archives, survivor testimony and learning centres. But these efforts have not demonstrably shifted attitudes. One reason is that Holocaust education often treats the subject as distant history. Students learn about it as a unique past atrocity with little connection to their own world. Antisemitism is framed as a Nazi phenomenon rather than a persistent, long standing prejudice that still operates today. This fosters the mistaken belief that the problem ended in 1945.

Students frequently come away believing that Hitler alone, or a small group of Nazi leaders was responsible. This obscures the widespread collaboration across Europe, from officials to ordinary citizens and the deep rooted anti-Semitism that existed for centuries in many countries. Many students also believe that German soldiers would have been executed had they refused to participate, reinforcing the false idea that ordinary people had no moral agency. But at the same time, young people increasingly encounter Holocaust misinformation and conspiracy theories on social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, often with more impact on them than their formal schooling.

Some are influenced by historically misleading fictional portrayals, such as The Boy in Striped Pyjamas. More historically grounded films such as The noble Lady, Lady Lord Offord referred to, such as survivor, The Commandant, shudder, and 1945 would provide far better educational value. Crucially, many students learn about the Holocaust without learning about anti-Semitism itself. They do not understand its history, its ideological roots, or the social and religious narratives that sustained it. They don't learn that anti-Semitism is rising sharply today, especially since the 7th of October.

Nor do they grasp how far right extremism, far left hostility and Islamist ideology. Perhaps I should have said theology increasingly intersects young people who march calling for Israel's elimination, who persecute Jewish students, or who call for violence against Zionists, have often already received Holocaust education. Yet they frequently refuse to distinguish between Israel and Jews. The fact that similar hostility is not directed at, for example, Chinese, Iranian or Russian students for their government's actions, exposes the underlying anti-Semitism.

The recent report on anti-Semitism by the noble Lord Lord Mann and Penny Mordaunt, to whom we should be grateful. That report also warns that some religious teaching in schools may perpetuate anti-Jewish beliefs. Initiatives such as the Winchester diocese work with Jewish communities to eliminate medieval stereotypes from religious education are welcome, and it would be encouraging to see similar programs expanded nationwide. It is fortunate for us today that the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Coventry, speaks in her maiden speech.

We look forward to her many contributions to come, but today's will be especially pertinent. Another flaw in Holocaust remembrance is that it has become overwhelmingly a narrative of Jewish death, rather than Jewish life. Jews have presented primarily as victims with little attention to the vibrant culture, traditions, faith and resilience that sustain Jewish communities for thousands of years up to today. Even more problematic is the failure to link Holocaust remembrance to contemporary anti-Semitism, if never again is to have meaning, students must be taught how antisemitic tropes persist today in activism, conspiracy theories and some religious or political discourse.

They must understand how the term Zionism is often used as a proxy for hostility towards Jews, as the late noble Lord Lord Sachs observed, anti-Semitism has evolved from religious prejudice to racial ideology to hostility towards the only Jewish state and the right of Jews to self-determination. This is politically uncomfortable, but it lies at the heart of the modern problem. Nevertheless, many Holocaust remembrance events avoid mentioning Israel or the 7th of October altogether. Some councils and politicians even avoid using the word Jew when discussing Holocaust victims.

This erasure weakens historical accuracy and undermines the credibility of remembrance. Another difficulty lies in the insistence by successive governments over many years that Holocaust remembrance must always be merged with other genocides. Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur were appalling tragedies and deserve their own memorialisation, but collapsing them all into a single narrative prevents meaningful understanding of why Jews were targeted, how anti-Semitism developed and how it persists. It also risks relativising genocide and enabling distorted claims, including those weaponised today against Jews themselves, as referred to by the noble Lord.

Lord Pickles students are supposed to learn lessons from Holocaust education learning lessons. It has become overly moralised and insufficiently historical. In an effort to put the education to use, students are taught general lessons about tolerance and being bystanders, but are not given the historical knowledge or intellectual tools needed to recognise and challenge anti-Semitism in its modern forms. As survivor Anita Lasker-wallfisch, the cellist of Auschwitz, observed when giving evidence to the Commons select committee, a new learning centre here would not achieve anything that has not already been learned in the 80 years since the Holocaust.

Lasker-wallfisch labelled the plan to build it next to parliament a completely idiotic idea and dangerous, she said a Jew, unlike a Rwandan is not safe anywhere now. What is needed is serious historical education and a clear understanding of antisemitism across time, young people and society more broadly should also learn about contemporary Jewish communities, their culture, their contributions and their place in national life. Jews should not be portrayed only as historical victims, but as active participants, which we are in civic, intellectual and cultural life.

This is why Holocaust education requires a fundamental overhaul. Teaching a narrow, Nazi centric narrative of historical murder has not succeeded in changing attitudes or countering modern antisemitism. That is also why plans for yet another Holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens, represent a missed opportunity. Its proposed learning centre appears to set in concrete literally. Many of the shortcomings already identified. It doesn't meaningfully address contemporary antisemitism, anti-Semitism, nor the central role of Israel in Jewish identity.

If it presents a primarily British perspective on the Holocaust, it risks appearing evasive. Britain itself has a complex history in relation to its Jewish community. The massacre of 1190, the expulsion of 1290, the slow and relatively recent restoration of full civil rights and restrictive refugee policies in the 1930s and 1940s, Britain's failure to admit large numbers of Jewish refugees, its restrictions on immigration to Mandatory Palestine, and its post-war treatment of displaced persons remain difficult. Chapters.

Even the Kindertransport and the Winton rescues were privately funded, not national, and the children admitted were separated from their parents because the children were more readily assimilable and were not a threat to job seekers. If only Israel had existed. In 1938, courtesy of Britain rather than 1948, how many thousands or millions of lives might have been saved? Against that backdrop, many in the Jewish community feel that contemporary antisemitism has been allowed to grow hate marches, biased policing, hostility on campuses, conspiracy theories, theories spread by doctors, lecturers, teachers and students, vandalism and open calls for violence are increasingly common.

Anti-Zionism has become a socially acceptable mask for antisemitism, even as Israel's role in Jewish safety and continuity becomes ever clearer. The Jewish community sees governments tolerating extremist rhetoric, hesitating to challenge hate preachers, imposing restrictions on Israel's self-defence, cutting itself off from security and defence exchanges, and giving credence to Hamas derived narratives. It is therefore unsurprising that some Jews feel sceptical about official declarations of never again about announcing yet another Holocaust memorial. While present day antisemitism goes insufficiently challenged, it looks like an attempt to deflect justified criticism.

We expect more than platitudes. Will the government call upon Christian and Muslim leaders to take responsibility for addressing religious teachings that perpetuate anti-Jewish ideas? Will it act decisively against extremist preaching? Will it commit to a serious reform of Holocaust education, one that drops vague moral messaging, treats the Holocaust as a uniquely Jewish genocide, and equip students to recognise anti-Semitism in all its historical and modern forms? The task of remembering has been accomplished with the recording of testimonies and the collection of data.

Many memorials and 21 learning centres already existing in the UK, including the National Holocaust Centre in Europe and the Imperial War Museum Galleries. But nobody has ever looked into what effect, if any, they have on those who visit and who does not visit. It is just assumed that they combat anti-Semitism. Finally, if Holocaust remembrance is to mean anything, it must affirm not only the memory of those murdered, but the legitimacy, dignity and security of Jewish life today, including the central role of the State of Israel as a symbol of Jewish continuity and self-determination.

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PQ. My neighbour. Lords, it's. My privilege to make my maiden

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My privilege to make my maiden speech in this debate on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, 1st May, I Holocaust Memorial Day, 1st May, I express my gratitude for the kindness that I have received from your Lordships on entering this your Lordships on entering this House, and especially for the support, patience and care of the

16:27

The Lord Bishop of Coventry (Bishops)

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staff across the departments. Since my appointment to Coventry, being of Jewish heritage myself, I cannot recall a time when I was not aware of the Holocaust, and I'm grateful that this was a part of our family history that was never kept from me, but held as a marker of an inhumane world, and from which I was charged to do all I could to make the world a better place. Since then, I've served in Yorkshire, Uganda, Surrey, Sussex, Durham and now Coventry.

I have a deep love of singing, especially the high notes and running unimpressively and a nice glass of Sauvignon coming to Christian faith through youth ministry. I think I'm now qualified to say, at the risk of cliche, that I am and have pretty much always been a faithful. My Lords, I would like to focus my contribution on the importance of educating our children and young people in their religious understanding of the world. As I was today, having been among the first cohort of children to journey through the GCSE curriculum with an outstanding religious studies teacher who support remarkably continues to this day, he ensured our introduction to Judaism, Christianity and Islam without prejudice or favour as teenagers.

From this firm foundation, I was privileged to have the opportunity to study Judaism as part of my first degree with a special interest in the literature generated by the Holocaust. I'm now honoured to serve the Diocese of Coventry, covering Warwickshire and part of the West Midlands, with Coventry City at its heart, a city that has always welcomed the refugee and the stranger, and which has benefited greatly from the rich culture, skills and contributions they have brought. Coventry knows that we cannot take for granted the understanding which builds relationships between communities, the tolerance which enriches communities through diversity, and the peace which overcomes.

We know that we have to act in order to make a difference. Coventry is a city of peace and reconciliation with a strong multicultural community and interfaith network supporting each other's festivals, celebrations and challenges. This has a long history, including the welcome of 50 Kindertransport children on the eve of the Holocaust, in the decades before and after, Coventry has continued to welcome those who have faced genocide and destruction from countries around the world. The Jewish community of Coventry was founded by immigrant watchmaking families, who produced the best watches in the world and contributed so much to the life and well-being of the city.

They had faced hardship, persecution, oppression and pogroms only then to face anti-Semitism in their adopted land. Whilst serving the city, the German born Jewish mayor Siegfried Bettmann, faced not only antisemitism but extreme xenophobic nationalist anti-German sentiment, forcing him to retire from office and public life as World War One approached. Despite his devotion to his adopted country. In this debate, My Lords, we recognise that the families of every member of the Jewish community are impacted for generations with the horrors and carry the burden of antisemitism today.

As noble Baroness Deech has rightly reminded us, as a bishop, whilst recognising the deep sensitivities of the present moment, I was proud to discover that there are Anglican clergy who are taking some responsibility for addressing this impact in their communities, rather than remaining silent. Tomorrow in the town of Bedworth, Nuneaton, renowned for its pride in holding the longest held Armistice Day event unbroken since 1921 and attracting up to 10,000 people, in which schoolchildren lined the streets.

This year All Saints Bedworth are holding a special event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day for the first time. Though many schools across the nation have chosen not to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, as the noble Lord has reminded us in recent years, recognising the deep sensitivities around the terrible and humane suffering of the people of Palestine. In Gaza, Reverend Dave Poultney has taken the decision to offer a space in his community to remember the Holocaust, to educate the children of the three schools in his parish, to lament, as the Psalms encourage us, but also to remember so that they are invited to build a world in which this will and can never happen again.

This is especially important, as Anne Noble, Baroness Taylor has reminded us, at a time when survivors of the Holocaust who can testify as eyewitnesses reach the end of their lives. And in a culture where truth is contested and must be defended, I wish to pay tribute to those among the Jewish community here in the UK and other parts of the world, who have faced dreadful persecution and attacks that can never be justified, and it is a source of sorrow to my soul that the anti-Semitism that caused such fear in our family continues, such that communities are having to be on constant alert, afraid for their children and for themselves.

This cannot be right. As this House will know, Coventry Cathedral has a worldwide Ministry of Peace and Reconciliation, founded on the very day after the destruction of the old cathedral in World War Two. These relationships continue and are deeply precious to us. Just last month, we stood side by side with the president of the Federal Republic of Germany, who laid a wreath for peace in the ruins of Coventry's old cathedral. Representatives of all walks of life, all ages and including the armed forces shared together in gathering to mark our mutual challenges in peace building and social cohesion.

To inspire a new generation to work together for peace in each of our countries. Every day at 12 noon, the Cathedral prays the Coventry Litany. This is used across the world by the Cross of Nails community that flows out of the cathedral, which stands to heal the wounds of history, live well with difference and celebrate diversity and work for communities of justice and peace. The litany begins. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and it goes on to pray for the hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class.

Inviting the response father, forgive. Interestingly, it does not say father, forgive them. For in 1940 the then Provost Dick Howard, recognised that the hatred that had caused the destruction of his cathedral church lay not simply out there among the perceived enemy, but within us all. It is of great concern that, despite all of the deeply significant efforts towards peacemaking and reconciliation, our times are more divided, not less. In these days, we know that the study of human behaviour, which led to the evil of the Holocaust, begins by using words, words that separate us through the language of othering, words intent on harming rather than healing.

My Lord's words are our currency in this House as they are in the wider world. Our words matter and we can use words towards hostility or towards peace. So may this House and His Majesty's Government stand for justice and kindness for all, so that every community of this nation may meet in understanding and respect, united by love of goodness, keeping far from violence and strife. May our children and the generations that follow be educated to live in peace, and may this nation find its honour and greatness in the work of peace, building and reconciliation today and for all our days to come.

16:36

Lord Shinkwin (Conservative)

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My Lords, it is a pleasure and a >> My Lords, it is a pleasure and a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate, and I congratulate her on her excellent and poignant maiden speech. As we've heard, she joins us with a wealth of pastoral experience, both in her current role as the 10th Bishop of Coventry since 2025 and in a variety of positions before that, ranging from Burgess Hill to Bradford, Guildford to Uganda.

As a severely disabled member of the House, I particularly welcome her interest in and commitment to supporting disabled people, including by running the London Marathon for Mencap in 2022. I cannot think of a better preparation for life in your Lordships' House, where I'm afraid she will find that glacial speed with which government, any government moves makes having plenty of stamina a prerequisite for getting anything done. She may find that she has an advantage, though, because as she will know the spirit to move far more quickly than us mere humans.

And that reminds me of someone who joined the movement for the ordination of women when I was at university in the early 90s, of a beautiful verse from chapter nine of the Book of Wisdom, with which she may well be familiar, it's addressed to God, and it goes like this. And I quote with you is wisdom. Who knows the works and was present when he made the world, and who understands what is pleasing in your sight and what is right according to your commandments.

Send her forth from the holy heavens and from the throne of your glory. Send her that she may be with me until. For she knows and understands all things, and she will guide me wisely in my actions. My Lords, quite apart from exposing the absurdity of viewing adults purely as a male, I cannot think of a more powerful affirmation of the multidimensional nature of dot embodying spiritually all that is beautiful in his creation of humanity, including shape.

As much as he. My Lords, I cannot promise the right reverend Prelate that your Lordships' House will always do as she advises. But

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we look forward to benefiting from her wisdom. Amen. Amen.

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My Lords, there's something else that strikes me as absurd. that strikes me as absurd. Something I find completely counter Something I find completely counter intuitive. It is our implicit construction as a society of a hierarchy of racism. Hitler could not have been clearer. His fanatical hatred of the Jews informed the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which classified Jews as, and I quote, enemies of the race based state that wretched hatred, in turn, informed the genocidal logic of the Shoah or Holocaust.

In other words, everything revolved around race. And yet here we are, 81 years old, from the Soviet Army's liberation of Auschwitz, still mouthing with sincerity the mantra of freedom but not ruling out the attack of a sense of October 2023, the banning of Tel Aviv fans, the attack on Hilton Park Synagogue, the Bondi Beach shooting, the prevention of Damien Egan in the other place from addressing pupils in a school in his own constituency, not calling his own constituency, not calling these out for what they are racist.

If Hitler knew what it was about and as my noble friend Lord Pickles reminds us, it was about race, why don't we, after all, within 20 years of the liberation of Auschwitz, your Lordships' House had passed the Race Relations Act 1965, and as no laws will know, that made the promotion of hatred on the grounds of race, colour, ethnic or national origins an offence. The toxic abuse and now murderous violence being visited on our Jewish communities such as in Manchester, clearly violates the act.

Unless we are saying that it applies only to skin colour, which would be factually incorrect. This is racism, pure and simple. So why does society seem to be pretending that it's not? What sort of message are we sending to our beloved Holocaust survivors, when instead. Holocaust survivors, when instead. Of fairy, of never again only see the beginnings of yet again? And what about impressionable young people who get most of their news? As we have heard earlier in the debate from social media, the theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is Bridging Generations.

Lord Oates. What sort of bridge are we building when we fail to call out racism and our police imply, as happened on Tamra? Well, it depends on the context, really. So it's OK to be racist if it's not about skin colour or it involves abusing Jewish people or Israel. My Lord, I fear we are in danger of legitimising racist prejudice by default. As the noble Baroness, the Minister said in her powerful opening remarks.

The Holocaust trust had its roots in prejudice that began with words. And Deborah Lipstadt tells us, anyone who thinks this only impacts Jews is ignoring reality. This is an attack on Western liberalism, democracy and international security and stability. My votes. We can be sure that even as we speak in this debate today, there are those who are determined that the answer to the question posed by the Daily Telegraph should Jews feel safe in Britain should be a resounding no.

These races must not be allowed to achieve their goal for the cost of surrendering to such a racist tweet is far greater than just the millions spent on policing. The demonstrations that are paralysed. Our capital city returned after intense my Lords. In conclusion, my childhood Jewish refugee surgeon hung us. Weisel fled for his life as a teenager from racism, a racism that would kill all the relatives who came to see him depart on the last train out of Prague before the Nazis closed the border.

Surely we owe it to him today to take stronger action to ensure racism in all its forms is to confront it with the full force of the law so

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that never again, never becomes yet again. Here.

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My Lords. It is an honour to follow. Lord

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It is an honour to follow. Lord Shinkwin and to have heard. The brilliant speech. From the. Right Reverend. Prelate. Bishop of.

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Bishop of. Coventry. And pleased. To welcome. Another sort of West Midlander, and also to have heard so many powerful speeches from all noble Lords, and I look forward to listening to the rest of the debate. And if I may be allowed to say, particularly to my fellow West Midlander Lord Austin, whose father was my inspirational head teacher at secondary school, my father, Jim Ramsey, was a soldier during the Second World War in a flail tank in the Westminster Dragoons, and he was part of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945.

Sadly, he died in 1990. But whilst I was growing up, he told me what he had seen there. He was deeply shocked and appalled and told us his children about it during the 1970s and 80s, as he wanted us to know and for us to then tell others what he had told us. Making a reality as my noble friend, the Lord Minister, the Minister was saying about the reality of the bridging generations

16:48

Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Labour)

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of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day. Survivors of the camps are dwindling to tiny numbers now, and dwindling to tiny numbers now, and their stories must live on through their families and through fantastic organisations such as the fantastic organisations such as the Holocaust Education Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, to which I pay tribute. I share my father's conviction in the importance of bearing witness by continuing to repeat those accounts continuing to repeat those accounts of the men and women who saw what had happened in the camps.

This is an extract kindly given to me by the Westminster Dragoons Association, taken from a report of the concentration camp at Belsen, Germany, by a fellow member of the regiment. To my father. And this is these are quotes. Now. Belsen is a small village 11 miles from Keller, which is in the province of Hanover, about a mile south of Belsen. There is a concentration camp. The conditions at Belsen camp were ghastly. Obviously it was used as a place where the prisoners could be exterminated slowly and with least trouble.

To the Reich. This extermination took place in the form of slow starvation. The rations were a bowl of Swede or turnip soup per person per day, and and a loaf of rye bread between 12 persons every week. Thus the bare minimum was given a minimum which would not allow anyone to die quickly of starvation, but which would make him or her gradually waste away into a living skeleton. When this happened, death either followed by typhus or mere collapse, it was reckoned that at least 400 persons had died every day.

When the camp was first entered by British troops, they were met by a sight which we in England would think impossible of a civilised nation such as Germany. All over the grounds of the camp lay the bodies of what had once been men and women. It was impossible to miss seeing bodies. Two over there, nine in front of the barbed wire, a large pile of 40 outside of one of the huts. It was hard to walk without stepping on them as they lay on the ground.

