King’s Speech

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I am deeply distressed and depressed that I have to speak, as I do this evening, on education—though my account could just as well have been on one of the other days of debate on the gracious Speech. I chose education because that is where the current crisis of Jew hatred starts. There is a cancer at the heart of our education system: the antisemitism which the gracious Speech promised to tackle. Even today, after I wrote my draft, a report came from Parents Against Antisemitism describing how little children are reverting to the old antisemitic tropes and giving Hitler salutes to their Jewish classmates. Their teachers do not dissuade them, and the teaching unions indulge in Israel hatred.

Because antisemitism is now disguised as anti-Zionism, this paves the way for Jewish students to be subjected to systemic humiliation and violence. It is set out in the Union of Jewish Students and StandWithUs testimonies, which is horrifying reading. Jewish students have been accused of using the blood of non-Jews to make matzah, and there have been Arabic chants calling for the killing of the Jews on our reputable university campuses. The targeting of Muslim or Chinese students on allegedly political grounds would not be tolerated for a moment. University authorities have ignored the abuse or belittled it.

Will the Government ensure that vice-chancellors, head teachers and their unions are summoned to appear before relevant parliamentary Select Committees to provide an account of their institutional responses and use of their disciplinary procedures? Public appearance worked in the United States, where university presidents had to own up. Will the Government call on universities to regulate and ban encampments, occupations, face coverings and megaphones near classes and meetings, and for the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti- semitism? This is all compatible with freedom of speech.

The Government must acknowledge that Holocaust education and memorials have achieved nothing for students, except to teach them that Nazi symbols and parallels are useful tools for harming Jews. It has failed to teach them about Jewish history, life and Israel. The Government have gone along with the Jew hatred by recognising a State of Palestine, contrary to international law, when the hostages were not even free. They have cast Israel as inimical, and though Zionism and Judaism are distinct, we all understand that the obsessive focus on Israel, displayed by this Government and by the BBC, is not helping. They ignore worse tragedies in, for example, Sudan and Nigeria, and Pakistan’s expulsion of Afghans. Our right reverend Prelates should be going into churches and schools to tell them that antisemitism is wrong, and they should be leading the marches against it.

Well-meaning actors in the Government have got it all wrong. This Government have specifically and shamefully refused to allow the planned learning centre in Westminster to focus on the Jewish genocide and on antisemitism. They have universalised the Holocaust and removed its Jewishness. It is likely to be co-opted into antisemitic narratives and, frankly, the current plan is an insult to our intelligence. The Government should condemn the Islamists and the extreme left in this area. Will they overhaul Holocaust education and turn it into lessons about the living, not the dead? Will they promote a Jewish museum to explore the amazing 1,000-year story of Jews in Britain, their contributions and their survival?