Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Grand Committee

Moreover, the International Council on Monuments and Sites also criticised the choice and Victoria Tower Gardens has in the last few weeks been shortlisted for Europe’s seven most endangered sites. Historic England expressed its concern to Westminster City Council in 2019. Why are the Government ignoring the strictures of the world’s most important heritage guardians on the choice of this site? Will the Minister explain why the advice of international bodies is being ignored, especially bearing in mind the oft-repeated willingness of this Government to observe international law?

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I will respond briefly to what has been said on this group of amendments. The Minister will perhaps be grateful to me if I do not repeat all the arguments made in the eloquent speeches we have heard this afternoon. In turn, I will be very grateful to him if he gives a full reply to all the points raised and the questions asked. I particularly want to hear from him what the Government intend to do if the planning application, as I believe the Government intend, leads to a decision to turn down this proposal. I want to know from him whether the Government’s current position—they must have some position on this—is to call it in or to accept what the experts and the politicians on Westminster City Council believe is the right decision. I give my noble friend a little warning that I will get up and ask again if he does not produce an answer to that.

My main reason for speaking is that, like the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, I was at one time the Minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport responsible not just for the arts but for heritage. One of the most shocking things about this project relates to the 1900 Act, which was set up in good faith in perpetuity to protect these gardens for the use of residents and other users. We are seeing a blatant disregard for what legislators decided. Admittedly that was a long time ago, but for many years no Governments have decided to disapply the Act to this important garden. The Minister has to say why he thinks this disapplication is acceptable. It is profoundly wrong on social, environmental and political grounds, and in terms of thinking about the future of this particular part of London.

I want to pick up on what the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said about the heritage issues. It is shocking that UNESCO—an extremely important part of the United Nations’ activities, protecting our culture and our heritage around the world—should be ignored. I just do not think a British Government should do that. We are committed members of the United Nations, and we have been committed to UNESCO. On a number of occasions I, as a Minister, sat with my officials discussing how we would ensure that all the British world heritage sites were properly maintained, sustained and cared for, and how we should carefully select new ones when we had an opportunity to do so. As it happened, when I was the Minister responsible, I selected Kew Gardens, which was not a world heritage site but absolutely deserved to be. We gave it some funding to make sure that it could prepare an application for it.

I really urge the Minister to discuss this further, not only in his own department but in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has some responsibility for heritage issues and for what UNESCO decides to do. Perhaps he could let the Committee know whether any discussions have taken place with his colleagues in that department, and whether there has been any direct contact with UNESCO about the decision to ignore what UNESCO has been saying for the last five years. It is also important that Historic England, an agency funded by the Government, has also come out totally against using the site for this project.

I rest my case. I will not say any more, but I support what has already been said, not just on this matter but by the other contributors to this debate on the whole area of planning.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, who noble Lords will recall suggested at a previous session that I said that people who were against this were antisemitic, which was clearly wrong. Most people would have sought all kinds of ways to find their way around those words, but I am delighted to say that the noble Baroness most graciously apologised to me. I accept that apology and I accept that it was made in good faith, and I have to say that I think it takes a great person to admit when they have made a mistake.

I place on record my gratitude to the Government for the announcement made last night at the Community Security Trust dinner by the Home Secretary that the new memorial will receive the protection of the new offence of damage to a public memorial. That is an important announcement, and we are grateful for it.

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I can talk only about how the inspector, in his decision, has taken different views—opposing and supporting views—and has taken evidence from Historic England.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister—I know he wants to get on—but perhaps he could respond to my questions. What discussions have taken place between those who propose this project and the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO? It has a committee that has pronounced, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said. Why have the Government not taken into account its views—or, if they have, when did they, and did they persuade the committee to change its mind?

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[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I had hoped for an answer from the Minister about the atmosphere to surround a memorial. Can one imagine, for example, the Cenotaph or any other dignified war memorial in this country being right in the middle of a building site with, as I said, concrete mixers, builders drinking their cups of tea, and the dirt, dust and noise? Why is that okay for a Holocaust memorial when, I submit, it would not be contemplated for a moment in relation to any other holy commemorative or significant religious site anywhere else in the world, let alone in this country?

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I will add to what the noble Baroness has just said. The Minister made clear that he wants the experience of visiting this Holocaust memorial and learning centre to be valuable from an educational point of view. I do not think that any teacher would be particularly happy about bringing their older primary school pupils or younger secondary school pupils to an environment like this. It is not a good learning environment. There are obviously so many other much better places for this to happen than a small park that will be used—not for ever but for quite a long period—as a base for building a renewed Palace of Westminster. It just does not make any sense. Will the Minister take this issue back and discuss it again with his colleagues to see whether some change of mind can result from it?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have finished my contribution and just want to ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Blackstone]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 3, leave out “, over or under” and insert “or over”

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by correcting the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook. I think she suggested that I had my name down on the first group; I did not. I may have misheard her but I was not alone in hearing that. If she did not, that is fine.