They were there because to begin with, the prisoners were too weak to move their comrades away to bury them. And secondly, because the SS guards were either too lazy to move them or because there were too many to move, and as they were buried, more died. In one part of the camp there was a large pit. It was 80ft deep, and in the bottom there was a mass of corpses half buried with earth. It said that the pit had been 20ft deeper, but that the last consignment of bodies had filled up that 20ft.

At this moment, Hungarian guards are digging another pit for those prisoners whom our doctors know will shortly die from typhus. Today is the 25th of April, 1945. The British have been at the camp for almost a week. They buried 1200 people yesterday and 1700 the day before. And there will be more to bury tomorrow. But things will gradually become better as the food we are giving them builds them up. It is quite probable that many of the people in England who read accounts of this concentration camp, despite the fact that there are photographs to prove it, will think that the whole thing is vastly exaggerated, and that it is just a move in the effort to foster the feeling of hate against the Germans, a feeling which, admittedly, the average Englishman does not like to show.

He believes in sport and fair play. And quote anyhow, how in the world could another country do such terrible things when we don't do them? Also, we haven't seen with our own eyes, so we don't believe, and it's better forgotten. Anyhow, the final line of this report, of which I've only read extracts from, and I apologise to members for how upsetting it is, but bearing in mind the words of the noble Lady Baroness Ludford, it seems appropriate to read it today.

So the final line written by that soldier is do you think it's better forgotten? I don't know who he was addressing those to, but I think that he agreed, obviously, with my father, that anxiety that the testimony of returning soldiers would either not be believed or not passed on to future generations was shared by my father, as well as the utter horror horror of what he had witnessed. How dismaying it was, therefore, to learn from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission's October 2020 report that the Labour Party had been dealing so inadequately with antisemitism under its previous leadership that complaints of individual members sharing Holocaust denial, for example, on social media, hadn't even been investigated.

Keir Starmer, when he became leader, was determined to root out antisemitism in the party. As part of this vital endeavour, I was asked to lead the work needed to address the recommendations made in the commission's damning report. Terrible that such work was necessary, but what a fitting opportunity for me to honour my father. The Ehrc had identified political interference in the handling of antisemitism complaints, so I had the task of developing an independent complaints system from scratch. I also established a proper process to engage with Jewish communal stakeholders, and oversaw the devising and delivery of a programme of antisemitism awareness training for use across the party for all staff and parliamentarians.

I worked closely with the Jewish labour movement led so effectively at that time by my now noble friends Lord Katz and Baroness Anderson of Stoke on Trent, as well as with Dame Louise Ellman, Rebecca Filer and Peter Mason and Adam Langleben, plus Danny Stone of the antisemitic Antisemitism Policy Trust. Adrian Cohen, then of the Jewish Leadership Council, Marie van der Zyl, then president of the British Board of Deputies, and her successor Phil Rosenberg. I also came to hugely respect Dave Rich and all those at the Community Security Trust, and obviously that is ongoing for the reasons that people, others, noble Lords have mentioned today about the current role of the Community Security Trust under Keira's leadership and with the support and challenge of all those wonderful people, the Labour Party succeeded in turning things around.

The Ehrc lifted their legal enforcement action against the party, and no longer did the chief rabbi find himself needing to intervene publicly in the general election, as he had done in 2019. But of course, anti-Semitism is still very much with us today, as we all saw last October with the horrific attack on worshippers at the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur. So the Holocaust Memorial Day retains its vital role in ensuring that we all remember, and more than this, that we all do whatever we can to tackle

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anti-Semitism wherever we see it. My Lord, can I begin by saying

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My Lord, can I begin by saying what a pleasure it is to follow the noble Lady Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath, and thank her for all the Heath, and thank her for all the work that she has done to combat anti-Semitism? Can I also thank Baroness Taylor of Stevenage for arranging this debate, and for arranging this debate, and for commemorating so kindly those that witness the events we speak of, but passed away this year? A third congratulations to the Right Reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Coventry, on her excellent maiden speech, and I'd like to thank her for her recognition of the multi-generational trauma experienced by those of us of Jewish heritage.

A very significant thing, in my view. My Lords Memorialising the Holocaust has

16:56

Lord Massey of Hampstead (Conservative)

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never been more important. We know that this grotesque event was based that this grotesque event was based on an ancient hatred. And yet the events since October 7th have produced a level of anti-Semitism produced a level of anti-Semitism that few of us could really have imagined in this country. Jews in imagined in this country. Jews in the UK, as have been mentioned by Baroness Ludford and Lord Shinkwin, can no longer attend school or can no longer attend school or synagogue without security protection.

Israeli football fans have been banned from watching their team play. Members of the upper house have been stopped from attending schools in their constituencies, and there has been deadly antisemitic terrorist attacks on our streets. The open statements about killing Jews and the demonisation and vilification of Israel have been normalised to a rather terrifying extent. I'd like to focus my brief remarks on the term genocide, which was the basis of the Holocaust and is now a term, as Lord Pickles mentioned, which has been deliberately weaponised in some quarters in order to inflame a new version of hatred against Jews and Israel.

For Jews to be falsely accused of this crime has been one of the most painful aspects of this war of words. Let's look at the origins of the term genocide. It was invented by the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin during World War Two, and entered public discourse for the first time when it was included in the indictments against the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg. And what is genocide? Lemkin's definition was that it is the extermination of racial and religious groups in order to destroy particular races and classes of people.

The Genocide Convention of 1948 defines a term more broadly, but the key is the intent to destroy a racial or religious group. As we know, the Nazis devised their Final Solution in 1942, in a state sponsored, institutionalised program to exterminate the entire Jewish population of occupied Europe, which totalled 9 million people at that time, they managed to kill 6 million of them. Now, let's contrast this with the alleged genocide in Gaza, which was a war of self-defence.

Israel's sovereign right following the atrocity of October 7th and the kidnapping of 251 hostages, the worst pogrom since World War two, as mentioned by the noble Lady Baroness Deech. Whether you agree or disagree with Israel's conduct of the war, there was never an intent to exterminate or eliminate any group or race. Israel's war is against a terrorist group pledged to destroy it. It has nothing to do with the idea of genocide. Furthermore, Hamas bears responsibility for casualties in Gaza by refusing to release hostages and embedding themselves and their weaponry within the civilian infrastructure.

So it is vital that the Holocaust is remembered for its unique evil. The public need to be reminded of what constitutes a genocide. Understanding the term might prevent its misuse for political ends. We are in dangerous waters now in terms of Holocaust denial and distortion, as opponents of Israel seek to undermine the unprecedented character of this event with false equivalence. And this must begin in schools as we lose living witnesses to this darkest history, we cannot afford a growing vacuum of knowledge in schools about the Holocaust, or worse still, for it to be replaced with an ideology that questions it.

So I urge the noble Lady, the Minister, to devote even more resource to ensure that the public understand the Holocaust, what constitutes a genocide, and how fragile societies can become in the face of anti-Semitism and racism. By doing so, we can make sure it

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never happens again. Good speech. My Lords. It's a great pleasure to follow that brilliant speech by the noble Lord Massey. And I want to start by saying it was a to start by saying it was a privilege to listen to the, the, the, the maiden speech by the right the, the maiden speech by the right reverend Prelate, the the Bishop of Coventry. I thought that was a fantastic speech. And I want to I

17:00

Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated)

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fantastic speech. And I want to I want to say this. In March 1939, a ten year old Jewish boy in a town called Ostrava in what was then Czechoslovakia, was woken up in the middle of the night and he got out of bed and looked out of the window, and he saw the German troops marching into the town square. It was the day that Hitler had had invaded, and a few days later he was put on a train by his mum and teenage sisters.

It was the last time he'd see them because they were eventually rounded up, sent first to a ghetto, then to staff, before being murdered in Treblinka in October 1942. But he came to the UK. He was able only to speak three words of English, which were hot, cross and bun, but he grew up to become the youngest grammar school head teacher in in the country, educated tens of thousands of people, including my friend, the noble Lady Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath.

But much more importantly, from my point of view, he brought up. He brought up four kids of whom I'm the second. And in later life he worked with black and Asian communities in Dudley to establish the Racial Equality Council. He raised funds for the Holocaust Educational Trust. He spoke at their events. I want to start by paying tribute to them and their work. We've heard in this debate references to statistics about Holocaust education. They're worrying figures, that's true. But how to engage with schools all year round? They report that.

They report that across their programs, they're working with hundreds more schools than in 2023, before the barbaric attacks on Israel by Hamas, and that this will increase still further with their new testimony. 360 program. I went last week to listen, as did a number of members of your Lordships House present here this evening to listen to the brilliant historian Simon Sebag Montefiore deliver an absolutely riveting lecture at their annual parliamentary event. And he said that teaching about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism is more vital than ever.

As the last witnesses are passing away. Whilst Holocaust denial, distortion, inversion and what I would call perversion. Now joined by Eliminationist anti-Semitism have made an alarming comeback. And those are the points that I'm going to focus on today. But first, I want to pay tribute, as others have done to the survivors who have died this year, in particular Manfred Goldberg, Eve Kugler, with whom I travelled to Poland for March of the living in 2018 along with the noble Lord Pickles and got to know well subsequently and indeed, of course, the noble Lord Shinkwin, who was with us, present with us on that same trip and, and and and Harry Almer, who died last week.

Members. Many members of your Lordships' House will have known Manfred Goldberg. I thought he was a great man, a real hero. Survived the death camps, came to the UK after the war, married Shari, brought up three three sons, made a huge contribution to our country in so many ways, and he was absolutely appalled by the increasing anti-Semitism that we've seen since Israel was attacked on October the 7th. I want to pay tribute to the Community Security Trust for the brilliant work that they do.

LED by Sir Gerald Ronson and Mark Gardiner, we saw how important their work is on Yom Kippur last year, when two Jewish men, Adrian Dalby and Melvyn Kravitz, were killed when an Islamist extremist terrorist attacked Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester. Now, this wasn't a random attack on a shopping centre or on the street. Jewish people were attacked at a synagogue because they're Jews. Murderous, brutal racism. Then we saw a court case in which the Islamist extremists were convicted of planning to murder Jewish people at schools, businesses, synagogues and even a march against racism in what the police said would have been the deadliest terror attack in UK history.

Now, my Lords, these attacks, they don't happen in isolation. A recent YouGov survey suggests more than 1 in 5 British people now hold entrenched antisemitic views, twice the level that it was four years ago. The research shows that antisemitic incidents are running at record levels. Home office statistics show that Jewish people are ten times more likely to be the victims of religious hate crime than any other group. On October the 7th, at the same time as terrorists were murdering and kidnapping civilians and committing the greatest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust, people here in the UK celebrated on the streets of Britain.

Weekly marches then made central London and other city centres no go areas for Jewish people. I went to watch some of these marches. You don't see any banners calling for peace, for hostages to be released for a two state solution. But there were plenty comparing Israel. This is a distortion. Simon Simon Sebag Montefiore was talking about. There were plenty comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, its leaders to Hitler, Gaza to the Holocaust. They say the victims have become the oppressors. The Jews are doing what the Nazis did.

Even before the conflict, Gaza was called a new Warsaw ghetto. My Lords, what could be more offensive? What could be more offensive than routinely accusing a country built by Holocaust survivors, the only democracy and equal free society in the whole of the Middle East of genocide, crimes against humanity, or committing another holocaust? These disgusting comparisons are designed to demonise and delegitimize Israel, to undermine the very reason for its existence, which is a safe haven for the Jewish people. Protesters demand Palestine stretch from the river to the sea, which would mean the destruction of Israel and the murder of its citizens.

They chant for Israel's destruction, for death to the IDF, even on the stage at Glastonbury broadcast by the BBC, or to globalise the intifada last month, unbelievably Extremist in Birmingham paraded behind a banner saying one solution intifada, revolution and the Hamas symbol, the symbol of a proscribed banned terrorist group. Yet the police did nothing about this. The intifadas were terrorist terror attacks through suicide bombings, ramming people with cars and attacking them with knives. Exactly what happened in Manchester.

It's good that the the met and the Greater Manchester Police have finally said they'll stop prosecuting people who make these statements, but this has been happening since October the 7th and I think we need assurances that other forces will be required to do the same, and that people who do this will be prosecuted with the same speed and determination of those who incite other forms of racism, as we saw, for example, after the Southport attack, what have we seen over the last few years? Jewish kids attacked on the way to school, students targeted at university Jewish patients hidden their identity when going to hospital.

Synagogues smeared with faeces, homes daubed with swastikas, businesses attacked just because their owners are Jewish. As the chief rabbi said, this is a tidal wave of Jew hatred. In Bristol, a Jewish MP banned from visiting a school in his constituency. It turned out, extraordinarily that the inclusion and diversity coordinator of the trust running the school had praised Hamas's October 7th massacre as, quote, heroes fighting for justice in Birmingham, Jewish people banned by the police from going to a football match.

Here in London, a mob gathers each week to scream abuse at the staff and customers of a restaurant owned by Jewish people. Now, of course, people have the right to protest in a democracy, but not to harass Jewish people outside restaurants or synagogues. These people should be arrested and prosecuted. These incidents should be dealt with much more seriously in the future. Now, my Lords, what is the context in which all this is taking place? Well, first, Parliament debates Israel more than any other issue, not just more than any other international issue, more than any other issue.

During the conflict, Parliament debated Israel and Gaza three times more than the NHS. Crime, poverty or immigration. How can it be that MPs spend more time on a conflict thousands of miles away, which many of them know? If we're honest, I'm not pretending to be an expert on this, but many of them, I think, know probably not very much about it and can do even less, even less to to to to, to solve it than the schools or the hospitals in their constituencies that they're responsible for.

In Sudan, famine has killed 500,000 children, 10 million people starving, tens of thousands of civilians murdered in just a few days. The UN is the UK is the UN Security Council penholder. And yet we hardly ever discuss it. Two weeks ago, on the very first day back after the new year, there was a statement which was supposed to be on the Middle East and North Africa, but MPs, many of them, queued up to speak only about Israel and Gaza.

MP falsely accused Israel of the worst crimes possible. But the government concluded that Israel is not committing a genocide. So so I so I would like to hear Ministers start to push back when when backbench MPs or or others claim, claim that it is we see, I think, the same obsession, bias and inaccuracies in in in at the BBC two, for example, when the government concluded that Israel was not committing a genocide, the BBC pretty much buried the news when the UN said it might be.

It dominated every bulletin for days. The IHRA definition of antisemitism, the official definition that the government subscribes to, says that demonising Israel, singling out for criticism, holding it to standards never applied to other countries, which is clearly what is happening. It says that these are examples of anti-Semitism and all this matters, I think, because the obsessive demonisation of the world's only Jewish state obviously drives hostility towards people who are identified with it, which is the vast majority of Jewish people. And this is what this is a large part, I think, of what drives antisemitism in the UK now.

I think I think people can't really promise to oppose anti-Semitism, but then support boycotts, sanctions or embargoes that would prevent Israel from from defending its Jewish citizens. People say that there is no place for anti-Semitism, but I think this has become meaningless when it is running at record levels, when Parliament and the BBC are fuelling it, and when the authorities are not doing nearly enough to to deal with it. Now I think we need to do to be much more robust in standing up for our values.

I think that. Look, the world is migration is now a permanent feature of global life. In just four years, 3.5 million people came to live in Britain. Some will have come from places where antisemitism is more common than in the UK. The Holocaust is rarely taught, not understood, or by many probably not even believed. So I think it is crucial that Holocaust education is increased and expanded and improved. I think we have to be clear. We have to say that if people hate Jews or think Israel should not be allowed to exist, they should be prevented from coming to Britain or staying here to live.

I think the government and the police must clamp down much harder on extremist preachers. Making. Hate speeches in mosques. I think that NHS staff or university lecturers responsible for for racism should be sacked. I don't think that hate marches can be allowed any longer to take over our streets every week. I think the government should change the law to kerb them if necessary. No more empty promises or meaningless platitudes, taking anti-Semitism much more seriously and dealing with it much more robustly is not just a matter of standing up for the Jewish community.

Vital though that is, it is fundamentally about what it means to be British. I think living in the UK means believing in democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance. I think that's what our country stands for. I think heroes like Baroness Ramsay's late father, I think that's exactly what he and his comrades in the war were fighting for. I think those values define what it means to be British. And this is the final point that I want to make. Of course, Holocaust Memorial Day is an opportunity to learn about history's greatest crimes and pay our respects to its victims, like my dad's mom and sisters, of course, but expressing our sympathy for people murdered 80 years ago is not enough.

Holocaust Memorial Day is the opportunity to dedicate ourselves, especially those of us, in positions of leadership and responsibility, not to stand silently by or to mouth empty promises or meaningless platitudes, but to do all we can to fight hatred and prejudice and stand up for the victims of racism today again.

17:14

Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Conservative)

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My Lords, it is a privilege, somewhat daunting privilege, to follow the noble Lord Austin in follow the noble Lord Austin in another passionate and erudite speech that he's just given. I too, speech that he's just given. I too, would like to congratulate the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Coventry, on an outstanding maiden speech. It's clear the huge impact she's going to have and bring to to this House. And I'd like to thank the noble Lady, the Minister for, for leading this debate so candidly and emotionally.

I should declare my interest as a member of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation. I didn't get a chance to say this last week in ping pong on the Holocaust Memorial Bill, but I would really like to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord pickles for the huge amount of work that he is putting into the Holocaust Memorial. Yes, he and his co-chair, Ed Balls, are extraordinary to watch at work together, and we are incredibly grateful for the work that you do, my friend.

It is an honour to speak in this debate after such emotional, personal, erudite speeches. My Lords, I always feel a real fraud when I talk about the Holocaust. I am a fraud because I am not Jewish. I did not come to Holocaust education and commemoration because of family and community links. My journey to this debate was far more prosaic. In 2015, the then Prime Minister David Cameron asked me to serve on the Holocaust Memorial Foundation to bring my digital experience to the project's objectives, not to only be a physical memorial and learning centre, but to bring the content and the experience to everyone in the country.

On the premise that when your Prime Minister asks you to serve, you should say yes, I did, without really understanding what I was committing to at all. And so my personal Holocaust education journey began. I didn't learn about the Holocaust at school. I went to a Catholic convent whose religious education consisted of rote learning. The Bible. I'm afraid there was no Holocaust Memorial Day when I was growing up, so I only really began to learn the true horror of the murder of over 6 million men, women and and children, Jewish men, women and children, I should say, through my involvement in the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, I too had the privilege of my life of meeting Manfred Goldberg, and I would say, watching and experiencing his testimony on testimony 360.

If you haven't had a chance to experience it yet, my Lords, I would really recommend it because he's there on in front of you as if he was in front of you physically. And we are so lucky that Manfred and the other survivors were so brave to give their testimony. My journey has involved visiting various museums and learning centres around the world, but it is also involved deep personal introspection. I firstly needed to learn the facts. As the noble Lady Baroness Deech has pointed out, it's hugely important that we understand the overall historical context.

We need to feel empathy for the heartbreak that this most atrocious of human acts has brought. But as many have said this afternoon, I know I cannot possibly fully comprehend what that multi-generational trauma must feel like. I know enough to know I simply do not know. And then, my Lords, my learning journey has taken me to looking inwards and asking myself some very uncomfortable questions. Questions that others have alluded to this afternoon. Would I have turned a blind eye as antisemitism? Set, set, set in again in Germany in the 20s and 30s? Would I have just put up the equivalent of the green grocers greengrocers? Notice, as Vaclav Havel sets out, would I have opted for a quiet life? Or worse still, would I have joined in? And sadly, my Lords, that learning journey continues.

Because today, as we bridge the generations, as Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow asks us to think about. I don't think that you can ask those questions in the hypothetical, I'm afraid. I think we have to ask those questions in the present tense. So for me, Holocaust Memorial Day and Holocaust education in the round forced me to ask myself, am I turning a blind eye? As the noble Lord Austin has just really challenged us? Am I standing up for my Jewish friends as they question whether the UK is safe for them to live in today? Am I going with the populist flow, or am I fighting anti-Semitism as only a small minority of people did in the run up to the Second World War in Germany? Holocaust Memorial Day calls on all of us, never to forget.

