Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

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

[Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)]

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

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

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

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

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

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

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

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

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

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

Obviously we can all differ on what is reasonable and what is modest, but it was not a misrepresentation of what anyone said. I just read back what people said.

[Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, rise to support Amendment 11. As my noble friend has just said, if Amendment 11 were adhered to, it is possible that the various sides of this argument could come together with a solution that would be acceptable to everyone. I have never read any newspaper article or heard anybody say that there should not be a memorial.

My noble friend Lord Finkelstein described rather movingly the various other memorials in the gardens. They are memorials to good triumphing over evil in the development of human history. It would be totally right to have another such memorial in that place that could be revered. There would be no question of having a kiosk selling ice cream and burgers beside it. It would be a memorial. If it fitted into the description in Amendment 11 in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, it would be an appropriate size, and we would all hope that it would be designed by an artist who would produce a beautiful memorial. The problem is that unless we adhere to Amendment 11, there will also be a learning centre underground which, as various noble Lords have said, would bring with it so many risks. The greatest risk of all is why, if we want to produce a proper memorial to a terrible period in history when 6 million Jews died and many more suffered, would we put it underground where it could not be seen or admired and simply caused problems?

Let us have a memorial, a beautiful memorial that everyone can admire, but let us have a learning centre somewhere else where it would be safe, accessible and non-controversial, a place where children could be taken and, yes, possibly have their ice-cream and burgers if they are on a school trip, a different place where it would not get in the way of a beautiful memorial. It is difficult to understand how this Government, who profess to care about green spaces, about children not being on their phones but being outside and about the preservation of the environment should want to support a plan to take away the utility of one of the very few green spaces in this part of London.

This is not about just Victoria Tower Gardens, Parliament and history. It is about the way in which families in this area live their everyday lives. Children play in that park. I had a child who played in that park every day because his mother—me—did not have time to take him any further afield, as I was constantly in the House of Commons. That park is important to families and to the welfare of children. Why on earth would we hide under that park a learning centre when we could put up a beautiful memorial which everyone unanimously supports?

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the last two speakers because one of the problems that we face in this Committee is that it seems we are being asked in this Bill to approve something, the details of which we do not really know. A lot of the debate has been about planning consent. The point—I am proposing to come back with an amendment later that may elaborate on it further—is that the 1900 Act imposed certain statutory restrictive covenants—I think that is a fair way of putting it—in respect of this building and Victoria Tower Gardens.

The history of restrictive covenants goes back a long time in English land law and antedates planning consent. The point about a restrictive covenant is that it is not applied against the same criteria as when planning permission is granted. We are being asked to release the restrictive covenants when we do not know what the actual proposition in front of us will be. It is a case of “Rely on me and trust me”, but I am afraid I do not. That is why we need—