I have a couple of other opening remarks. I really hope that the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, who is not in his place at the moment, and the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, will respect the views of those who are opposed to the Bill and not in any sense intimate or suggest that we are not in favour of a Holocaust memorial or indeed a learning centre. That is not the case as far as I am concerned and I do not believe that it is the case among any other members of the Committee who are speaking against the Bill.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

Can the noble Baroness point to a single sentence I have uttered over, say, the last 10 years where I have suggested that?

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

I am not alone, because I have talked to one or two people in the intervening time, when we were taking part in the Division, who believed that that was what was intimated from what the noble Lord said.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

So is the answer to that no?

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

I will reread what the noble Lord said and come back to him if in fact if what I understood does not seem to be held up in the Hansard report of what he said.

I also want to say that I think I am one of the few Labour members of this Committee who are speaking against the Bill. I know many Labour Members who are not taking part but who are very concerned, and I expressed my worries about this to the Minister. I do not like opposing the Government on any issue and I am not known to be serially disloyal. However, there are two particular things in my past that make me worried about the Bill.

The first is that I am a former Minister responsible for heritage, including heritage parks, and I think it is a great and grave mistake to change the 1900 Act that was set up to protect heritage parks in a way that will lead to great damage done to this park. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Sterling and Lord Hamilton, that this is a beautiful, much used but small park which will not have the same role as it had in the past because of putting this very large—from the point of view of the size of the park—memorial and learning centre in it.

The second reason I am worried about this Bill as it is currently proposed is my interest in education. I do not think that the learning centre as currently proposed is fit for purpose. I do not want to make a Second Reading speech now but want to go straight in to my amendments in this group. I will speak to Amendments 2, 3, 4, 6 and 13, all of which concern the learning centre, which is at present an intrinsic part of the design of the Holocaust memorial as proposed by the sponsors.

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I mean “we” as in the Government. Can I continue my final point? The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, made the very important point about rising anti-Semitism. Let me be clear. Anti-Semitism is completely abhorrent and has no place in our society, which is why we are taking a strong lead in tackling it in all its forms. The Government are particularly concerned about the sharp rise in anti-Semitism and will not tolerate this. We have allocated £54 million for the Community Security Trust to continue its vital work until 2028, providing security to schools, synagogues and other Jewish community buildings. We have been actively exploring a more integrated and cohesive approach to tackling all forms of racial and religious hatred. We continue to work closely with the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, in his important work of IHRA. Also, the noble Lord, Lord Mann, continues his work as an anti-Semitism adviser to the Government. On that note, I respectfully ask my noble friend Lady Blackstone to withdraw her amendment and not move her other amendments in this group.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I listened very carefully to what the Minister said in reply to this group of amendments and I have to admit that I am deeply disappointed. I did not hear any spirit of compromise whatever in what he said, and no attempt to reach out on the many points that were made by Members of the Committee.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I am so sorry to stop my noble friend in her tracks but I said very clearly that I am happy to sit down with anybody, post-Committee, to look at any particular issues. I reminded her that I sat down with noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and had a drop-in session available for noble Lords to visit and see the presentation. My only focus, if we look at the Bill, are these two clauses, which I am trying to promote and make sure we can work through. However, I understand there are a lot of issues and concerns, which I think are for a planning stage of the Bill.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

I am grateful for the Minister’s offer to sit down with various Members of the Committee, but that is not compromising today, which is what I was asking for and expecting. I tried to set out as clearly as I could why what is being proposed for this learning centre is inadequate. There is not enough space for it; the proposals for a computerised exhibition are deeply disappointing; and what I hoped the Minister might say is that he would take this away, have a look at it and discuss it with his officials and others who have expertise in the provision of learning centres on this subject. There was none of that.

I can only say that I am disappointed, as other Members of the Committee will be. The Minister said at the beginning that he attached importance to education as far as this project is concerned, and I am grateful for that. But it is not about attaching importance just to education but to high-quality education that we can be proud of and that many people will want to experience. I do not believe that that is what is being proposed here, so I ask again that before we reach the next stage of the Bill, he will come back with something more positive about how to improve it.

My last point is that I was really surprised that my noble friend would be so dismissive about Sir Richard Evans’s comments. He happens to have been the vice-master of Birkbeck throughout my time there, so we were very close colleagues. He is the most eminent historian in this country of German history of this period. I do not want to sound patronising, but the Minister should not be so dismissive of somebody of that kind of commitment and expertise. I hope he will look again at that.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

Just before my noble friend concludes and, I hope, withdraws her amendment, clearly, a lot of these matters are for planning. The Committee will understand that I might not be able to satisfy the very detailed and passionate contributions made by many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I did not address his point about security because we will have a whole group on security arrangements. I was not ignoring it but wanted to make sure that I brought up that point.

On the point about Richard Evans, as we see today, everyone has a different view. I respect everyone’s opinion but we see in this debate that everyone has a different perspective. As I understand it, we are all well intentioned and want to make sure that we put our case across.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

I thank the Minister. I am delighted to hear that there is to be a proper planning process. He would not give a final commitment to that happening and said it was another Minister’s responsibility. I believe that that Minister said earlier, as a shadow Minister before the election, that there should be a proper planning procedure. Meanwhile, I will withdraw my amendment, but I indicate to the Minister that I will want to come back at the next stage to discuss having a better place for a learning centre than is currently proposed.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.