But as many have said today, that is only the beginning of the journey of learning to truly bridge the generations to learn from and not repeat the Holocaust. We have to learn to act, not just learn. I do fear, as many have said, that we're living in a time when people are scared. The world order is shifting. Mark Carney encapsulated it completely brilliantly. Last week. I felt he set out so eloquently how the rules based world order that I have been lucky enough to grow up in is is shattering.

People across the world are scared, they're angry, and they're looking for easy solutions. History teaches us that that is very fertile ground for anti-Semitism. So, my Lords, my involvement in the Holocaust Memorial Foundation has taught me, as others have said, you win and lose this battle day in and day out. It requires all of us in whatever role we play, in public and in private, to recognise how easy it is for populist rhetoric to turn into anti-Semitic actions and to prevent history repeating itself yet again.

We all need to stand up and be counted today, tomorrow, on Holocaust Memorial Day. And I'm afraid, my Lords, every day.

17:21

Hold on. Very good. >> Hold on. Very good. >> Very honoured to follow that excellent speech. And may I take a excellent speech. And may I take a chance to acknowledge the very brilliant maiden speech that we heard earlier as well? I'm intending to speak quite briefly on a subject, because the subject has been very fully covered already, and I'm sure nobody will mind that I, first of all, should declare an interest. I'm a member of the APPG for British Jews, although I'm not Jewish, but I believe that it's really important for all British citizens to show their support for each other in the face of anti-Semitism.

This needs to be offered with humility and a sense of how little. Certainly for me, how little I know I haven't experienced the emotions that the that my Jewish friends have experienced or the loss that they've experienced. I've read about the Holocaust. I understand it to that extent, but I don't have the deep empathy that so many of you in this room have. But what I do have is a feeling of absolute fury when I think about children not being able to go to their schools or going in, concealing their identity, or having schools having to be looking, looking like fortified camps because of fear that something may happen to the children or they may be attacked, or indeed Jewish friends I know who are beginning to have discussions about whether this is much of a country to live in anymore, whether it's a safe country for Jewish people to live in.

I was absolutely horrified to hear some of these discussions, but this is where it seems to be going. Our country, my country and our country is surely much better than this. And our Jewish people, our Jewish fellow citizens who have contributed so much to this country and who continue to do so, are entitled to expect much better of the whole country and expect our vigorous, really vigorous and committed

17:23

Lord Morse (Crossbench)

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support. Religious hate crime, I'm afraid, is growing significantly. afraid, is growing significantly. We might try and believe otherwise, but it's not true. It's not just but it's not true. It's not just directed at Jewish people. There are significant numbers of hate crimes directed at Muslim community crimes directed at Muslim community as well, and it's important to remember that. But when you come remember that. But when you come down to the intensity of number of hate crimes per 10,000 of people, the Jewish, the Jewish population suffers at 3 or 4 times more than the Muslim community does.

So although others do suffer from hate crimes. It's the Jewish community that is the most heavily struck when H.M. government takes a clear stance against hate crime and anti anti-Semitism, we have to acknowledge that they do, but equally well, we have to say that it's not working very well. Anti-Semitism is advancing and our Jewish fellow citizens don't feel feel that they're subject to a pervasive threat or that their life in many cases is being made miserable as a result of these threats and anti-Semitism notwithstanding what HMD government is already doing, I believe it could and should go much further than start by setting hard, measurable targets to reduce and stamp out hate crime by specific target dates, and be willing to be held to account against them.

What makes what gets measured, gets done is my experience in life. Even in this very serious matter. I think we need to be tough with ourselves. Not sanctimonious, but tough about what can be done. The last the best tribute we can offer, in my mind, to the to the horrors of the Holocaust, is to act vigorously now, to fight against anti-Semitism and to keep on fighting until we win.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Lord Bassam I was born a Jew and I'm proud to be a Jew, albeit a I'm proud to be a Jew, albeit a non-practicing one. It's been an amazing debate and I want to pay tribute. I didn't think I'd be tribute. I didn't think I'd be paying tribute to a right reverend Prelate Jewish won an amazing Prelate Jewish won an amazing speech and there has been some amazing speeches during this debate. amazing speeches during this debate. I want to give some experience of my life.

We we were we were Dutch Jews on one side of our our family. My father changed the name because he wanted to sell more insurance, and he was good at that. So I suppose that was a good move. Where we lived in the East End was I never experienced any any anti anti-Semitism. It was it was a mixed street, mainly mainly Jews. Synagogue was around the corner. Rabbi was around the other side. It was we had a I think a good, a good upbringing.

I when I was 15 years old, I was a precocious reader and I came across a book. I came across a book.

17:27

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

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His name is actually on the list. So if he would actually keep his

**** Possible New Speaker ****

remarks to a short, your name's not on the list to speak. Sorry, I.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Sorry, I. Your name is not on the list to speak, but if you would like to keep your remarks short, that would

**** Possible New Speaker ****

be OK. I will endeavour to keep my

**** Possible New Speaker ****

I will endeavour to keep my remarks. Sure. I didn't realise I had to put my name down anyway when had to put my name down anyway when I. When I was 15 years old, I, I, I came across a book, The Scourge of the swastika, which ironically was written by, I think, the Lord Russell of Liverpool grandfather. And that taught me a lot about what goes on, bearing in mind the the strictures I've got that I've got to keep my remarks limited, I will do, I don't I think that this is a really important debate.

I think the people who've made the contributions about us needing to do more to ensure that anti-Semitism remains something that we fight against, and I'll

**** Possible New Speaker ****

leave it at that. Thank you. My Lord. It's a pleasure. To follow the.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

To follow the. The noble Lord. And I wish to to welcome the Bishop of Coventry. I did take the opportunity to visit Coventry Cathedral, both the old original one and the new one. I do believe you'll make a fantastic contribution to the Lordships House, and also to Baroness Taylor to Stevenage, as many noble Lords have already said. That was an excellent introduction to this debate. I Baroness Ludford the noble Lady mentioned a couple of films, and she made a very valid point about the certification of those films.

Schindler's List and Nuremberg. Nuremberg film is worth going to see, my Lords, not least to see Britain's attorney General Sir Harvey Shawcross skewering Goering in the despatch box so I can recommend one film for Lordships to see. That really gives an indication of what actually happened in the Holocaust. It's called The Grey Zone in 2001, and it tells the story of the 12th Soda Commando October Uprising in 1944, in Auschwitz. And that is certificated 18 because that Lord Dubs a little bit more graphic.

There is a large Jewish community in Manchester, and as you probably tell from my accent, my family come

17:29

Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative)

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from Manchester, I come from a council estate just south of Manchester, and I remember growing Manchester, and I remember growing up in the 1970s, we had a lot of veterans from the Second World War veterans from the Second World War and the First World War, and I particularly remember my my mother, particularly remember my my mother, who remembers the Manchester Blitz and hiding away in the garden in very dark Anderson shelters, remembers the the sound of German engines, Daimler-Benz engines, as they went over to to bomb Manchester and the Manchester docks.

But she she also told me about the propaganda that the Germans used to send out Germany, calling Germany, calling Lord Haw-haw. The Germans knew where the Jewish community were in Manchester. And for those of you who don't know, Manchester, just on the on the suburbs both in north Manchester and south Manchester place called Didsbury, there is a large Jewish community and indeed a synagogue. You could call it South Manchester Synagogue as opposed to North Manchester, Heaton Park and William Joyce Lord Hall used to say exactly where they were because there was a tram terminus and they said, we've got you marked out, we know where you are.

And as as a coincidence, my mother worked for a company called Granada, Granada Television, and this is where I pay tribute to Baroness Ramsay of Small Heath and the story of her father, her father and the Second World War and the liberation of Belsen. Because the Baron Sidney Bernstein was a member of the Lordships House. So he he set up Granada TV Studios in Manchester. But his his wartime service was documenting exactly what happened in Belsen, and he became a fellow of the British Film Institute.

And I remember my mother telling me what a good man he was. I never met him, but I've read up on him. But the films that he produced then were specifically made so that future generations could say that this did happen, this could not be denied. And I remember and you can look this up on YouTube, my Lords, but I remember seeing a member of the Cheshire Regiment. It was a sergeant. He was being filmed and he was asked the question, where are you? Who are you and what is happening in the background? There was a mass pit.

SS prisoners were putting the bodies into this pit, as he described, in an accent not dissimilar to myself, that he was Sergeant Smith from Cheshire, and I'm in Belsen concentration camp. And what he witnessed here is unbelievable. And those were his were his words, but also had the privilege last year of also meeting Mervyn Kersh, who who was a Jewish soldier fighting in the British Army. And although he didn't liberate on the exact day of the liberation of Belsen, he came in about a week later and he witnessed the clearer he looked at how the medical services saved as many lives as possible, and it was wonderful to meet Mervyn in the same room was a Holocaust survivor who was liberated by the British Army in Belsen, and she subsequently married a British soldier.

And she thought British soldiers and the British Army was the best army in the world. And my Lord, who can argue with that? But I remember speaking to Mervyn last year and he said something to me. He his family had escaped from Germany into Holland and then to the United Kingdom, into Britain, the safety of Britain. And he he had volunteered into the British Army and ended up going to liberate Europe. But he said to me that in the 1930s his father knew what was coming with the Holocaust.

And he said to Mervyn, as a very young man, he says if they land on the south coast of England, we need to head to Wales, we need to head to Anglesey and we'll get ourselves to America. Well, standing there in the third decade of the 21st century, hearing that memory of a very young man just reminds us of what we are, where we are. And I'm afraid to say, here we are again. But moving to to the future noble, noble Lords have mentioned about the fantastic work that the Holocaust Educational Trust has done by Karen, Karen Pollock and her colleagues in reaching over 100,000 people each year, ensuring the lessons of the Holocaust are never forgotten.

Each year, tens of thousands of young people hear the powerful testimony of Holocaust survivors and their descendants. Survivors travel across the country to talk to many schools. Tens of thousands of young people have stood on the site where around 1 million Jewish men, women and children were murdered through the Lessons of Auschwitz Project. They return as Holocaust Educational Trust ambassadors, committed to sharing what they have witnessed. More. More than a thousand teachers are trained each year in how best to teach this challenging and sensitive subject.

Testimony 360 is a digital project transforming how the Holocaust is taught and understood using AI powered search technology. Thousands of students have already come face to face with survivors engaging in natural language conversations as if they were in the room together. Paired with virtual reality headsets, students can also explore key sites connected to each survivor's testimony, all without leaving the classroom. Remembrance is no longer enough, though action must be taken to counter anti-Semitism here today. This year, we mark Holocaust Memorial Day with increasingly heavy hearts.

Just months after the deadly attack at Heaton Park Synagogue and weeks after the barbaric attack at Bondi Beach. Since October the 7th, 2023, anti-Semitism, hatred has intensified. Rhetoric, rhetoric has spilled into violence, and what was once whispered is now said openly and proudly. We have seen in a protest outside a Jewish owned restaurant and a Jewish member of parliament being barred from visiting a local school and visitors to a London synagogue. Forced to walk through a gauntlet of hate.

It is no longer enough to remember the past. It is no longer enough to say anti-Semitism is not acceptable. Action must be taken to tackle anti-Semitism and to foster social cohesion. Holocaust educational faces significant challenges, but the Holocaust Educational Trust is reaching more young people now than ever before. Today, young people arrive in classrooms with views shaped by social media trends rather than evidence. Some teachers are anxious about their communities will and to respond when a Holocaust survivor shares their testimony.

Fearing a backlash from parents and survivors themselves are being asked to navigate questions about contemporary conflict just because they are Jewish. In response, the Holocaust Educational Trust is expanding its work in classrooms across the country. We are now working with hundreds more schools than in 2023, with barbaric terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas, and our reach will continue growth and new programs are rolled out at the Holocaust Educational Trust. They know that the Holocaust cannot and must not be taught in isolation.

The anti anti-Semitism that culminated in the Holocaust was not invented by the Nazis. It was rooted in 2000 years of anti-Jewish hatred. Likewise, we know that anti-Semitism did not end in 1945. It has continued to evolve and to adapt right up to the present day. My Lord, it is up to us all to make a stand against anti-Semitism.

17:37

Lord Sahota (Labour)

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Here, here. Hold on. >> Here, here. Hold on. >> My Lords. Before I start, I'd like to congratulate the Bishop of Coventry for her moving and very illuminating maiden speech. My Lords, I rise today on a Holocaust Memorial Day with a profound sense of solemnity and responsibility. This is not merely a day of remembrance, but a day of moral reckoning, one that calls upon us all year after year to confront the darkest capacities of the humanity and to reaffirm our shared commitment to ensure that such horrors are never repeated.

Holocaust was a heinous crime, an atrocity of the worst kind in human history. 6 million Jewish men, women and children were systematically murdered alongside millions of others, including Roma, disabled people, political dissidents and members of the LGBT community. This was not an accident of war, but a deliberate and industrialised attempt to eradicate an entire people. We must continue to remind the world that such inhumanity to humanity must never be allowed to happen again.

We also remember that many of those responsible responsible were ultimately brought to justice that matters. My Lords, accountability matters. It reaffirms our fundamental principle that no state, no government, and no individual is beyond moral or legal judgement. However, my Lords. Holocaust Memorial Day also invites us to reflect broadly on the lessons of the history. It asked us not only to remember one atrocity, but also to recognise and remember others committed across different times, different continents and cultures, so that memory itself may serve as so that memory itself may serve as a safeguard against repetition.

In that spirit, my Lords, in that spirit, we must acknowledge other grave injustice, injustices that that scar our collective past. One such example is the Amritsar massacre of 30th of April 1919, when hundreds of unarmed men, women and children were brutally killed at a Jallianwala Bagh. They had gathered there peacefully, yet they were met with indiscriminate and lethal force. This was a profound moral failure and a tragedy that continues to resonate, particularly for British Indians and the wider Commonwealth.

There have been other atrocities across the world as well, such as Rwanda. Cambodia and My Lai, and many more. Each reminds us that the promise of never again must never be renewed, must be renewed continually, not spoken once and then just forgotten. My Lord's remembrance without reflection is hollow. Reflection without responsibility is incomplete. Acknowledging historical wrongs does not diminish a nation, or rather, it strengthens its moral standing and demonstrate the courage to confront uncomfortable truths.

In reflecting on the lessons of the Holocaust, we are also invited to look with honesty and humility at our history. Amritsar remains a source of deep sadness, particularly for those whose families were directly affected. In that context. My Lords,

17:44

Lord Howard of Lympne (Conservative)

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in that context, may I respectfully ask my noble friend the Minister, partly brought up by an aunt who not only survived Auschwitz, but, as she told me, survived being put into the gas chamber when that evil into the gas chamber when that evil and macabre operation was aborted, and macabre operation was aborted, because on that occasion the system malfunctioned. So this subject is very real for me. Last week in the debate on the Holocaust memorial, my noble friend or the noble Baroness Baroness Deech also, I hope, my friend, for whom I have great respect, said that the Nazis intended to kill 6 million men, women and children.

As I told her afterwards, I almost intervened during her speech because she was wrong. The Nazis intended, as my noble friend Lord Massey had said, to kill many, many more. One of the most chilling documents of the Holocaust, which I'm sure many of your Lordships have seen, is the map which was in front of the participants of the infamous conference at Windsor in 1942, which planned the details of the Final solution. That map shows every country in Europe and the number of Jews which those the conference estimated that country contained.

Every country would have not only the countries which the Nazis then occupied or planning to occupy. It also showed the neutral countries in Europe. And of course, my Lords, it also showed this country those of us who are familiar with the events of the first three weeks of Churchill's premiership know that an argument raged as to whether terms should be sought from Hitler. An argument raged in the War Cabinet itself for ten days, and there is no doubt at all that, had it not been for Winston Churchill, such terms would have been sought, and a deal would have been done much the same as the deal which MassÃ©na, PÃ©tain and the French did just at that time.

And my Lord said that happened even if by some miracle your Lordships House would have survived or been revived in the intervening years, I would be very unlikely to have been here to contribute to this debate today, so I would be in the forefront of those who insist that the Holocaust must be remembered, even if the anti-Semitism which brought it about was just a matter of history. But of course, we know that it isn't. A few months ago, I attended the funeral of Adrian Dalby, one of the victims of the Heaton Park attack.

It was, as your Lordships would expect, a very moving event. It was an event which I never of a kind, which I never expected to attend and which I never hoped to attend again. But unless our efforts, the efforts of our government and our society are increased and stepped up, I fear that I may, not long after October the 7th, I was invited to give a talk at a synagogue in central London, and then I was told by the organisers that they'd been advised that it wouldn't be safe for that event to take place, and rather meekly, I accepted that advice and the event was postponed, although it did take place at a later date.

But looking back on it, I think I was wrong. I should have insisted that that event go ahead on the original date. It's the duty, my Lords of Government, to ensure that its citizens can go about their lawful business in safety. Yes, it is the police who have the responsibility of discharging that duty. And alas, my Lords, they have not always distinguished themselves in discharging that responsibility in recent months. So more needs to be done.

And I hope that this Memorial Day and this debate and the debate which is to take place in the other place, I hope they help to get that message across. At the annual memorial service, which used to take place in Hyde Park and now takes place at other venues. I have attended for many years. A rather beautiful song is sung. Its title and its refrain are the words never again. It is our duty, my Lord, to ensure that those words are given their full meaning.

17:49

Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat)

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Amen. >> Amen. >> My Lords, may I congratulate the Right Reverend Prelate. The Bishop of Coventry, on her excellent maiden speech, and welcome her to this house. And since she tells us that she enjoys singing, can I invite her to accompany me? After the debate to the Crypt Chapel, to a rehearsal of the Parliament choir, which is often sung in her cathedral. So I hope she feels at home in your Lordships House. My Lords, when I get up in the morning and I dress to come to your Lordships House, I remember my mother as I put on this little ring that belonged to her, and when I think of her, I also think of my father, who had such ambitions for me.

And often when I walk into this chamber, I look up and I wish that they had both lived to sit in the balcony and see me admitted to your Lordships House 25 years ago. I've always tried to make them proud, because I am one of the lucky ones who grew up with my own parents and grandparents around me. Although my father served in the British Army to fight the Nazis, he survived the war. But millions of survivors for the events of the terrible time of the Holocaust, especially the children, either have little memory of their parents or nightmarish memories of family members who died.

I often think of what it took for Jewish parents to say goodbye to their children leaving on the Kindertransport, or by other means, knowing that they would probably never see them again. To us human beings, as to many other species, our children's lives are more precious to us even than our own. I think we often use things, places, photos, situations to trigger memories of those who went before. That is why we want physical memorials, events and activities to help us remember what we will never want to forget and to ensure that future generations won't either.

Art can often do that for us. A wonderful example of that is the collection of ceramic replica shoes made by Jenny Stolzenberg, now displayed in the atrium of portcullis House. Because it reminds us that the Shoah and the other Holocaust mass murders of human beings was not about mathematical numbers, such as 6 million. It was about 6 million individual people with 12,000,000ft that took them to their terrible fate. And the question we should ask ourselves is why? Why did it happen? I have my own theory.

I have always felt that there are many different ways of being human, and we should treat all with kindness and respect. Indeed, that is a fundamental part of my political philosophy and the way I try to live my life. The fact is that the Jews were persecuted, persecuted by the Nazis because they were seen as other, as they had been for centuries. And that expression, which was also mentioned by the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Coventry, is now used to indicate people who are different from the majority.

People with a different skin colour, different gender identity, different religion, different traditions, different nationality or language or culture, different values or ways of life. And that othering can lead to discrimination, inequality of opportunity, and even hatred and violence. That othering of other human beings is the danger we should all fear most in today's world. It's not just about slavery, which we all thought was stamped out years ago, but we know is actually still happening. It's happening now in many different ways today.

