Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Robathan

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend 100% about preserving the truth, but I do not think the truth is necessarily preserved by this particular proposed learning centre. We need something a lot better, frankly. It was said in 2015, as I understand it, that the Imperial War Museum wanted the learning centre there. I went round the galleries of the Imperial War Museum on the Holocaust—I think they are permanent—and they too are very impressive. We can enhance them. I am not a planner, but I would not object to that. The Imperial War Museum has space and can enhance the view and have an impressive learning centre. We need an impressive learning centre for this appalling crime against humanity—and, to back up what the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, I am afraid that this proposal is not for an impressive centre.

[Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment is specifically about the underground nature of this project. I have three brief questions which I would like to put to the Minister in the hope that he can answer them when he addresses the House. The first relates to what my noble friend Lord Pickles said—notwithstanding the passion with which spoke this evening and the dedication, which I am sure we all admire, he has shown to this project for many years. He told us about other memorials that are either wholly or partially subterranean, but no one has explained, no one has given a positive reason, why it is a good idea to put a memorial underground. If we are proud to erect this memorial, to invest money in it and to care about it, why would we hide it away underground instead of putting it somewhere where it can be properly admired and seen?

When I say “it”, I have to divide that into two parts, because on the one hand we have a learning centre and on the other hand we have a memorial. I am sure that most people who are paying attention to this debate today do not know what we are talking about. They think we are debating whether there should be a memorial or not. We are not. We are debating whether there should be a learning centre or not. No one is against a memorial. So my first question is: what is good about putting a learning centre underground rather than overground, which would be so much easier and more accessible for children, old people and others?

Having looked at the plans for this project, my second question is: where do people go briefly to pay their respects to those who died in the Holocaust? We are told that people coming to visit this memorial will come by bus, go through security and then go underground. That is a large project. It would be a big undertaking for anyone who was visiting London and wanted to pay their respects to the whole issue of the Holocaust. Where would you go to lay flowers? Where would you go to take a picture to send to your family back home to say, “I’ve been to the Holocaust Memorial”?

When I first knew about this project, what I imagined was a beautiful statue—a statue between the Burghers of Calais and the Buxton Memorial, which would provide, as my noble friend Lord Finkelstein movingly said in one of the sessions of the Committee on this Bill, a place to celebrate many occasions in world history when good has overcome evil. So why not have a beautiful memorial of that kind, which can be easily visited, seen and admired, and that will not cause any problems, and put the learning centre somewhere else? No one has explained why that cannot be done.

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Robathan

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Is the Minister giving way or has he concluded?

[Mr Robathan]

I have concluded.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Is the hon. Lady indicating that she would like to speak?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lady Hermon]

I would indeed like to speak on this group of amendments, so thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to do so.

I am very surprised, and exceedingly disappointed, that the Minister seems not to have read the Belfast agreement. If he had done so, he would understand that it contains an entire page and chapter dedicated to human rights. In fact, the agreement creates the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and gives it, among other things, the statutory obligation to bring forward and advise the British Government on a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland which contains rights particular to Northern Ireland. That obligation is in the Good Friday agreement or Belfast agreement—whatever one chooses to call it, it is still the same thing. So I was disappointed that he put it on the record this afternoon that he does not understand that the agreement contains a specific obligation about a Bill of Rights in Northern Ireland. Whether or not we all wish to have one is a completely different matter, but the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) has made a very valid point.

I listened carefully to the Minister’s response to the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). When pushed strongly by various interventions, the Minister gave a categorical assurance that there would be consultation before a report was brought to this Chamber or indeed the other House. I ask him to give the same categorical assurance, and reassurance, that any report brought forward by the Secretary of State would be discussed not only in another House, but in this Chamber.

When I came to the Chamber to debate this Bill for the final time, the atmosphere was cordial. I apologised for being a little late, but the atmosphere was cordial at that stage. It grieves me to have to say that the Minister has unnecessarily churned up a lot of disagreement and annoyance, because there is now confusion about what these amendments mean. It would have been helpful to the House if better clarification had been given in his wind-up and if he had not wound up so very quickly that other hon. Members to whose points he was responding did not have an opportunity to have their views aired properly in this House. I am disappointed to be saying that on the record.

I welcome the Minister’s appointment to the Northern Ireland Office. He had not been particularly well, having had an operation on his leg, and we are delighted to see him back in this House. However, may I just urge him to spend a little time, before he next speaks in a Northern Ireland debate, reading the Belfast agreement, which is supported by thousands and thousands of people? I will give him this opportunity to correct the record by allowing him to intervene on me to show this House that he has read it in depth and that somehow the provisions on the Bill of Rights escaped his attention.

[Mr Robathan]

With the leave of the House—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The Minister does not require the leave of the House. He may intervene on the hon. Lady.

[Mr Robathan]

I understood from the Belfast agreement, which I have to confess I read some 16 years ago when it came out, that the setting up of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission dealt with the particular issue of human rights. If I am wrong, I apologise.