Historical Statues and Memorials

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, remembering is an important but undervalued part of life. As technology causes us to live in moments of distraction and being elsewhere, memorials help us to value the past and be in the present, and to reflect. They are statements of who we are, what and who has shaped us and what we value.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for bringing to my attention the memorial for enslaved Africans that thankfully now has planning permission from Westminster City Council. It is so long overdue in London, as that grotesque trade is part of the history of this city. The British Museum and the National Gallery, which attract so many visitors, were begun with collections from families who had profited from plantations worked on by African slaves. For many that I have met, their family history—their own “Who Do You Think You Are?”—ends with a ship that had left Elmina Castle in Ghana. Records end, but soon they will have a place to go once this memorial is built.

I pay tribute to the role of the BBC and its recent history project and accompanying series “Black and British”, written and presented by historian David Olusoga and with an imaginative original score by the young up-and-coming black British composer Segun Akinola. The history of black people goes back to Roman times, with black soldiers guarding Hadrian’s Wall in the third century, and the project placed plaques in various locations recognising the black British people who had lived there.

Historic England maintains the National Heritage List for England, the apparently only official and up-to-date database of all nationally protected historic buildings and sites in England. Could the Minister, taking on a theme from this debate, outline whether an assessment has been made of this list to ensure that any other gaps, such as the enslaved Africans memorial, have been identified? Do we, and should we, have a proper memorial to the “Windrush”, which arrived in Tilbury 70 years ago next year? Whatever happened to Danny Boyle’s replica that was used in the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, to great effect?

We need to think about what new memorials we need but also which need taking down or delisting. Perhaps we need some temporary memorials on appropriate anniversaries, the equivalent for memorials of the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square—perhaps a plinth here in Parliament or Parliament Square.

Some of the most important memorials in the UK are war memorials, both local and national. The Commonwealth War Memorial Gates at Hyde Park Corner are majestic, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, outlined, but the contribution of the Commonwealth and today’s black and minority ethnic soldiers is in my view not prominent enough at the annual Cenotaph service, when the nation comes together publicly. I hope the Minister will consider that point and look at reviewing that as well.