Racial discrimination of all kinds, anti-Semitism, the bombing of Ukrainian people by the Russians because they don't want to be Russian, the repression of women who do not conform to the way men want them to live in Iran, the persecution of people suspected of being other by Ice on behalf of the state in the United States. How ironic that indigenous people, yes, indigenous people, are having to carry their tribal ID with them on the streets of Minnesota. All these things, if allowed to take hold in a society, can lead to disaster and inhumanity.

We need to be afraid. Very afraid if we see signs of it happening in our own country, and we need to stop it before it can take hold. After all, we've all heard the warning of Pastor Martin NiemÃ¶ller from his own sad experience, his part of it. They came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. And then it goes on and it ends. They came for the Jews. And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

And then they came for me. My Lords, we should speak out and speak up loud and clear for what kind of country we are and should be. And that is why I think the theme chosen for this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is so right. Bridging generations is vital if we are to alert our children to the danger to our country of every kind of othering. Because although we are reminded that the Holocaust was about the slaughter of 6 million Jews and the suffering of millions of others who survived, it was also by the slaughter of other groups who were regarded as other, and therefore seen to be a danger to those in power.

Power is so dangerous when it is linked to ignorance, greed and inhumanity, and that is why I am glad that Holocaust Memorial Day is not just about a big concert. In a big concert hall and memorial services around physical memorial installations, but small community events all over the country in towns, villages, schools and homes with their candles in their windows. So when we look up at our public buildings lit up in purple tomorrow evening, let us remember those who died in the Shoah and other Holocaust events and celebrate and protect those who live on.

But let us also vow that we will do everything we can to bring up our children in full knowledge of the Holocaust, and always to treat others with kindness and respect, no matter how different they are from us.

17:57

Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Conservative)

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You. Baroness, the Minister, for bringing forward this debate, to take note of the Holocaust Memorial take note of the Holocaust Memorial Day, which falls tomorrow, and for her very thought provoking speech. And it was passionate and I could feel that she felt it very deeply. I'm also grateful to all noble Lords for their thought provoking, their passionate, and their moving contributions to commemorate all those 6 million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

I'd also like to congratulate the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Coventry, for her excellent maiden speech, and I really look forward to hearing more of those speeches in the years to come. Having spoken in and brought forward this debate in previous years, it's a privilege to speak to this debate once again. My Lords, this year's theme, Bridging Generations is not only an invitation to remembrance, but my Lords, a call to action. With each year that passes, we are left with fewer and fewer survivors and eyewitnesses to the Holocaust, and it is increasingly up to us to pass on their memory.

The noble Lady, the Minister, read out the names of our heroic Holocaust survivors who have died this year, and to their family and their friends. May their memory be blessed. But it was this month that Harry Olmer, M.B.E. sadly died at the age of 98. Harry was born in Poland. His family were subject to forced labour following the German invasion in 1942. Harry, his brother and their father were sent to Plaszow labour camp in Krakow.

After a year, he was just then 16. Harry was moved again to work in the chemical factories where many, many thousands died from poisoning, from epidemics, from starvation and from exhaustion. Weakened prisoners were simply shot by the SS. In July 1944, shortly before the German retreat. A selection of those prisoners resulted in Harry being sent to in Germany, a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, as one of the surviving prisoners there, he was transported yet again, this time to a ghetto in Czechoslovakia, and it was from here he finally was liberated on the 8th of May 1945.

Harry came to agree to the UK with a group of children and survivors known as the Boys. Recalling his arrival, he said and I quote, it was freedom, the suffering he experienced clearly didn't hold him back. He qualified as a dentist and became a British citizen in 1950 to serve in the British Army. He retired reluctantly, I might add, at the age of 86, and his commitment to educating the next generation continued all those years.

We are lucky to have called Harry a friend, a fellow countryman. His memoir was entitled My Revenge on Hitler is my family, and I take this opportunity to offer, on behalf of your Lordships House, our sincere condolences to Harry's children, his grandchildren and his great grandchildren. It is an understatement to say his story is an inspiration. It is a profound lot loss that he is no longer here to tell his story himself and his memory.

Let it be a blessing. Bridging generations reminds us that memory is not passive. It is something we must actively carry and actively pass on. It is particularly alarming, as we've heard today, therefore, that the number of UK schools commemorating commemorating the Holocaust has dropped by nearly 60% since the October the 7th pogrom carried out by the Hamas massacre of 1200 Jewish people. My Lords, this is shocking in this country, but I commend and indeed recommend as a matter of urgency, the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, as well as all the other organisations, museums, teachers and volunteers who commit to educating the next generation about the Holocaust.

Now more than ever, at a time when social media spreads misinformation to children, and at a time when when anti-Semitism, as we've heard so, so passionately today, is on the rise. They need to be taught about the horrors that took place and how it is that they came about in the. These horrors occurred not just because of a few monsters at the top, but because my Lords, ordinary people, and the monster that they, we all know humans are capable of becoming.

Moreover, children need to be instilled with, and we ourselves need reminding of the values that prompted people to think critically, to be courageous, and to stand up to evil in daily life. What lessons could be more valuable or more important? Those educators who are denying our pupils the chance to participate in the Holocaust Memorial Day are doing our children a disservice and I dare say, in some cases, doing so out of moral cowardice. Furthermore, the work of these organisations and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust should not just be confirmed confined to the classroom.

It wasn't schoolchildren, my Lords, who committed the terrorist attacks in Sydney, Australia, or on the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester. We on these benches welcome the government's interventions in education, but also in security and taking action within our institutions. It is a source of shame that these measures have become necessary, but it is also a wake up call that we all need to do more to uphold the dignity of every human life, and to cultivate cohesion in our country.

In this vein, I would like just to give thanks to the work of His Majesty the King and to all the Royal family, who in the last year have led the way in marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Birkenau, and indeed of Europe. But I also note that today in history, in 1482, the first printed edition of the Torah in Hebrew was completed in Bologna in Italy. This set my Lords the model for the page format still in use.

The contribution of our judo Judeo Christian heritage to our civilisation today is undeniable, and my Lords, Jewish communities continue in this country to contribute to our society in most extraordinary ways. My Lords, I end with my thoughts and prayers that are with the those victims of the Holocaust, their family and all those who continue to be affected by anti-Semitism on British soil and abroad to this day.

18:06

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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Here. >> My Lords, as ever, on these occasions I am struck by the depth, dignity and sincerity of the contributions we've heard. I'm not contributions we've heard. I'm not sure I can quite do justice to every powerful point made today, but I will do my best. Can I start by congratulating the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Coventry, on her excellent maiden speech, and welcome her to the house? She reminded us of the way Coventry is linking its devastation in the Second World War, the hatred that led to that, and the importance of speaking to our young people about peace building and reconciliation.

And I'm grateful to her for her words and hope. She enjoys her time here in this House. This debate is one that year after year brings out the very best in our House. It reminds us not only of the weight of our shared responsibility, but also of the compassion and the urge for moral clarity that unites us. We come together in remembrance of 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust, as well as thousands of Roma, Sinti, disabled people, gay men, political opponents, Jehovah's Witnesses and the victims of genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and Srebrenica.

Their memories guide us, challenge us and call us to account. And can I particularly thank those noble Lords who have given their own personal witness from themselves or their families today? The noble Lord Austin, noble Lord Evans Lord Shinkwin, Baroness Ramsay, the noble Lord Howard, and particularly to Baroness Scott for her tribute to Harry Olmer. I'm very grateful for that. Baroness Ramsay asked us, do you think all this is an a quote? Do you think all this is better forgotten? I hope the fact that we're debating this today means that none of us have think that at all.

And can I just at this point pay tribute to Stevenage Liberal Jewish Synagogue, particularly to Terry and Gillian Woolf and Rabbi Danny Rich, who have supported me in my attempts to continue to educate myself about the Jewish faith and the life of Jews in Britain today. And when Baroness Scott was speaking about the Torah, it was an absolute marvel to me to watch Danny Rich pick up the Torah, which, in case people haven't seen the scroll that's unrolled in a synagogue and then there is no punctuation.

There's no spaces in it. He he navigates his way around that Torah, and he explained to me how that works. It's been a real education to me, and I'm grateful to them for all of that. A number of noble Lords, starting with the noble Lord Pickles, who spoke very powerfully about the continuing scourge of anti-Semitism and the noble Lord Massey, reminded us of what an ancient hatred that is. But of course, with a current and very present shadow that hangs over us all, anti-Semitism is completely abhorrent and has no place in our society.

And that's why we all must take a strong lead on tackling it in all its forms. Sadly, we've seen how events in the Middle East are used as an excuse to stir up hatred against British Jewish communities. The horrific terrorist attack on Manchester Synagogue on Yom Kippur, mentioned by many noble Lords this afternoon, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar and an attack on the British values that unite all of us. We stand together with British Jews and with all Jewish people.

We condemn unequivocally the hatred and poisonous extremism which has led to these attacks. And as we think about that attack and the dreadful massacre at Bondi Beach, Baroness Deech raised the powerful issues around the 7th of October and how we think of those and a powerful plea that as we face today's anti-Semitism, we continue to keep alive the work that's being done to link anti-Semitism that we think of in terms of the Holocaust with what's going on today all around us.

And I'm grateful for the mention of the report from Lord Mann and Penny Mordaunt. I'm very grateful for their work in this respect. Baroness Ramsay spoke powerfully about how we must confront failings in the organisations we are close to, even when it's painful. What Baroness Harding, I think, referred to as the very uncomfortable introspection that we need to undergo through our thinking about this Baroness Ludford is right, speaking out is a duty for all of us, and Baroness Walmsley reminded us of the powerful words of my Martin NiemÃ¶ller.

Much of this anti-Semitism is feeding into some of the very awful words we hear about Holocaust denial and distortion. Lord Massey spoke powerfully about denial, and the government condemns any organisation or individual that attempts to deny the Holocaust were implacably opposed to people such as the revisionist historian David Irving, and have spoken out recently against the Iranian government, who are attempting to cast doubt on the facts of the Holocaust. The government deplores attempts to deny the Holocaust, including those views expressed in a pseudo intellectual manner.

It is, of course, the case that if Holocaust denial is expressed in a way that is threatening, abusive or insulting, and incites racial hatred, or is likely to do so than it would be unlawful under the Public Order Act 1986. And Lord Howard and others have said how important it is that these laws are upheld. They are there for a purpose, and we must all make sure that they are taken seriously. The noble Lord Massey, Baroness Deech and Lord Austin referred to the impact of the current conflict in Israel and Palestine.

We profoundly welcome the ceasefire agreement, of course, and we're working intensively to support the 20 point plan for peace. It is vital that both parties uphold the agreement as we implement phase two on governance, stabilisation and construction, we continue to mourn the devastating loss of life on the 7th of October and afterwards, and the ongoing, desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza. We are deeply relieved that all living hostages have now been released, and we continue to insist that the body of the last remaining hostage is returned, even with the hostages released.

We recognise the trauma and terror Hamas's actions have inflicted on hostages and their families endures, and we continue to work with partners to maintain the ceasefire and ensure the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza. Diplomacy, not more. Bloodshed, is how we get securities for security for Israelis and Palestinians, and that requires a political process and political horizon towards a two state solution. Only that, over time, will ensure long term peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.

Much of the debate this afternoon has focussed on issues around education, and I think it's right that it's done so, particularly in view of the theme that we have for Holocaust Memorial this year. Baroness Ludford mentioned Dorfman and Lily Ibbotson. I remember very well listening to Dov and Lily, and Baroness Deech mentioned the distortion of social media for young people and how that's the it's almost as if they're trying to educate themselves, but they're getting a distorted picture because of what they're picking up from social media.

The Department for education actively supports schools to provide high quality teaching on the Holocaust through the funding of two core programmes, and we're also funding a two year programme supporting Holocaust survivor testimony and teaching programme. Lessons from Auschwitz give students aged 16 to 18 the opportunity to visit Birkenau, and funding for 2526 is £2,300,000 and the centre for Holocaust Education CPD programme supports teachers in their professional development and with the Pears Foundation and UCL contributing match and in-kind support to the same amount as the government, which is £500,000.

The supporting Holocaust Survivor Testimony and Teaching programme will support schools in using recorded Holocaust survivor testimony in their teaching, and funding is being provided for that and is being delivered by the Holocaust Education Trust. The Bishop of Coventry referred to what is the most important thing of all of this, I think, in education, and that is when you get an outstanding teacher who can inspire you and educate you in relation to these topics. And then there's a much wider programme of support for tackling anti-Semitism in schools, colleges and universities.

And £500,000 of this money has been awarded to the University Jewish Chaplaincy for student welfare. On university campuses, where we know there's been particular difficulty training for university support. Staff delivered by the Union of Jewish Students began in November, with 600 sessions planned over three years, and the scholarship programme will provide in-depth training and a learning network, with delivery commencing from this month. A tackling anti-Semitism in Education Innovation Fund is launching shortly to promote tolerant debate, and successful projects will commence from April and the Department for Education's Educate Against Hate website provides schools and parents with free, quality, assured teaching resources, helping to navigate discussions over sensitive topics and aid in our endeavours to ending hate and prejudice in our schools.

And on the 5th of November, we published the final report of the Independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, alongside the government's response to the report's recommendations for curriculum reform will help tackle hatred and prejudice by ensuring that in areas such as citizenship and religious education, the refreshed national curriculum and its supporting resources reflect our modern society, and there will be a renewed focus on improving young people's media literacy, helping them think more critically about the content they consume. There have also been incidents of antisemitism on university campuses.

Campuses. As we all know, there were 35 incidents reported to the CST in the first six months of 2025, in which the victims are offenders, were students or academics, or which involved student unions, societies or other bodies. 16 took place on campus or university property and 13 occurred online. That is a drop of 64% from 98 higher education incidents reported in the first half of 2024. But each one of those incidents affects somebody deeply and for a long time, the total is twice the 17 incidents that were logged across January to June in 2023, which was not impacted by trigger event in the Middle East.

The Secretary of State has written to university vice Chancellors in October to urge them to take steps to protect Jewish students from harassment, where lawful protest crosses the line into harassment, intimidation and glorification of terrorism. We expect universities to use the full extent of their disciplinary processes to take swift and decisive action to tackle it. Turning now to the commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day, our national event, education and community activities. I think the noble Lord Pickles spoke of the reduction in these events taking place in education establishments and according to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, in 2023, more than 2000 secondary schools held commemorative events.

But on October the 7th of that year, things changed. In January 24th, just a few months after the deadliest attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust. The number fell dramatically to less than 1200. And in 2025, a figure which I think the noble Lord gave just 854 schools chose to hold an event. So we must redouble our efforts in terms of commemoration here, in terms of our Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre mentioned by the noble Baroness Deech Baroness Harding and the noble Lord Pickles, I agree that we must face our past.

The government is determined to deliver on the long standing commitment to build a new national memorial to the Holocaust. And can I like Baroness Harding? Thank the noble Lord Pickles for all the work he's done. In this respect, the memorial will stand as a reminder to all in Parliament and the whole nation of our responsibility to remain vigilant against intolerance and bigotry. The new Holocaust memorial honour the 6 million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust, and all other victims of the Nazi persecution.

There can be no more powerful symbol of our commitment to remembering those men, women and children murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators than placing the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens. Prominent among the buildings and memorials that symbolise our nation and its values. The. I want to just reflect for a moment on the comments made by the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Coventry, on faith and belief in in the UK. For millions of people in this country, their faith and belief identity is a crucial part of their lives and our nation is enriched by a diverse tapestry of faiths and beliefs.

The government is committed to harnessing the power of faith for national renewal, helping us make progress against our missions, and improving social cohesion. Baroness Deech spoke about the importance of leaders of faiths other than Judaism speaking out against anti-Semitism. I think that's a really important point. And can I just say to my noble friend Baroness Lord Sahota about the Amritsar massacre at a tragic, tragic event and one quite separate to today's debate, but I would say previous prime Ministers have called the massacre deeply shameful, and the incident is a shameful scar on British Indian history.

So I understand the pain that still causes in our Sikh community. And I'm happy to discuss with my noble friend. Outside of this debate, I'd also express my deep gratitude to the remarkable organisations in the UK that work tirelessly to ensure the Holocaust is remembered and, crucially, understood. Their work goes far beyond commemoration. It shapes minds, it builds empathy and it confronts ignorance. And, along with the noble Baroness Boycott and the noble Lord Evans, can I pay a special tribute to Karen Pollock CBE, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, and Olivia Waldman OBE, chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Their leadership has ensured that survivors voices continue to reach new generations. It remains profoundly important that the Holocaust is the only historic event that is compulsory within the National Curriculum for history at Key Stage three, this government has made a firm commitment. It will remain a compulsory topic in the reformed National Curriculum, including in academy schools. When the reforms are implemented, our Department for education continues its active support for high quality Holocaust education through University College London, centre for Holocaust Education and its continuous professional development programmes through the Holocaust Education Trust.

Transformative programme for 16 to 18 year olds, which I mentioned earlier, and the survivor Testimony and Teaching programme. As many Lords have touched upon today, we are approaching a moment in history when no Holocaust survivors will remain to share their testimony in person. This is a profound and sobering reality. The survivors, who have spent their lives retelling the most painful chapters of their past so that we might build a better future, will not always be with us. That's why the responsibility now falls to all of us to redouble our efforts to preserve their stories, to speak the truth when others distort it, to ensure the lessons of the Holocaust are never diminished, never denied, and never forgotten.

My Lords, thank you for the dignity, compassion and commitment you have brought to today's debate. It has been a privilege to listen and take part in the debate. And as we face a world where the comfortable world order so many of us have grown up with is disintegrating around us, it's even more important that we we continue to remember these things. And I will, as we in this debate, we put aside our party politics for our compassion, our determination to remember and our common humanity.

And I'd like to close with the words from Lord Austin that we must pledge ourselves not to platitudes, but to action. And I think listening to the debate today, we are all determined to do that, to make sure that this is not just about memories. This is about making sure we create the hope for the future, that this will never happen again.

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I very good. The question is that this motion be agreed to, as many of that be agreed to, as many of that opinion will say content contrary, not content. The contents have it. My Lords, perhaps this might be a My Lords, perhaps this might be a moment at which noble Lords could leave the chamber quickly and Well, Well, the Well, the answer Well, the answer to Well, the answer to an urgent question asked in the House of Commons today.

Diego Garcia, military base in British Indian Ocean Territory, build Baroness Chapman of Darlington, my Lords, on the 22nd of May, the Diego Garcia treaty was signed and laid before the House. As the Defence Secretary

18:25

told the House on the day of signature, this treaty secures the strategically important UK US strategically important UK US military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The Diego Garcia Diego Garcia. The Diego Garcia military base is essential to the security of the UK and our key allies, including the United States,

18:25

Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Minister of State (Development) (Labour)

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allies, including the United States, is essential to keeping British people safe. It is also one of our most significant contributions to the Transatlantic Defence and Security Partnership, because it enables rapid deployment of operations and forces across the Middle East, East Africa and South Asia, helping combat some of the most challenging threats, including from terrorism and hostile states. Its unique strategic location creates real military advantage across the Indo-Pacific. The facility on Diego Garcia has helped to collect data used to support counter-terrorism operations, including against high value Islamic State targets.

In recent years. We've been clear many times on this the UK will never compromise on our national security, as we've repeatedly made clear, the agreement that we have struck is vital. Protecting our national security, guaranteeing the long term future of a vital base for both the UK and US, which had been under threat as the opposition fully understood and were briefed on. The deal, secures the operations of the joint US-Uk base on Diego Garcia. For generations, it was publicly welcomed by the US, Australia and all other Five Eyes partners, as well as key international partners including India, Japan and South Korea.

Just last week, this House spent two hours debating the Lords amendments to the bill. The opposition will know, of course, that programming of business in the other place is a matter for them and not for us. However, the Lords consideration of Commons amendments has been delayed because the opposition tabled a wrecking amendment hours before the Other place rose and on the day before a scheduled debate. This is irresponsible and reckless behaviour from the Official Opposition in the second House, using programming tactics to frustrate the implementation of a treaty on a critical national security matter.

I have to say it stands in stark contrast to the very reasoned, constructive criticisms and questions and suggestions that have been made by members from other parties and indeed with crossbenchers, which we've engaged with in good faith at every stage and will continue to do so. This is on the opposition, because this amendment is not only a necessary, but it's toying with our national security. It is only right that we take some time to consider next steps on programming, because we remain confident that this treaty is the best way forward.

The Lords will consider the Commons amendments in due course, and this will be announced in the usual way. The government is committed to the deal which protects joint UK US base on Diego Garcia. Some have sought to sabotage the process through procedural motions and parliamentary stunts. We are instead focussed on delivering this bill to protect our national security.

18:29

My Lord, I thank the noble Lady for repeating that answer. She's just said. Repeating that answer just said. Repeating that answer accused my amendment of being wrecking. That, my Lords, is simply wrecking. That, my Lords, is simply not true. And I have it in writing from our excellent clerks that the amendment is dilatory and not fatal. It is not wrecking. So I hope the noble Lady will take the opportunity to apologise when she answers those questions, instead of answering many of the very serious concerns raised from all opposition parties about Chagossian rights and many other serious flaws in this agreement.

All we heard in the other place from the Minister was bluster, and to accuse those of us of asking those questions, of somehow playing parliamentary games.

18:29

Lord Callanan (Conservative)

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This is a serious issue. So let me ask a couple of serious questions to the noble Lady. Firstly, in her letter sent to me, somewhat bizarrely, at 11:30 p.m. on Friday bizarrely, at 11:30 p.m. on Friday evening, I have to say she's lucky to have such dedicated private office staff. She referred to office staff. She referred to international arrangements needing to be in place before they can ratify the Mauritius Treaty for the ratify the Mauritius Treaty for the benefit of the House.

Can she confirm that? What she means by that is that the US government has to formally agree to amend the 1966 treaty, and by failing to do this before they concluded the treaty, the Prime Minister has effectively given Trump a veto on this deal. Secondly, if they do persuade President Trump to update that treaty, which I have to say looks unlikely, can she confirm that the amended 1966 treaty would then need to go fully through the Crag process in this Parliament, all before they can ratify their new

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deal? Well, I am glad that the noble

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Well, I am glad that the noble Lord opposite has finally reread my contributions in this place. I think from November, where I did think from November, where I did talk about an exchange of notes that would be needed with the United States in relation to the United States in relation to the 1966 treaty. So I'm glad that he's internalised this. What I said then was a fact. There would need to be was a fact. There would need to be an exchange of letters and that is in hand.

He asked about whether or not that would then necessitate a crag process. We will look at that when we when we get the detail of those letters. And if it does, then of course we will do that. But it may well not. But obviously that if we need to, then of course we can. On whether or not his amendment is wrecking it is wrecking in its effect, because what it would do is delay. The only piece of wording in it, as I understand it, that is actually binding on the government is the issue of the date which he put in his amendment would be the 23rd of March.

This would breach the agreement that we have with Mauritius. It's a self-imposed deadline, but that is the the deadline that we've set ourselves as part of this agreement.

18:32

Lord Purvis of Tweed (Liberal Democrat)

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My Lord Sewell regards to the 1966 treaty. It is worth, I think, 1966 treaty. It is worth, I think, just acknowledging that one of that part of that treaty, article two, part of that treaty, article two, is the basis upon which, under the euphemism of what the treaty calls an administrative measure, was the expulsion of a population from that archipelago and the forced de-population it was that treaty which was the basis which I hope every subsequent government, including this, will feel shame.

However, that is that treaty is the basis of the relationship. The United States. Therefore, it's quite extraordinary that under article 11, which stated that the treaty would expire in 2017 under and then have an automatic extension for 20 years, was not chosen to be extended by the previous conservative government. So this treaty, which now should we should all depend upon for our long term security relationship to the United States under the previous government, would run out in 2037.

Article one of the treaty, however, does state the territory shall remain under United Kingdom sovereignty. Can the Minister confirm that when the previous government opened negotiations with Mauritius on the basis of ceding sovereignty, whether or not there were any diplomatic messages to our ally in the United States, that article one now needed to be

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reviewed and indeed updated. Finding that the situation as regards the 1966 treaty was regards the 1966 treaty was understood all along by. It's certainly been understood by my government and I am assuming that that was understood. I can't see that was understood. I can't see why it wouldn't have been understood by the previous government, which does make this government, which does make this rather late in the day. Sort of pseudo alarm seem rather strange.

18:33

Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Minister of State (Development) (Labour)

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pseudo alarm seem rather strange. But here we are. But I do want to take the opportunity to agree with the noble Lord about the shame that he suggests we should feel at the forced displacement of the population. He's right to do that, and I can tell him that, yes, I do feel that way.

18:34

Lord Beamish (Labour)

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My Lords, my Lords, the my noble, my noble friend suggested that this agreement was supported by our Five Eyes partners, including the United States. In fact, the Secretary of States. In fact, the Secretary of State of the US made a statement to those effects. I know from briefings that we've had on the ISC, the important nature of this base, not just for us, but also for the United States and our Five Eyes partners. And they were looking for the stability which this agreement gives.

In the other place today. It was suggested by some that the national security adviser has misled the United States in this agreement. Could she actually say

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that completely and utterly untrue. I thank the hon. Friend, chair

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I thank the hon. Friend, chair of the ISC, for drawing that to our attention. I was not aware that that accusation had been made, but of course, it is completely untrue of course, it is completely untrue and it's unfounded. And I you know, I can only think that these things I can only think that these things do get bandied around in the heat of debate, but I think whoever said

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of debate, but I think whoever said it might want to really consider their words. When challenged about the defence and security implications of the UK Mauritius Treaty, has prayed in aid. The United States Five Eyes and Aukus, now the president of the United States, last week called the treaty an act of great stupidity. Five Eyes is not a military operation alliance. And that leaves Aukus. May I ask the noble Lady, the Minister, what recent engagement the government has had with the Australian has had with the Australian Department of Defence, and what was the response.

18:35

Baroness Goldie (Conservative)

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With our allies and partners on this constantly? And indeed, we continue to talk to our friends in the United States because they are, of course, integral to this agreement.

18:36

Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Minister of State (Development) (Labour)

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Other place called the House of Lords irresponsible, not just the opposition. And can I say that I find that very offensive? Many of us have spent a long time trying to get this issue debated properly, but could I ask a very simple, straight question and hopefully a straight answer? Can the noble Lady straight answer? Can the noble Lady tell us exactly the 1966 treaty? Can it be agreed unilaterally? We don't unilaterally. for the words of my noble friend Stephen Doughty, I will, of course, let him know that this House considers its role as a revising chamber and takes it very, very seriously.

And I know that the vast majority of members of this House on all sides take that, you know, see that as their job. And we will continue to do that in the way that this House has always done to a very high standard.

18:37

Lord Bellingham (Conservative)

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My Lord Sandhurst. >> Does appear to be in a parallel universe, because can she comment on what the president of United States said last week, what Scott States said last week, what Scott said last week, what Marco Rubio said last week is perfectly obvious, isn't it, that they're not going to agree to amend the 66 treaty? Yeah.

18:37

Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Minister of State (Development) (Labour)

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What about perfectly obvious. But, you know, there are many But, you know, there are many things that were said last week that it's probably best if we don't treat as emblematic or as somehow representing the nature of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. And we continue to have those detailed conversations about this particular treaty, but also many other issues, as we can all remember talking about very recently.

18:37

We're told by the media that four four star generals and admirals have written to President Trump, and they said this a base Trump, and they said this a base held under a lease, subject to international arbitration, political pressure or third party treaty obligations is inherently less secure than one held under sovereign authority. Are they wrong? sovereign authority. Are they wrong?

18:38

Lord Murray of Blidworth (Conservative)

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But the problem is that that option was unlikely to be available

18:38

Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Minister of State (Development) (Labour)

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to us indefinitely. So we needed to find a solution that was legally secure and that could not be secure and that could not be challenged had we waited, as noble Lords opposite have encouraged the government to do for a binding judgement, then what kind of deal would we be able to seek? The price would we be able to seek? The price was only ever going to go up. It was much, much better to seek a solution to this before a binding judgement could be reached following the advisory opinion, and I am assuming that it is for James Cleverly, Lord Cameron and others to explain what on earth they were doing negotiating on repeat for the same deal that we achieved.

Why were they doing that if they had no Questions?

18:39

Questions on an Oral Statement: - China Update

On a statement made in the House of Commons on the 20th of January on China.

18:39

Baroness Finn (Conservative)

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Hello, another bit of fun.

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Camera cameras. Yes.

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Well that's interesting trauma. My Lords, the government's decision to approve planning permission for a new Chinese embassy at the Royal a new Chinese embassy at the Royal Mint Court site is profoundly troubling. We should be absolutely clear about the nature of the clear about the nature of the regime with which we are dealing. This is a state that our own security services have warned is security services have warned is actively seeking to undermine our democracy. A state that has placed bounties on the heads of Hong Kong democracy campaigners living here in the United Kingdom, a state that has spied directly on members of parliament, a state that supports Vladimir Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine and a state that systematically infiltrates our universities and businesses to acquire and often steal sensitive intellectual property.

Yet the government's response to this mounting threat has been characterised by confusion, equivocation and weakness. Ministers have shrunk from calling China what it is a national security threat. They show a singular lack of transparency. By refusing to publish their China audit. They have failed to place China in the in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme. They failed to properly support the prosecution of two men accused of spying on MPs in the other place. And now, astonishingly, they have waved through the creation of a Chinese embassy in the heart of our capital.

My Lords, on the eve of the Prime Minister's visit, one thing remains strikingly absent any clarity whatsoever about this government's approach to China. From these benches, we have been absolutely clear about what a serious and responsible policy on China must look like. It requires relentless scrutiny of the national security threat China poses. It requires firmness in defence of sovereignty, and it requires the courage to call out clearly, plainly and without equivocation, the systematic human rights abuses inflicted on millions of people in China and across its sphere of influence.

We are equally clear, clear eyed about the realities of the global economy. China is the world's second largest economy, and engagement is unavoidable. But engagement must never mean acquiescence. Pragmatism cannot become passive. Passivity and economic interaction must be matched by strategic resilience, moral clarity, and a willingness to confront wrongdoing wherever it occurs. This government has failed that test. What it has offered is not balanced, but capitulation. Their failure of clarity, of resolve and of principle leaves this country weaker, not stronger, on the world stage.

My Lords, in turning to the question of the embassy, let us be clear about what has just been approved. This will be the largest embassy in Europe, not for one of our closest allies, but for a state that spies on us, represses people on our soil, and backs an aggressor waging war on our allies in Ukraine, an embassy so vast that it includes a 208 room underground complex with a basement running just metres from cables carrying some of the most sensitive financial data in the world, linking Canary Wharf and the City of London.

So the question for the noble Baroness, the Minister, is simply what is the purpose of such a large embassy? What is it for? What is why has the government approved such a facility for a country described by our intelligence agencies as a national security threat? Why does the Chinese Embassy need to be on such a scale? Although perhaps most alarming of all, my Lords, is the fact that the Secretary of State who approved this development has admitted that he did so without seeing the unredacted plans.

How can a government that claims to put national security first possibly maintain that the risks were properly assessed when the decision was taken on the basis of redacted documents? I ask the noble Baroness, the Minister, directly, how is that compatible with any serious conception of responsible national security? It has been reported, furthermore, that the Chinese authorities could legally refuse access to UK inspectors during or after construction. If that is true, we will not know what is being built beneath our feet.

Does the noble Baroness, the Minister, dispute these reports? And has China said that they will allow access? My Lords, this decision cannot be divorced from the wider pattern of behaviour we are witnessing. China is spying on us. It is subverting our democracy by attacking our democratic institutions, the government and the custodians of our electoral system. It is engaging in transnational repression on British soil. It is intimidating dissidents targeting Hong Kongers who have sought refuge here. And it is also attempting to coerce British citizens themselves.

The Secretary of State's permission letter made out that so long as China undertook lawful embassy use of the site, everything would be fine. So I want to ask the noble Baroness, the Minister, is it lawful to attack, to assault Hong Kong activists on our street? Is it lawful to operate so-called police stations on British soil? Is it lawful to place bounties on the heads of people living under the protection of UK law? Is it lawful to pressure neighbours of Hong Kongers to lure them into embassies so that those bounties can be collected? The answer to every one of those questions is no.

And yet we are now proposing to dramatically expand China's diplomatic footprint here, adding hundreds of additional staff despite clear evidence that wherever China expands its embassy presence, transnational repression increases, so does the noble Baroness. The Minister seriously dispute that pattern? My Lords, the truth is simple. China poses a security threat on multiple fronts. That means that, yes, we need to engage, but with our eyes wide open, we must remain vigilant and call out national security threats. It is the first job of government giving China exactly what it wants is a damaging capitulation.

The Prime Minister might benefit from a small talk during his imminent visit to China, but it is the British people who will pay the price, and the impact of this decision will be felt for years to come. This House should be deeply ashamed that such a decision has been allowed to stand, and the government should think again before they discover too late, that the risks they waved through so casually are risks that the country will be left to bear. And in closing, my Lords, I want to emphasise that all of this plays into a wider narrative of neglect and disregard for our national security.

At the same time, the government is greenlighting the Chinese government to build their mega embassy. It is also paying millions of pounds to surrender the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, who are themselves in a long standing friendship with China and who have committed to supporting China's core interests in major concerns so as to further deepen their mutual strategic partnership. As my noble friend Lord Callanan and other Lords have tirelessly pointed out, it is not our allies that welcome the Chagos deal, but those who seek to harm us.

It is Russia and China who have been fully supportive of the UK giving up its sovereignty of a key strategic asset. And I would briefly touch on the Hillsborough bill, where the government has been forced into yet another unedifying U-turn. When we debated this matter last week, the Minister was unable to answer the questions I raised on national security, and this episode only reinforces the wider concern that the government do not grasp what national security means in practice, and instead treat it as something that can be traded away or manipulated for political convenience.

The government is fond of reminding the House that the first duty of any government is the defence of national security. On that test, I regret to say it has fallen at the first hurdle.

18:47

Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat)

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My Lords. >> My Lords. >> Listening to the Baroness Finn there, I was reminded that it was only in 2015 that Chancellor, the only in 2015 that Chancellor, the then Chancellor George Osborne, declared the golden decade. I'm wondering how long it lasted. My wondering how long it lasted. My Lords, my Lords, at the very least, this decision will relocate China's comprehensive security and surveillance efforts onto one huge 21st century site. We believe it will amplify that the threat and potentially endanger the security of vital financial data.

And it seems a clear indication of political weakness that the government has taken this decision in the hope of furthering our relationship with China. This concession, along with issues like the government's consistent failure to place China in the enhanced tier of the Foreign influence registration scheme and its total failure to invoke sufficient legal protection against transnational repression of Hong Kongers, reinforce this message of weakness. My Lords, the statement talks about the government's desire for relationship with China, and it says that the government doesn't trade security for economic access.

Well, my Lords, I would agree there because given the scale of the trade deficit we have with China, we are actually increasing our security risks while continuing to give them virtually unfettered economic access. It's a win win for China. There seems very little on the plus side of this relationship for us, except perhaps allowing Chinese government controlled firms to take large financial stakes in our critical national infrastructure. So having made this announcement, what, if anything, does the Prime Minister hope to bring back from this visit? My Lords, it's a transactional world.

So, my Lords, if the Prime Minister was to negotiate the freedom of Jimmy Lai and if he was able to secure the removal of the bounties from the heads of Hong Kongers, and if he was able to close the university based Chinese police operations, then perhaps the extra risk that our security services described flowing from this super embassy might be worth taking. But if all he gets is a handshake with President Xi, then he will have conceded. We will have conceded a lot for absolutely nothing.

And just one final word on the scale of this embassy. The plans for the embassy include provision for 232 flats. I believe that there are currently 146 embassy employees at the moment, so there will be accommodation for nearly 90 extra people, a 60% expansion at the very least of embassy staff. So my question to the Minister is what realistically does the Minister expect all these extra people to be doing? Yeah, yeah yeah.

18:50

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour)

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Firstly my Lords, can I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their points and Baroness for their points and questions on this matter, which rightly concerns us all. My Lords, to reiterate, this was a quasi judicial decision taken independently by the Secretary of independently by the Secretary of State for housing. I also want to remind noble Lords of the premise of the statement made by the Security Minister in the other place, which focussed on the national security considerations of China's proposal to build a new embassy at the Royal Mint Court.

This concludes a process which began in 2018, when the then Foreign Secretary, who I believe may have been conservative Boris Johnson, gave formal diplomatic consent for China to use the Royal Mint site for its new embassy, subject to planning permission, and welcomed it as China's largest overseas investment. My Lords, I think we've seen how much time has changed in a few short years from the opposition benches. Nevertheless, I am aware of the significant interest this issue has provoked in your Lordships House, and as such, I am grateful for this opportunity to provide assurance of the work this government has undertaken to ensure that UK national security is protected.

Unlike the, I have to say, because I'm very fond of the noble Lady, but the outrageous comments about this government's prioritisation of national security, national security is our number one priority. The Home Office and Foreign Office both provided views during the planning process on potential security issues around the build, and confirmed in writing when these were resolved. We have engaged with key allies throughout, and our security and intelligence agencies have also been integral to the process. As the director of GCHQ and director general of MI5 wrote in their letter.

As with any foreign embassy on UK soil, it is not realistic to expect to be able to wholly to eliminate each and every potential risk. However, the collective work across UK intelligence agencies and His Majesty's Government departments to formulate a package of national security mitigations for this site has been, in our view, expert, professional and proportionate. They also judge that the package of mitigation deals with deals acceptably with a wide range of sensitive national security issues, including cabling.

And indeed, they note that there are clear security advantages from the consolidation in China's diplomatic estates in London. I also am also grateful for the close consideration and scrutiny that my noble friend Lord Beamish and the Intelligence and Security Committee have given this matter, his committee concluded, and I quote, on the basis of the evidence we have received, and having carefully reviewed the nuanced national security considerations, the Committee has concluded that, taken as a whole, the national security concerns that arise can be satisfactorily mitigated.

My Lords, national security concerns that have been raised in media reports again in recent days are not new to the government or the intelligence community, and the extensive range of measures have been developed to protect national security. We have acted to increase the resilience of cables in the area through an extensive series of measures to protect sensitive data. The government has seen unredacted plans for the embassy, and this government has agreed with China that the publicly accessible forecourt on the embassy grounds will not have diplomatic immunity, managing the risk to the public.

Based on all this and our extensive work on this matter, we are content that any risks are being appropriately managed. With regards to our approach to China. It is, of course, a fundamental and normal part of international relations that countries agree to establish embassies in each other's capitals. This government is engaging with China confidently and pragmatically, recognising the complexity of the world as it is and challenging them where we need to. Of course, we recognise that China poses a series of threats to UK national security, from cyber attacks, foreign interference and espionage targeting our diplomatic institutions to transnational repression of Hongkongers and China's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This government has and will continue to respond to these challenges, but taking a robust approach to our national security. Security also includes engaging with China. Indeed, it is only through engagement that we can directly challenge China on its malicious activity and by taking tough steps to secure to keep us secure, we enable ourselves to cooperate in other areas, including in pursuit of safe economic opportunities which are in the UK's national interest, but also in areas like organised immigration, crime, narcotics trafficking and serious organised crime.

That is what allies do and what we're doing delivering for the public, putting more money in their pockets and keeping them safe through hard headed, risk based engagement with the world's most consequential power. There are some specific points I would like to clarify that were raised by the noble Lady and the noble Lord. The noble Lady asked, what is this for, my Lord? She knows what this is for we are consolidating. Well, this was a quasi judicial process and a planning application.

This is the consolidation of seven different sites into one. There are significant security benefits that come from that with regards to the planning and building processes. I reiterate, this is a British planning application that has gone through a quasi judicial process. Normal. The normal building inspections will apply as the building is developed. With regards to national security. As I said, this is the first responsibility of any government and especially this government, and any other suggestion is frankly appalling in terms of a question raised by noble Lord Lord Fox.

Well, we we will see the results of the PM's visit when he returns, and I look forward to discussing it in your Lordships House at that point. With regard to Firs, we are looking carefully at whether other countries should be added to the enhanced tier. Any decision will be brought before Parliament in the usual way. Countries are considered separately for specification and decisions are made on the evidence. The government has a range of capabilities to manage and mitigate threats emanating from foreign states.

Firs is one of many tools that we use. I just want to touch on the fact about the embassy, and again, it touches on the number of. Of diplomats who will be present. My Lords, under the Vienna Convention, having an embassy is not a reward for like minded partners, but a necessity for any country with which we have diplomatic relations. And in terms of pragmatism, my Lord, we are my Lords. We are talking about a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the second largest economy in the world and our third largest trading partner, a level of diplomatic relations I would have thought would be wise.

It is also a fundamental and normal part of international relations that countries mutually consent to other nations having embassy premises. However, as the Vienna Convention states, the UK has control over the number of diplomats in the UK on diplomatic relations. Any diplomatic position at the Chinese Embassy must be approved on a case by case basis by the FCDO's Protocol Department. The FCDO will determine and will work with allies about any additional extensions of that. As I've said, government has seen the unredacted plans.

It is based on this and our extensive work on this topic, but I'm content that any risks are being appropriately managed. I don't think I need to do that, but with regard to a very important point, the noble Lord Grade, which with regard to transnational repression, noble Lords may be aware that I ran Index on Censorship until the general election. I spent a great deal of time campaigning on these specific issues. My Lords, this government condemns the Hong Kong Police's efforts to coerce, intimidate, harass and harm those living in the UK and overseas.

These acts of repression will never be tolerated in this country. We have raised these concerns directly with Chinese authorities, reaffirming that the extra territorial application of Hong Kong's national security law is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in the UK. The safety and security of Hong Kong is in the UK, including those on the British National Overseas Visa is of the utmost importance. The UK will always stand up for the rights of the people of Hong Kong. This is demonstrated through the bespoke immigration route for Bno status holders and their eligible family members.

The UK's response to tackling state directed threats is world leading. Appropriate tools and system wide safeguards are in place to robustly counter transnational aggression. Following the Defending Democracies Task Force defend of TNR, we have strengthened our response by implementing the National Security Act 2023, which provides a comprehensive suite of powers to counter the threat of TNR. We've rolled out training across 45 territorial police forces, including upskilling of 999 call handlers to improve frontline identification and response to state directed threats.

Published practical guidance on Gov.uk for individuals who believe they may be at risk, with advice to help them protect themselves physically and online, and we have deployed tailored support and security assistance for individual victims where we have become aware of them, proportionate to the threat and varied scope and approach. My Lords, this government will always welcome the knowledge and experience of noble Lords and Baroness Finn your Lordships' House, particularly when it pertains to matters of national security. So let me again reassure your Lordships' House.

Upholding national security is the first duty of government, and we will continue to take all measures necessary to disrupt these threats. Based on the extensive work on this topic, the government is content that any risks to the UK's national security are being appropriately managed.

19:00

Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)

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Lord Mann Minister.

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She's made a great deal in her. Remarks. About the. Quasi judicial process that has been used. No reference has been been used. No reference has been made to the Royal Mint Residents Association decision to open a judicial case challenging the mega judicial case challenging the mega embassy on the Royal Mint site, and I wonder if the noble Baroness has given consideration to imposing a given consideration to imposing a moratorium while that legal process continues. She has also made a great deal about transnational repression, and I salute the work that she has done in a previous incarnation on that important issue.

And can I thank the government for providing time on the 26th of February for a full scale debate in your Lordships House about the Joint Committee for Human Rights report on transnational repression, may I appeal to the noble Baroness to make available a copy of that report and a copy of the Joint Committee's report on the use of slave labour in our supply chains, and which touches on a point made by Baroness Finn and by Lord Fox, about how we cannot compete with a country that uses slave labour.

Will she ensure that those two reports are in the hand of the Prime Minister before he travels to Beijing? I if I may, I have two questions I'd like to put to the noble Baroness. It's been claimed publicly by Richard Holmes of the I paper, and Caroline Wheeler of the Sunday Times, that during 2025, while both journalists were working to uncover the risks associated with the sensitive cabling below the mega CCP embassy, government media officials sought to discredit both journalists and denied that there were any such cables.

Firstly, is it true, my Lords, that government officials denied the presence of sensitive cables? And secondly, is it true that these two good journalists were smeared by officials who, well, knew that they were working on a true story, which the government has itself now admitted? My Lords, if noble Baroness doesn't have the answers immediately to those questions, I would be grateful if she would

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agree to write to me. I think I'm agreeing to write to you, my Lord, I am. I genuinely you, my Lord, I am. I genuinely don't recognise, nor have I been aware of that report. Regarding the journalist, we've been very clear journalist, we've been very clear with regards. Well, I can't comment on specific mitigations or on some of the issues you have heard both of the issues you have heard both during my my comments and also the security Ministers that we have discussed the cables.

So I would discussed the cables. So I would find that concerning. But I will write to the noble Lord with regards to getting things in the hands of the Prime Minister. I'll give it a go, but I will get it in hand. I will assure the noble Lord that I will get it in the hands of someone at number ten, in the hope that it gets to him before he leaves. And the noble Lord will be aware in terms of the the potential judicial review, the government is completely adamant that what our actions are lawful, and on that basis we will proceed.

We will continue to proceed with the appropriate processes.

19:03

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour)

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Our Lords. My noble friend enhancer referred to the Esrc and enhancer referred to the Esrc and can I just say the Esrc has looked at this very closely. We were given at this very closely. We were given access to all the confidential and sensitive documentation and took evidence from our security services and Ministers, and can I thank them

19:03

Lord Beamish (Labour)

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for that? We came to the conclusion that Ministers, in making the security assessment, have been security assessment, have been given all the information that was available, and also that the available, and also that the mitigation that could be put in place of some of the issues that did concern US embassy were satisfactory and could be put in place in saying that in 2023, we place in saying that in 2023, we published our China report, which were very clear about the threat that China poses to the UK in terms of security.

It also, as Lord Fox referred to, laid out the golden era, which opened up many aspects of our society and business and academia to the Chinese state. Under the leadership of David Cameron. Would my noble friend agree with me that this government will take a very strong and robust approach to our national security when it comes to China? Well, recognising, as she said, that they are one of our main economic trading partners, but what it will not do is put that in the place of our security, which the last

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government did. I'd like to thank my noble friend, both for the work that he and his committee have done, both and his committee have done, both in terms of ensuring appropriate scrutiny of the government, but also more broadly. He raises a really important point, which I really important point, which I should have done earlier on. My Lords, I think as ever, we need to thank the intelligence services who thank the intelligence services who work every day to keep us safe. One of the things that is so important in this space is that MI5 have 100 in this space is that MI5 have 100 years of experience in keeping us safe and managing risk.

They are at the forefront of our national security, especially in this space, and we are grateful for it. Noble Lords, absolutely right that that there is a clear threat posed by China. We fully recognise that China poses a series of threats to the UK national security, from cyber security attacks, foreign interference and espionage targeting our democratic institutions to, as I said earlier, transnational repression of dissidents in the UK. Which is why since we've come to government, which we came to government, we have done the following.

We've launched the new cross-government state threat unit. We've done the training modules. As I spoke about earlier, we've invested £600 million in our intelligence service. We strengthened support for for political parties in the elections Bill. We provided £170 million for a new sovereign encrypted technology, £130 million for integrated security fund. And we've removed surveillance equipment that would be subject to the national security be subject to the national security law companies. My Lords, we are acting because there is nothing more important than national security.

That is the first responsibility of this government, and that's what we're acting upon.

19:06

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour)

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In 2015.

19:06

Baroness Foster of Oxton (Conservative)

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think Nick Clegg clearly agreed with George Osborne's position on China. But where I do agree with Lord Fox is the fact, the way he highlighted the numbers of staff highlighted the numbers of staff who will be actually allocated to this embassy, and I wonder if there is ever a limit on the number of is ever a limit on the number of people that can come here when an embassy is either created or it's embassy is either created or it's expanded. Anyway, on to on to this point.

The reality is, my Lords, that China, the regime in China, is up to its neck in committing heinous crimes against its own citizens. It's up to its neck in supporting Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, and it's up to its neck in the attacks which took place in Israel and now in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where thousands of unarmed civilians are being slaughtered by the Ayatollah and the IRGC. As we speak, cyber attacks here in the UK are on the rise and they are becoming much more frequent.

So how can the Minister and this government be so naive as to justify permitting the approval of this site? Yes.

19:07

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour)

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I'd just like to clarify a couple of points. Firstly, unless I missed something, the coalition missed something, the coalition ended in 2015. It was 2010 to 2015, so that was a matter for the noble Ladies Party, not for the Liberal Democrats. I'd suggest at that point, in terms of the number of diplomats, as the coalition ended in 2015. As for the number of diplomats, as I said earlier, that is subject to the Vienna Convention, the protocol Minister decide on a case by case basis.

Any additional applications for diplomats? One of the things that I'd like to be and, you know, I've been very clear about the range of threats that China poses. Also, the fact that there are 370,000 British jobs which are dependent on our relationship with China. There's a level of pragmatism and that we need that pragmatic pragmatism and a sensible relationship that we need to have with the second largest economy in the world and our third largest trading partner. My Lords, I think we just need to remember what we're doing and why we're doing it.

But with the substantive, the idea that this government or any British government is naive in its approach to foreign to foreign policy is frankly insulting. But one of the things I'd like to remind your Lordships' House is that on the matter specifically that she raised in terms of our relationship with China and where they have sat, the Prime Minister said when he met President Xi at the G20 in 2024 that he also wanted to engage honestly and frankly on those areas where we have different perspectives, including on Hong Kong human rights and Russia's war in Ukraine.

My Lords, we have genuine debate. We make our position clear, as we have on the national security law, as we have on a range of issues, including jemmy status and the ongoing trials. You can only have those conversations with allies if you're talking to them. And while the world is as volatile as it is, I'd suggest that more words rather than fewer are important, and that does require more people to have them.

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Thank you. My Lords. I think the events of last week and this week do last week and this week do demonstrate to us the difficulties of managing superpowers, the challenges that they present, as challenges that they present, as well as the opportunities. And so whilst my noble, the noble Lady Baroness Finn is right to suggest that China presents areas where we that China presents areas where we must oppose, there must also be areas where we seek to cooperate

19:10

Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Labour)

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when we can. So does my noble friend the Minister recognise the need for expert advice to guide need for expert advice to guide embassy location decisions? And is embassy location decisions? And is that the way to avoid the sort of ricocheting we've seen from the golden age that's already been golden age that's already been referenced tonight to the ice age that we've also been presented with? And I wonder if the Minister can And I wonder if the Minister can just confirm that the heads of MI5 and GCHQ stated this consolidation should bring clear security advantages.

And can I ask the Minister if she had the opportunity exactly a week ago today to hear this point, reinforced by the Director general of MI5, speaking in this place where he reiterated and dwelt on the fact that the greater threats surrounding espionage come not from within an embassy building, but often from activities beyond an embassy that dominate much of the work of our security agencies. And finally, I wonder if she agrees that as we go forward on the question of embassy locations, we should be led by the UK's most senior intelligence officers in our decision making.

19:11

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour)

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And I thank my noble friend for her questions. I think one of the things that is really clear is that from a given, this statement is from a given, this statement is about our national security, is about being led by our national security experts, who is, she security experts, who is, she rightly said, have been clear in their opinions about the mitigations, the required, but also mitigations, the required, but also about the nature of it with regards to the location of embassies. My Lords, this is a piece of land that was bought in 2018 and was granted the diplomatic, diplomatic permission to move forward as a embassy, subject to planning permission under the last government.

In fact, as I said, under Boris Johnson. But what is clear is that a quasi judicial process has since followed. And I would urge noble Lords, there are there is a 240 page document which outlines why that decision was made and how it was made. Every that is all available to all members of your Lordships' House online. But she's absolutely right. Both my my friend, the my hon. My hon. Friend in the other place, the Security Minister, as well as the Director General of MI5 and GCHQ, have made it clear that there are also clear security benefits to the amalgamation of seven sites into one.

19:13

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)

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Lords the noble Lady, the Minister in earlier responses, Minister in earlier responses, acknowledged the concern there is among Chinese dissidents in the UK about the embassy. She, the noble about the embassy. She, the noble Lady, may have heard the comments from Chloe Chung, British resident, from Chloe Chung, British resident, former Hong Kong a young woman who has a bounty on her head from China, and she has said she feels betrayed by the agreements. This embassy, it looks like a Chinese castle and it sends a message about overweening Chinese power.

Can the noble Lady the Minister, sympathise with and understand the fear felt by those dissidents? And more than people who are explicitly identified as dissidents? I note that the statement refers to a meeting with vice Chancellors, a closed meeting that's going to be held next month. We, of course, have huge numbers of Hong Kong students and Chinese students at British universities, and we've had experience of them being intimidated, some subject to physical violence. And what can the government do to ensure that universities can protect those students? If we think about a Chinese student who's always followed the line and come here and just starts to ask some questions, what are we going to do to make sure that that student is safe here

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in the UK? My Lords, I've met many Chinese

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My Lords, I've met many Chinese dissidents who live in the UK and did a significant work with them. In my former iteration. It is In my former iteration. It is really important that we make sure that their voices are heard and that on British soil they have the that on British soil they have the protections afforded to everybody that is here. With regards to academic interference, any attempt by foreign state to intimidate and coerce universities to limit free speech and academic freedoms in the UK will not be tolerated.

The new office for students guidance makes it explicitly clear universities should not tolerate attempts by foreign states to suppress academic freedom. With regards to the closed meeting with the security Minister, which will be held shortly, I think there is a reason why that meeting is closed, to make sure that people are that the advice received is for them to how they manage and mitigate their risks, and it would be inappropriate for me to go further on that.

19:15

But my Lords. >> Be grateful if the noble Baroness would, if she doesn't have the figures available right now, she send me a letter and put it in she send me a letter and put it in the library as to how many diplomats from the Republic of China are accredited to the United

19:15

Lord Empey (Ulster Unionist Party)

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Kingdom, and how many United Kingdom diplomats are accredited to the People's Republic of China, because it would be very interesting just to see what it is. interesting just to see what it is. And I have to say, the noble Baroness mentioned quasi judicial Baroness mentioned quasi judicial process. I suspect the planning the head of the planning department in Beijing would have very little say Beijing would have very little say in whether we built a super embassy there. It would be dealt with by other people.

Only we could come up with that kind of a process. As far as Hong Kong is concerned, we've since things the crackdown started, we've done virtually nothing. And in my opinion, we're going to do virtually nothing because that's what we do well. And I fear that the universities have laid themselves wide open to interference, to pressure and money talks. And we've just the Minister has just pointed out we have to be pragmatic because 370,000 jobs are at stake from from Chinese companies.

But as long as we have a trade deficit of the scale that we have, and as long as we cannot invest in China under the same terms as they can invest here, that is the major drop let down in the security of our country, because we're making ourselves effectively at their disposal. And I would ask the Minister to bear those points in mind, and if she would be kind enough to make the figures available to the house.

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I find it very wise always to listen to the noble Lord and to bear his comments in mind with regards to the number of diplomats. regards to the number of diplomats. I will have to write to the noble Lords. I don't have them to hand, Lords. I don't have them to hand, and I am as my colleague, as my noble friend who is the Minister noble friend who is the Minister for MCHLG in your Lordships' House is here. I'll leave her to ponder on your suggestions about revisions

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on your suggestions about revisions to the planning regime. Madam, I.

19:17

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour)

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Certainly support that. The noble Baroness Shah frontbench spokesperson and also the the noble spokesperson and also the the noble Baron, the Lib Dem spokesman. I think this is a regrettable decision and but we now have to move on and I am being pragmatic. I accept that it's going to happen

19:17

Lord Bellingham (Conservative)

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and we've got to make the best of it. So China wanted this embassy very, very badly, and the Chinese very, very badly, and the Chinese will be delighted of this decision, and it will undoubtedly create a lot of goodwill. So just building lot of goodwill. So just building on what the Minister said about trade and investment, when the Prime Minister does come back from Prime Minister does come back from China, can we have a full audit of all of the deals that have been agreed, the investment decisions agreed, the investment decisions that have been discussed, so we can get a very clear picture of exactly how that bilateral trade relationship is going to move forward.

And can I ask another question as well? Because one of the things that has struck me, and I think I've probably visited getting on for 60 UK missions abroad, and we have always been very strong at employing locally engaged staff. Normally it's the ratio of probably two and a half, maybe even 3 to 1. My impression of China is that they employ very, very few locally engaged staff, and we heard about the increase in the accommodation that's going to be required in, in the, in the new embassy.

Can you say something about the representation she's going to make and government's going to make to the Chinese about employing more local British people in what is going to be a huge

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operation and a massive project. My Lords, there's a several

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My Lords, there's a several things to unpack there, the first of which I'd like to just highlight the fact that while the Prime the fact that while the Prime Minister is going tomorrow, actually the UK has been an outlier since 2018, in terms of our since 2018, in terms of our engagement with China, president Trump met President Xi in October and will visit China in the spring. and will visit China in the spring. Since 2018, President Macron has visited China three times.

German leaders have visited four times, and Chancellor Marks is soon to

19:19

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Labour)

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travel to Beijing. The Prime Minister, Albanese, went in July last year and Prime Minister Carney last year and Prime Minister Carney was there this month. There has not been a prime ministerial level visit to China, the second largest visit to China, the second largest economy since 2018, when the noble economy since 2018, when the noble Lady Baroness May travelled when she was Prime Minister. I think there is a challenge here about how there is a challenge here about how we choose going from one extreme to the other, a golden age to a golden ice age.

With regards to any, to any to the trade agreements that will come out of the Prime Minister's visit to China. Noble Lords will have the opportunity to discuss that in due course. What I'd like to say is this Prime Minister is going to China to deliver for the UK, and I look forward to discussing the details of what? Of what comes from that meeting in your Lordships House and with regards to the employment of local British people. My Lords, I think that everyone will always, should always want to employ local British people.

But I will leave that for my colleagues in the relevant department to make that case.

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My Lords, the time for questions on the statement is now up. We'll on the statement is now up. We'll pause for 10s or so for the frontbench to swap. frontbench to swap.

19:21

Questions on an Oral Statement: Water White Paper

My Lords, questions on a statement made in the House of Commons on Wednesday the 21st of Commons on Wednesday the 21st of January on the Water White Paper.

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January on the Water White Paper. My Lords, we welcome the progress made by the government on the recommendations of the Independent Water Commission. In particular, my Lords, we welcome

19:21

The Earl of Courtown (Conservative)

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the proposed integrated regulator to replace ofo and combined functions of the Environment Agency, functions of the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Drinking Water Inspectorate. However, my Lords, I would first like to Lords, I would first like to respond in some of the criticism levelled by the Minister regarding the conservative record on the the conservative record on the water system in 2010, the previous Labour government left us in a Labour government left us in a position where only 7% of storm outflows were monitored.

Now it is 100%. The Water Special Measures Act last year also took on conservative regulatory proposals, which we welcomed. We also established the Water Restoration Fund to ensure that the money received from fines imposed on water companies would be ring fenced to pay for water restoration efforts. My Lords, can the noble Lord, the noble Baroness Minister, therefore recommit to the Water Restoration Fund and if not, explain how the money received is being spent? My Lords, we on these benches are supportive of improving water security and streamlining the regulatory framework.

We welcome the White Papers commitment to reform the 2013 Specified Infrastructure Project Regulations, as suggested previously by by by my noble friend Lady Kofi in her contributions during the passage of Planning and Infrastructure Act. With regard to the new regulator, we have pushed the government to ensure the new regulator will be accountable to the Secretary of State and, by extension, to Parliament. My Lords, can the noble Baroness, the Minister, outline exactly how ministerial oversight of the new regulator will function in practice? My Lords, with the regulatory regulator.

Take, take. Will the new regulator take responsibility for the initial nutrient neutrality environment? Development plans debated at length in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill's passage and the sites acquired currently in the remit of Natural England, and how, my Lords, will that impact on the intention to use that learning experience and the intention to extend these to species and features that will presumably, presumably still come under Natural England? My Lords, we welcome the longer term planning horizons, but we ask that the funding strategies are made transparent.

In addition, will the new regulator be established in time to oversee the next price review scheduled for 2029? My Lords, we also propose leverage limits on water companies to avoid some of the mistakes made in the past with debt levels. The white paper says the new regulator will work with companies to ensure that they do not accumulate unmanageable levels of debt. Should the government not go further and put up stronger guardrails to prevent financial risk becoming such a major issue for the industry in future? As we propose in the Water Special Measures Act? My Lords, moreover, the White Paper promises new customer panels.

Can the noble Baroness Minister explain how many panels will be created, what the estimated cost will be? My Lords, if the government is serious about wanting to streamline, we cannot end up with yet more arm's length bodies than before. We are also concerned, my Lords, about the pace and apparent lack of urgency from government, not only with the White Paper expected to be published last year, but the White Paper has not been accompanied by a full transition plan.

When can we expect this, and when can we expect the water reform bill to be brought before Parliament? My Lords, farmers need financial support and clear advice and guidance to make their contributions to cleaning up our water, simply relying on increased regulation and environmental inspections to force compliance will not work with an industry that is both critical to our national security and struggling financially. With low grain prices, high costs and destabilising, destabilising government measures around inheritance tax and in particular, my Lords, enforcing these regulations in the way described in the White Paper on our farmers, will place them at even more of a competitive disadvantage versus those overseas forced to comply with higher environmental and welfare standards and costs.

My Lords, we understand the Department is considering extending environmental permitting to cattle farming, which would add further administration and financial burdens on businesses, as has been flagged by my noble friend in other debates previously, farmers have already raised concerns that they might not be able to afford the changes necessary to remain compliant in terms of supporting farmers to adapt to new regulations. The government has promised to increase the number of Environment Agency inspections to 6000 by 2029. But will the government consider introducing new financial incentives to offer a carrot rather than simply a stick? My Lords, we, of course, support water reform and wish it was progressing more quickly, but it also must be coherent and considerate towards the agricultural businesses on whom our food security relies.

I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.

19:27

Baroness Grender (Liberal Democrat)

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Yes. Very good. Thank you. >> My Lords. I thank. >> The noble Lady, the Minister, for the statement. Repeat this for the statement. Repeat this evening. Some proposals in this White Paper are indeed most welcome, White Paper are indeed most welcome, including the scrapping of off. What? Something we have long called for. But, my Lords, it falls short of the fundamental reforms water customers are so desperately in need of. True reform demands root and branch change within the water companies themselves because until profit is no longer the driving force, shareholder payouts will continue to be prioritised over investment and the urgent need to end the scandal of sewage in our rivers and seas.

We would therefore advocate a move towards mutuality, not the costly nationalisation that others propose, but a shift to public benefit companies, a model that has proved so successful elsewhere, particularly in the United States. And I've got a few questions to add. How can the government claim there will be nowhere to hide when the white Paper rules out structural reform, including changes to ownership and profit extraction? What action is being taken to stop water companies evading the bonus ban? Given evidence to the Public Accounts Committee only recently that they have reclassified such payments as retention incentives, even in the past year? If this is truly the biggest overhaul since privatisation, why does it fail to confront the broken ownership model, which has enabled pollution, underinvestment and profiteering for decades? Did the government consider alternative models such as mutuality? And if not, why not at this stage, when the current funding system so clearly prioritises shareholders over customers, in turn using huge debts to fund dividends? What guarantees can Ministers give the new regulator potentially more than a year from being operational, will be able to deliver immediate improvements, rather than the risk of extended regulatory failure? What assessment has been made of the cumulative impact of historic underinvestment and excessive dividends in today's water bills, and how will this white paper address that inequity? How will the government work with farmers to tackle agricultural pollution in genuine partnership with them, rather than the slight blame culture that currently exists around them? Will Ministers commit to ending the sewage cover up by requiring full publication of sewage volume data, not just the spill duration, which is the the current system that we've had under the last government, given record sewage dumping and rising bills, what measurable standards will define this white paper as a success? If river and coastal water quality, for instance, continues to decline? And finally, and no great surprise from me on our precious chalk streams, which have a very welcome inclusion in this white paper, but were promised urgent action when we were discussing the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

When will we see the necessary legislation? Because there continues to be a danger that it will be too late for the chalk stream.

19:31

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Labour)

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Yeah, yeah. >> My Lords, can I thank noble Lords for their interest and for their questions on the water white paper, which we we published late in Parliament on the 20th of January. And what the white Paper does, it outlines how we will work together with water companies, investors, communities and the environment in order to transform our water system for good, because we need to ensure a sustainable water system for future generations. The noble Lord, the Earl of Courtown, asked about, you know, why it had taken so long.

And when we're going to see change, as noble Lords know, we have already taken action. We we did bring in the Water Special Measures Act, and we also took action to Ring Fence Water company investment. I can let the noble Lord know that the transition plan is going to be published later this year, and that will provide a roadmap for implementing the changes. We will also bring forward a new water reform bill during this Parliament. And alongside this, we will make progress with reforms that don't require primary legislation, and that will include a shift to supervisory approach to regulation.

Dedicated teams with an understanding of how each company operates. There will also be piloting of regional planning approaches across the country, and the water Reform bill will be a priority for the department going forward. The the noble Lord, the Earl of Courtown, also mentioned the extension of environmental permitting to cattle. So just to say that the. As the white paper sets out, we are considering extending environmental permitting beyond pig and poultry to cattle. And the reason for that is because cattle are a significant source of water pollution.

But we are working very closely with the NFU and others because we need to take a balanced approach to that issue. Regulation. Ofwat and regulation was mentioned by both the noble Lady Baroness Grender and also the Earl of Courtown, so I thought I'd provide some information around regulation. Obviously we've already done something with the Water Special Measures Act, and one of the things on that was shifting the burden of proof from the regulators to the water companies in order to enable automatic fines.

The new regulator that will be set up will require us to change legislation, and we feel it's really important to make sure that we get this right. But that means that the existing regulators in the interim will retain the powers they've got until we've got the new ones in place. The Environment Agency is carrying out record levels of funding and inspections currently on track to deliver 10,000 inspections in the year 20 25, 26. And we are also going to issue an interim strategic policy statements to the regulator as part of the transition plan.

And they're going to provide legally binding instructions on what the regulator's priorities should be and how they should act during the transition period. We will also reform the approach to the strategic policy statements and issue wider strategic guidance to provide long term direction to the entire water system, alongside specific, measurable directions to the new water regulator. The noble Earl asked about when we're going to make appointments, when it was going to get set up. We do intend to make formal appointments to the board of the new water regulator at the earliest opportunity, because we believe providing early leadership will help the new regulator begin to develop its internal strategy to build a new culture, very important, and deliver the industry wide approach from the start.

But as I said during that transition, the existing regulators will retain their full powers and responsibilities. We're also considering the funding arrangements that will be needed, but the new regulator will have the power to deliver its responsibilities in full and will balance the interests of customers, investors and the environment. The noble Lord also asked about accountability. Clear oversight and accountability will be an important design principle of the new regulator, and we anticipate the regulator will be accountable to Ministers and, by extension, to Parliament in the way that it carries out its functions.

And we will consider how parliamentary accountability is handled through the legislation, through any sponsorship arrangements and the framework agreement. But we do also recognise the importance of appropriate independence, particularly for economic regulation, in supporting the credibility of the new regime and investor confidence. So we will ensure there are mechanisms in place, including within the legislation itself, to protect regulatory independence. We'll look at other relevant public bodies as we draw that up on the water restoration fund, the noble order, specifically about that, we are doubling our funding for catchment partnerships in order to bring together farmers and stakeholders to tackle agricultural problems.

I'm not in a position yet to say whether or not we will be continuing with the Water Restoration Fund, the noble Lady Baroness Grender asked about bonuses. I think everyone feels very strongly about that, particularly in what's been happening recently with South East Water. We did, of course, introduce criminality for water bosses who cover up illegal sewage spills and the power to ban unfair bonuses. There were £4 million in bonuses for ten water bosses. Bosses were actually blocked last summer and we absolutely expect water companies to follow both the letter and the spirit of the law and off what are considering what further action can be taken to ensure that companies are held to account, and what the Water white Paper does is it goes further in order to ensure that water companies have nowhere to hide for poor performance, and that includes a new supervisory scheme, which will ensure that the regulator has a stronger grip on exactly what is going on in each company.

The noble Lady Baroness Grender was also asking about mutuality and models of ownership, mutual or cooperative ownership is not something that we're opposed to in principle. What the White paper does say is that if a company's owners propose changes to the ownership model, the new regulator will assess any proposals carefully against a transparent criteria. But of course, to take a company to mutual or co-operative ownership, either the current owners would need to propose this. All the company would need to be bought first.

So we need to think very carefully about how that transition would actually take place. But as I say, we're not opposed to it in in principle. But of course, any mandatory changes in ownership would be costly, complicated and wouldn't deliver the material benefit, which is why it's thought that it's the company's owners that are proposing any such changes. The noble Lady also asked about how the white paper was addressing pollution. I think particularly we talked about a number of issues there.

And as we've set out in the white paper, there are several measures that we're tackling to taking to tackle pollution. One of the things that I think is particularly important is the fact that we are looking to strengthen collaboration and planning, both at catchment and regional level. The reason for this is it will help to identify lower cost, higher impact solutions to tackle pollution and that will include opportunities for farmers. As the noble Lord Earl of Courtown was asking about for water companies and other stakeholders to actually come together to work in partnership to make sure the action taken is effective.

And we're also developing a new and strengthened approach to monitoring, because we don't want companies carrying on marking their own homework as they've been doing for years. So we're looking at how we can strengthen that. And we're also shifting the emphasis towards tackling the root causes of sewage pollution by reducing the volume of rainwater and pollutants that actually enter the sewerage system in the first place, and freeing up sewage capacity for development and growth. I'll just give some examples for how we're doing that.

One is things like building on the ban on wet wipes that contain plastic to stop sewers getting clogged up so much, and we've introduced a new national standards for for Suds, for sustainable drainage systems. And that will help to improve drainage quality. And also that will be a requirement for all new developments and will have drainage implications as well. Beyond that, through the National Planning policy framework. And we're also committed to ensuring that that funding is looking at how to improve nature and the environment more broadly as well.

I think this was mentioned from what we talked about with the the Ppib, but overall, we need to improve transparency. We need to ensure that the public can see what's happening in their local waters. And that's really important if we're going to get back consumer confidence and also boost protection for customers. We want people to see that this is serious action that we're taking to improve the water systems.

19:41

The Duke of Wellington (Crossbench)

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My, my, my Lords, I very much >> My, my, my Lords, I very much welcome the statement and indeed the White Paper, as the Minister the White Paper, as the Minister knows, and I'm particularly pleased that in the statement it puts in the second paragraph in the same the second paragraph in the same sentence, putting consumers and the environment first. We had a discussion in this House at the time of the Special Waters Special Measures water bill as to whether the environment was being given an equal voice as consumers.

And I was always in favour of giving more voice to the environment. So I'm pleased that the Secretary of State has recognised that. I'm particularly welcome. As I have mentioned many times in your Lordships' House, that the necessity to to have a single regulator, a single strong regulator, and there and of course, that involves abolishing offered and and taking over parts of the work of the Environment Agency and other regulators that we have to recognise that Ofwat over many years allowed the balance sheets of the water companies to be transformed by private equity, increased leverage and that has had that has been agreed by Ofwat without any regard to the consequences for the environment and the Environment Agency, despite having considerable resources.

They always claimed they don't have enough, but actually they have considerable resources. The problem is that they never gave sufficient priority to controlling pollution in rivers and beaches. But I do have some questions to the Minister. Firstly, it has been referred to, but of course we're all anxious to see this, all of this being put into effect. The white paper was delayed as the as has been mentioned, we're now talking about. I think the Minister just said there would be some guidance later this year.

I really hope there will be a new water bill in the next session of Parliament. But I wonder if the Minister is able to confirm that. But fundamentally, my question is when can we expect to see the new regulator actually in operation? That's what we're all looking forward to and what the public, I think, now expect. And my second question is I think it's permitted to ask the whip is making a face at me, but I think I'm allowed to ask a second question.

My second question is, will the new regulator have sufficient budget to fulfil its very considerable responsibilities? Because we all want to see a favourable outcome to this policy development.

19:45

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Labour)

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Can I thank the noble Lord for >> Can I thank the noble Lord for his broad support for the paper? He's been a real champion for improving the situation we have with our water systems. He's asked with our water systems. He's asked about the the new regulator. As I said, we we intend to make formal appointments to the board of the new water regulator at the earliest opportunity. We want to get cracking on with this. We really do. Clearly, I'm not in a position to say whether or not the bill will be in the next session or when the bill will come, but I can absolutely reassure him that this is a top priority for DEFRA.

So we are working very, very hard to bring this forward as soon as we possibly can on the funding arrangements. We are considering the funding arrangements that we're going to need, but I can again reassure the noble Lord that the new regulator will have the will have the power to deliver responsibilities in full. We want to make sure that any new regulator is able to do the job and do the job well.

19:46

Lord Liddle (Labour)

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My Lord. government on producing this paper and that I congratulate them on the the putting into effect the excellent work that Sir John Cunliffe did in his review? The water industry, from my perspective, has been an example of the worst of the capitalist system. I mean, not value creation, but value extraction on a major way, in a major way. And my fear at the moment is that obviously a major concern of any Labour government, any government, is keeping down the cost of living.

And that we will create a situation where the we are under pressure from the companies, the government is under regulator, under pressure from the companies to allow environmental standards to be further weakened in order to make the bills, in order to make the finances add up and to save them from bankruptcy. And can she assure me that we won't tolerate

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any of that nonsense? Absolutely. I mean, water companies have done an extremely companies have done an extremely good job at trashing the environment and causing pollution, and we want this white paper and the water bill that we will be bringing forward is designed to bringing forward is designed to stop that and to start having a water system that people can, can trust that they and to have water companies that behave as we would expect them to behave, they have a responsibility for the environment.

They should take that responsibility much more seriously.

19:48

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Labour)

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Well, see, one of the areas that the white paper doesn't even mention is the voluntary sector, and particularly citizen science, which has been absolutely fundamental in calling water

19:48

Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat)

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companies to account, particularly the Wye Valley and other areas as well. In fact, the white paper well. In fact, the white paper doesn't only not mention citizen science, it doesn't mention either science or citizens, which is science or citizens, which is perhaps more worrying. But I would ask the Minister, surely an or what ask the Minister, surely an or what are the plans of the government to keep this whole area of citizen science, which has been so positive science, which has been so positive in terms of putting pressure on the water companies and water pollution, in terms of motivating them to continue their work and somehow include this in the future.

That's a resource that is wide, large, educated, and really willing and desperate to make sure we have a better future. Just quickly, on the other one is, why isn't artesian water mentioned at all in the report? As far as I can see, in terms of long term assets, it's one of the most important that we have. And although OK at the moment is something that will be severely challenged into the future.

19:49

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Labour)

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I think, I mean, I think much of >> I think, I mean, I think much of what the noble Lord has talked about is what I need to the department, because to the department, because obviously this is a white paper. This isn't the final of what any bill must look like. And the noble Lord makes them very important points, and particularly on citizen science. I mean, I have a person interested in this because before I ever came to this place I used to work on, I was part of the Consultation institute, which have worked in citizen science.

So I do appreciate what he's saying. We have talked about working regionally. We've talked about working with stakeholders. We've talked about the importance of of having that local connection if we are to to actually succeed in making the changes that we want to. And citizen science, he's absolutely right, can play a role in that.

19:50

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)

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My Lords, in responding to the frontbench questions, the noble Lady, the Minister said the government is not opposed in government is not opposed in principle to mutual or cooperative ownership. I'm sure that will be a delightful news to the cooperative party, which of course has been in an electoral partnership with the Labour Party since 1927. But that question of ownership is one we, of course, keep coming back to. And the noble Lady also said that we will get a regulator with a tighter grip.

But will that grip not be resisted and see against it coming the force of the damage of private, private ownership that the noble Lord opposite just referred to the legal responsibility for the managers of private companies is to maximise returns to shareholders. That is going to come up against, as this statement says, this reform is for customers and the environment, but those are being set in opposition to the profit motive. Surely the only way we are going to get a water system that does indeed work for customers in the environment is if we have a public organisation managed for the

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public You know, the noble Lord talked

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You know, the noble Lord talked about science and not being a lot of a lot of science, but one of the of a lot of science, but one of the things we are going to do is bring in a new chief engineer to bring in that kind of technical, more technical scientific expertise to technical scientific expertise to the the new regulator, which is important. Just coming back on his important. Just coming back on his point. But on on the the modelling, I mean the the difficulty in moving

19:52

away is, is how you're going to do it because any new model needs to

19:52

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Labour)

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it because any new model needs to work. And the evidence has shown that actually where there have been that actually where there have been problems around the globe, it hasn't been the model that's been the problem. It's been the way that the problem. It's been the way that the owners have managed and dealt with the company and any problems with the company and any problems that arise from it. So I don't think you can just blame the model. What we can blame here is the behaviour of the companies, the fact that there wasn't enough done to stop this behaviour sooner and and the way that the regulator has been set up now, these are the things we now want to be tackling.

So I think rather than just focusing on the the model, we should be focusing on how we can restore confidence to consumers, how we can improve the environment and ensure that we set up a new system that makes sure this kind of behaviour can never happen again.

19:53

Lord Inglewood (Crossbench)

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My Lords, I'm sure. >> My Lords, I'm sure. >> There's agreement. >> Around the. >> Whole House that the state of the water industry in this country the water industry in this country at present. Is very far from satisfactory. In her remarks about satisfactory. In her remarks about the White Paper, the noble Lady, the Minister referred to a whole number of possible initiatives and changes and regulations. But would she not agree that at the last resort we as society have got to generate enough resources focussed on these specific problems to actually bring about change? And is she confident that society will in fact be able to generate those resources? Because if not, various things are simply not going to happen?

19:54

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Labour)

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I thank the noble Lord for his comments. It would be useful for me comments. It would be useful for me to perhaps have a cup of tea with him, and understand specifically what resources he's referring to, because it could be very, very wide ranging. And as I've said, what we want to ensure is that the new regulator is set up with the sufficient funding and resources enabled to ensure that the water companies deliver what they are supposed to be delivering, what their contracts expect them to deliver.

But the point is, is the noble Duke of Wellington pointed out, is this is about a balance between proper consumer support and and and decent water and the environment as well, because consumers have been treated very badly by water companies over the years, as has the environment. And we need to get that that right. And if that's the resources the noble Lord is talking about, then that's absolutely what we're focussed on, on delivering.

19:55

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)

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Lord Wood since there's time following on from the question of the noble Lord Lord Teverson about science and citizen science, one of the things that some of that sampling is starting to expose is sampling is starting to expose is the levels of contamination of new areas of concern, such as PFAS, such as pesticide contamination such as micro and nanoplastics. Now, my reading of this report doesn't really seem to focus on the way in which new science is uncovering new concerns for public health and environmental health from those kind of contamination.

Is that something the government is going to be looking at as it goes forward

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with the new plans? I can completely assure the

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I can completely assure the noble Lady that these issues are being looked at outwith of these these proposals, these are serious,

19:55

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Labour)

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these proposals, these are serious, serious concerns that we are taking very seriously in the department. >> Lords Minister still time. May I

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Lords Minister still time. May I ask one further question if the whip will allow me? There is mention in the in the white paper of cutting leakage. The previous

19:56

The Duke of Wellington (Crossbench)

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government had a target of reducing leaks by 50% by 2050, it seemed to leaks by 50% by 2050, it seemed to me, and I asked a question in the house of the then Lord Minister Lord Benyon. Surely that's not ambitious enough. Do the do this government have an intention to government have an intention to change the target to something more ambitious than 50% reduction by

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2050? Well, the problem with targets is half the time they don't get met. So what we are looking to do with the water white paper is look at ways that we can improve the infrastructure, get proper funding into it, but also for the long term, because there's no point in sort of putting a, you know, plaster on it if it explodes further down later on, which is what's been happening all the time. So we need proper investment to ensure that we don't continue with leakage.

So which is why one of the things we're bringing in is the new Mo checks on water infrastructure, and that is health checks on assets like pipes, pumps and treatment works. And that's to stop the the assets just being left to crumble. It's about getting ahead of problems before they come into place. And that's the way you end up actually resolving the issues of things like leaks. Because up to now, water companies have just mentioned them as cheaply as possible by just doing amend.

I mean, we had it where where we live in our village and they amended it and then it starts leaking somewhere else and it's so it continues. You don't resolve the problem. So it's really important that we're bringing in these mo checks, and we're also bringing in a new performance improvement regime. So if the then the water company is not actually doing what they've agreed to do, we can really, really crack down on them because this is the way we

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need to move forward. Quickly. The time for backbench questions

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The time for backbench questions has completed as there are no more questions. So we'll move on to the next business, give a few seconds next business, give a few seconds

19:58

Questions on an Oral Statement: Local Government Reorganisation

>> Questions. On a statement made in the House of Commons on Thursday, the 22nd of January on local

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government reorganisation. My Lords, we are considering today a statement of real today a statement of real constitutional significance. It concerns the decision to cancel scheduled local elections and in doing so, raises fundamental questions about where responsibility lies, how accountability is exercised, and how seriously we take the rights of the citizen to choose who governs them. The Secretary of State has made no secret of his views. He has

19:59

Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Conservative)

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spoken of a system he regards as wasteful, of the need for greater wasteful, of the need for greater focus and capacity, and of elections, which he has described in his own words as I quote, in his own words as I quote, pointless if that reflects a settled judgement. Noble Lords in this House are entitled to ask why this House are entitled to ask why it has not been stated with equal clarity here, and why Ministers clarity here, and why Ministers have appeared reluctant to accept openly the consequences of that position.

At the centre of this lies a more troubling question. My Lords, our elections now to be treated as an optional feature of local democracy, to be set aside when they become inconveniently inconvenient or administratively awkward. Elections are not a discretionary exercise. They are the means by which consent is renewed and authority sustained. They are an integral part of our democracy that leads inevitably to the issue of responsibility. By asking councils to make the request, Ministers avoid coming to the Dispatch Box to say plainly that they have chosen to delay deny more than 3.7 million people their vote.

Is this not, in effect, a means of shifting a difficult and politically uncomfortable decision away from those who have, in fact taken it? This sits uneasily alongside the broader story of reorganisation itself. A year on from its announcement, there remains little clarity about boundaries, structures or timetables. And by timetables I mean for the whole project across the country, councils are being asked to manage disruption and cost, while certainty moves ever further away and out of reach.

And when, my Lords, will it happen? It will happen. When will it happen? Seem still unknown by the government, or at least if it's not unknown, it's been unannounced. From our consideration of the English devolution community bills, we we know that this legislation centralises powers it risks increasing costs for working people, and it leaves communities with a diminished voice. My Lords, elections have been postponed before, but never on this scale and never in this manner.

Democracy is not strengthened by avoidance. Always. In the past, elections have been postponed in a planned way, with plenty of time for councils to organise themselves, and particularly with plenty of time for them to talk to their communities who are affected and give them a voice and also give them some clarity, my Lord. So it's not democracy, it's not strengthened by avoidance, nor is it protected by the quiet displacement of responsibility. If Ministers believe election should not take place, they should say so plainly, take responsibility for that choice and defend it openly.

Surely the government has learned from its mistakes at last year's elections, the Electoral Commission has been clear that scheduled elections should proceed as planned, and that capacity constraints are not a legitimate justification for delay. So I ask the noble Baroness, the Minister, why was the independent guardian of our electoral system not consulted before a Labour government took the decision to cancel local elections? And what does that say about how lightly this decision was made? And finally, my Lords, is the same thing going to happen again next year?

20:03

Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat)

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My Lords. >> Is presenting this latest round of election cancellations as an unexceptional administrative move unexceptional administrative move that is justified by precedents. But I think that is fundamentally wrong. Cancelling elections should be a matter of last resort, triggered by global war or a domestic catastrophe, and we should take pride in our commitment to democracy. We should have a pride that crosses party boundaries and infuses Ministers about the value and the preciousness of democracy. But instead, unfortunately, the government seems to be treating elections as an administrative inconvenience, something to be brushed aside rather than something to be cherished.

Now, I could get all fire and brimstone and dust off grand quotes from Churchill or Gandhi or Lincoln or Fawcett. But really, I'm just disappointed at how lightly the government seems to be treating this matter. Exhibit A, of course, in that are the comments of the Secretary of State who said that fixing potholes was more important than running scheduled elections. No regrets, no apologies, no reluctance about cancelling, but instead that poverty of low expectations, as if fixing potholes and running polling days is just too much, just not possible.

Now, the government claims that all it's doing is, you know, there is precedence for this. But I've listened and read very carefully what has been said and all of the peacetime examples that have been quoted only extended the time in office of councillors by up to an extra year. But rather than one extra year or two extra years, the government's plans will mean that for many councillors elected for a four year term of office, they will end up being in power for a full seven years, three years on top in a completely unprecedented way.

And this is, of course, not what the government said it was going to do. The noble Baroness, the Minister said last March when we were debating a previous round of election cancellations, that quotes. We have no plans to postpone district council elections in 2026. Well, likewise, the noble Lady, the Minister also said quotes that it was a postponement for 12 months only. We are, of course, now in a rather different situation and that's been a U-turn, not justified by precedents.

It's certainly not a U-turn that's justified by the need to fight the scourge of potholes. And it is a U-turn, as the noble Lady Baroness Scott referred to earlier, that directly flies in the face of the Electoral Commission's very specific advice that we, the Commission, said we do not think that capacity constraints are a legitimate reason for delaying long planned elections, but it also strikes me as being an unwisely short term perspective to cultivate a culture in which elections are so often cancelled, in which terms of office that are meant to be for years get extended up to seven.

Because is that really a wise legacy to leave for a future government of who knows what political complexion? But as the government seems set on this course, let me ask three specific questions of the noble Lady, the Minister. Firstly, will the government reimburse councils for the cost of preparing for elections that are now being cancelled? Secondly, given how much the government has talked up the benefits of its plans to introduce elected mayors, which are part of the wider picture of election delays, will the government publish estimates of the cost to economic growth? Of those delays in bringing in the elected mayors? And thirdly, given the importance of protecting our democracy, even in the face of potholes, will the government commit to giving the Electoral Commission proper independence and removing the government's power to give the Electoral Commission instructions over policy and strategy, because that would show a real commitment to protecting and valuing democracy.

20:08

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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My Lords, in 2024, councils were on the financial edge and sat as part of a patchwork map, which didn't make any sense to anybody. And it didn't make any sense to me. And I've been involved in it for 30 years. The consequences of that and 14 years of funding cuts were the crisis in social care, the decline of our high streets, councils not feeling empowered to build homes or grow their economies. And this inevitably contributed to a decline in trust and division on our streets, as people felt they had no say in the area they see every day when they walk out of their front door.

And this is important because in the past, it's always been true that people had more faith and more trust in their local councils than they had in government, and that was starting to slip away. I don't think anyone can dispute in that, that in July 2024, local government faced a crisis. And across this House we may have differing views on how local government got to this point. But we can't just snap our fingers and reverse the last 14 years. We can commit to a better future and to doing something different for the future.

With local councils empowered to make the right decisions for their communities and communities really feeling empowered because they've got councils that look after the full range of services that support them. Now, let me be absolutely clear. This government does not take lightly the postponement of elections. Democratic accountability is fundamental. And of course, elections are not optional. The vast majority of elections will be going ahead. But we are undertaking the most fundamental reform of local government for generations. And I think it's important that we did so.

These temporary postponements, where they've been requested, are intended to help us move to unitary councils quicker to strengthen local democracy, not weaken it. And they apply only where the councils themselves have demonstrated a clear case where reorganisation is already underway and where holding elections now would risk the transition to new councils by introducing confusion, duplication and wasting money. Governments of all political colours have postponed local elections during periods of structural reform, including under the previous conservative government, and there is clearly statutory precedent for doing so.

What would be truly irresponsible would be to press ahead with elections for authorities that may shortly cease to exist, and when councils who are party to those elections have told us they could put at risk services being ready for the transition to new councils, some have argued the government is acting out of political convenience. My Lord, that argument just does not stand withstand scrutiny. The postponements are driven by local views and circumstances, not partisan interest. Indeed, we have seen Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Labour councils all come forward with concerns on which we have acted.

We have had that as formal feedback, but I've also had many conversations with local council leaders. For those of us who have worked in local government, we know both the direct demands of running elections and the wider organisational impacts, including the diversion of critical senior officer time and focus during the pre-election period. Freeing up that capacity allows councils to prioritise service delivery and manage the reorganisation, effectively running elections for short lived authorities while simultaneously preparing for new unitary councils would impose avoidable expense.

While councils are focussed on setting up new authorities and protecting frontline services, reorganisation done properly offers the opportunity to reduce duplication, clarify accountability and redirect resources to essential public services that have suffered years of neglect. Councillors terms are being extended for a clearly defined period, and fresh elections for the new unitary authorities will take place in 2027. Once reorganisation proposals are agreed, residents will have their say on stronger, more coherent councils, with one set of councillors with clearer responsibilities.

This is a pragmatic decision taken in partnership with local government, grounded in precedent and evidence, and focussed on delivering better public services for the communities we serve. Turning to the specific questions that the noble Baroness and the noble Lords have asked me, noble Baroness, Lady Scott has mentioned several times, both here and during the course of debates on on the English devolution Bill, the lack of a timetable. There's a very clear timetable. I'm not really sure there is something clearly causing confusion here, but I will very briefly again set out the timetable.

The for Surrey, the. There will be elections to the new Unitaries in May 2026 and in April 2027 new unitaries come into force for the sixth devolution priority areas. The consultation is now closed. Decisions for them will be taken by March 2026. In May 2027, there will be elections to New Unitaries. In April 2028, the new Unitaries come into force and in May 2028, mayors will be elected to Sussex, Norfolk and Suffolk, Hampshire and the Essex mayoral combined authorities for the remaining 14 areas.

In February 2026. We'll be launching our consultation by May 2026. The consultation will close and then decisions will be announced around about the time of the summer recess in 2026. In May 2027, there will be elections to the new Unitaries and in April 2028, the new Unitaries will come into force. We don't believe in imposing on these things on local authorities, which is why we've done it in consultation. Rather than sitting in MHCLG and drawing a map and saying that's what it's going to look like.

We've been working very hard with our local authorities and that's why we didn't set the boundaries ourselves from government. We've asked local authorities to work together on geographies that made sense to them, and I think that was absolutely the right way to go. The noble Lord Pack asked about the the delaying of elections and this not being a new phenomenon. I've set out before in the House that this is this has been done by previous governments when they're doing reorganisation.

We've always set and maintained a high threshold for postponements. And as we've done before, we're responding to serious concerns raised by councils in the reorganisation areas that the 2026 elections were putting at risk their ability to deliver on local government reorganisation. He asked me about the funding for elections. Spend on elections is, of course, a matter for local authorities. And our announcement is, was in response to representations received from councils in local government. Postponement, of course, also avoids the cost of holding elections to councils that are proposed to be abolished.

And he asked me about the cost to economic growth. Well, I think we've got to take a clear view on this, that where you've got councils that cover all of the services in their area and where they're empowered to take on both economic growth, the delivery of housing and all the things that go with that transport powers and, you know, things that will drive the economic growth of their areas. That's the the aim at the end of the day, is to have councils that are able to deliver that for their communities, he asked me about the Electoral Commission, as did Baroness Boycott.

I've had two meetings in the last ten days or so with the Electoral Commission, and we've had discussions, and I spoke to them only last week when the announcement came out about the postponement of elections. I've spoken to them extensively about the elections bill, which is coming forward shortly, and we will we will be working very closely with them on the elections Bill. We've also had some very positive discussions around the capacity issues, because the Electoral Commission had a view that the capacity issues we were raising were around the capacity of election teams and it's election teams in local authorities, particularly in district councils, are quite small.

It's not that capacity that I think councils and councillors were worried about. It's the capacity of local authorities to manage such a significant, once in a generation reorganisation. Alongside these sets of elections. So I hope that's answered all the questions, but I'm happy to take any more.

20:16

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)

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My Lords, the noble Lord Lord >> My Lords, the noble Lord Lord Pack referred to the some 250 councillors who could face seven year terms under the government plans. Four of those are county councils, which are majority majority Tory led, and they last held elections in May 2021. Noble Lords will have to cast their minds right back. Boris Johnson was Prime Minister since then. Of course, we've had two Tory and thus far one Labour Prime Minister, Suella Braverman had only recently been sacked as the Tory attorney general for the first time.

And politics is changing very, very fast. And sometimes the government is asking electoral officials to act very fast. Also, the Gorton and Denton byelection is now going to be held on February 26th on the fastest possible timetable and as a measure of the degree of change in that, I notes that in the last election the Labour Party got more than 50% of the vote. A notional calculation for 219 gives the Labour Party 67% of the vote in that seat. The bookmakers today have the Green Party as favourites to win that by election on the 26th of February.

So with politics moving so fast, isn't this a particularly dangerous time to be postponing elections, not giving voters a Democratic say? And isn't this really damaging and dangerous, threatening the whole concept of democracy by taking it away from people when there is so obviously a desperate desire for change?

20:18

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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Well, I'm certainly not calling the result of the Denton by election at this stage. I don't think we've even got a candidate yet, so I think that would be unwise. But the in in response to the noble Baroness question about timing, we've been clear throughout that elections should go ahead unless there is strong justification otherwise. And many of the local elections that are due to take place in May will take place. And we did say we were very clear that if a council said they had no reason for postponement, then we'd listen to them.

But where councils voice genuine concerns and we did have significant evidence from those councils whose elections have been postponed, we would have to listen to that and take it seriously. And just to make sure everyone knows this wasn't an absolute rubberstamp anyone that asked for a postponement got it. There were two councils where we didn't think the evidence was sufficient. That was Nuneaton and Bedworth and Pendle and their elections are going ahead. So I think we don't do this lightly, but I think with an unprecedented reorganisation going on in local government, it's right that we took account of what local government were saying to us.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Like my noble. Friend. Baroness Scott of Bybrook, as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire, I have already been through Notarisation. Now that didn't involve cancelling elections. In fact, we had an additional election after two years and we were able to do that because we had a proper do that because we had a proper plan that was locally developed and supported by residents is not the reason that elections are being

20:20

Lord Jamieson (Conservative)

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reason that elections are being cancelled, as that government doesn't have a plan, it doesn't know what's happening. It has not been communicating to councils and leaders what they should do, when they should do it. It's taking too long and we end up in this difficult situation faced by council leaders of not knowing. Can the Minister commit that the government will provide a clear timetable, as asked by my noble friend, for both local government reorganisation and when elections will be held, that will be committed to because democracy matters.

It's from where local government derives its authority.

20:21

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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I'm afraid it was the failure to bite the bullet and get on with the this kind of radical reorganisation this kind of radical reorganisation for decades. That means that we've decided that we can't go on any longer with a system that's broken. The, the, the services in local government were non-sustainable. We can't the finance system wasn't working and we now need to make sure we get the get local government on the firm footing that it deserves. Make sure that we're distributing funding more fairly.

Make sure that councils are the right size and shape to be effective, both to deliver the very key public services and make them as efficient as the public that we serve deserve, and also to drive forward our economy and housing and transport in the way that we all want to see right across the country. The current system results in confusion and waste, and we just got to get on with the job. And that means we have, you know, we've had to take this unprecedented step to do this, to make sure that we are taking account of what local government tell us about the need for their resources.

In terms of the timetable, I've just set the timetable out. Again. I don't understand what the confusion is about the timetable. We've been very clear about the timetable and we will we will move ahead with that. Local authorities are working and have worked very well within the timetable that we've set out, and we work very closely with them on that, as on all the other matters related to the reorganisation.

20:22

Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Conservative)

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I've also been through this, >> I've also been through this, this process and I'm I'm not quite this process and I'm I'm not quite sure where 15 months out of the next lot of elections and a new next lot of elections and a new authority, but these authorities don't yet know on what geography they're going to be. If you take it could be 5 or 3 in the same with Norfolk and Suffolk. They could be four or 3 or 5.

And and what? Once you know that geography I know and I think people that leaders that went through what I went through will know that a year is not a long time in actually delivering that change, particularly if you don't know what it's going to be at this time.

20:23

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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As I stated earlier, decisions for the six devolution priority areas will be by March 2026. Their geographies will be decided by then. We're going out to consultation on the remaining 14 areas. I think it's important that we do that. The local authorities have come forward with their proposals. We want to find out what local views are on them and we're out to consultation. That consultation closes in May 26th, and we will make decisions before the summer recess on the geography for those remaining authorities.

20:24

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)

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It saves time, the noble Lady, the Minister said. And I would very the Minister said. And I would very much agree with her that the the councils that have asked for councils that have asked for extensions, the officers, the staff, the structures are extremely stretched and I should perhaps declare my position as vice declare my position as vice president of the Local Government Association at this point. But one of the alternatives would have been for the government to provide the resources to ensure that those councils were able to both hold elections and continue on with the plans for reorganisation.

Can the noble Lady, the Minister, tell me if the government made any calculation of what kind of allocation of funds from the government here in Westminster would have been necessary to allow those elections to go ahead? What would have been the cost if the resources had been provided?

**** Possible New Speaker ****

With respect to the noble Lady? I think putting in new resources at this stage is would not really help matters. Councils have their programmes of work underway. They're all working very hard on They're all working very hard on the reorganisation programme as they are on the transition. They've got an enormous job to do, both to work out the transition for key public services, how they're going public services, how they're going to drive forward growth and and housing programs going forward, and putting new resources into that.

It takes, you know, when you have new council officers coming in, as you do with new councillors, it takes quite some time for new councillors and council officers to get up to speed, to be able to deliver at pace. And I think councils have considered that very carefully and will have made their own decisions. And that's why we had 29 of them submit requests to postpone their elections.

20:25

Lord Jamieson (Conservative)

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As there is still time, if I may just come back on a couple of things that the Minister has said. things that the Minister has said. First of all, the Minister said the need for fundamental reform. So can need for fundamental reform. So can the Minister actually answer this time questions that I have asked previously, what real additional powers will come to local government from government, and what funding? And secondly, the Minister said that local government funding was not sustainable.

So why, through the government's unfair funding proposals, will many councils suffer some of the sharpest cuts that they have seen?

20:26

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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Well, the fair funding formula that we announced this year is given a significant increase in funding to local government. So and that, you know, having spent the 17 years that I was a council leader cutting budgets every year, I know that's been a welcome change for some of our councils in terms of the new powers that local councils will get. I know we're in the process and we'll be debating tomorrow afternoon the English devolution bill, the seven areas of competence that are included in that are just the starting point of devolution.

We want to see a widespread devolution of things that are currently decisions that are taken in Whitehall, being decided by in the local areas, by local people and once local, those combined authorities are established, the mayors will be able to apply for further powers as they see necessary for their areas. And I think it's important those are driven by mayors. What we've seen in the existing mayoral areas is that they have different needs. Some areas have much greater needs for skills, for example, powers on skills, some on health, some on transport, and it can be all three.

So it's very important that that's driven at local level. But the the, the very wide ranging competences that we've set out in the English devolution Bill will enable local government to take the powers that it needs to be able to drive forward the their local areas. And I think it's a it's a huge move forward and I really welcome it.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

My Lords, I beg to move that thou do now adjourn. The House. Do

14:00

Introduction(s): Baroness Paul of Shepherd's Bush; Lord Barber of Chittlehampton

This debate has concluded

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