Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I am pleased that the Government have allocated additional days to discuss the Bill, but I am slightly concerned that we are becoming repetitious and are in danger of spending more time on it than we are spending in Committee on reform of the House of Lords.

I have a couple of points. If I am honest, I do not entirely understand Amendment 17. My reading of the Bill is that we are not repealing the 1900 Act, we are just disapplying it. Anyone wishing to build outside the area that has planning permission would have to go through this process again and would require a special Act of Parliament to disapply the 1900 Act.

We should also be clear about Mr WH Smith—a name that looks like it is about to disappear from our high streets. His principal concern was to prevent wharfs being built next to the House because of the risks that would have in terms of industrial activity, and the risk of fire it posed to the House. I am sure that his wishes are not in any way being diminished by the various statues that have gone up in the intervening period.

I am sorry to repeat this, but Parliament has long decided how to deal with matters such as this, and it is through the planning Acts. They have a process whereby objectors can object and ideas are tested. That seems the most appropriate way of doing it, not setting up a separate system where the House of Lords is judge and jury in its own case.

I recognise that people have strong views, but I am disappointed that we are hearing repeats of things that are plainly untrue. There is no suggestion that this will be anything other than something that commemorates the Holocaust—the Shoah. Any references to other genocides are peripheral and probably will occur under two circumstances. One of the outcomes of that terrible event was the creation of crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide. They give the lie to “never again”. It is important that this memorial is not celebratory of British involvement but is “warts and all”, to use Mr Cromwell’s phrase.

The question is: who supports this? It is unseemly to play Top Trumps with Holocaust survivors. I could reel off a whole bunch of Holocaust survivors who have been supportive of this from the very beginning.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go with the Minister to Ron Arad’s headquarters up in Chalk Farm, where there is a beautiful model laid out, which I hope the Committee will get an opportunity to look at—certainly, the House should do so—as many of the worries would disappear. Far from this memorial dominating the Buxton memorial, it would lie considerably below the very top of it. Far from it dominating the park, it would enhance it, and it seems very sensible. The Minister and I were fortunate to be joined by the Chief Rabbi, who has taken a great interest in this matter, as did the late Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory. I can remember lots of discussions with Rabbi Sacks on this.

The Chief Rabbi is entirely happy with the design, the purpose and the like. I am not Jewish; I cannot make a judgment, but I think I am entitled to take the views of the Chief Rabbi in preference to those of others in this Committee. I hope, now that we are close to the possibility of coming to a decision on this, we will not drag our feet and repeat points that we made earlier, interesting though they are. Can we just get on with the job?

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I was not planning to speak on this group, but I want to respond to some of the points that have been made. I agree completely with what the noble Baroness said about antisemitism and the marches in London—I think she knows that. She, the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and I were all at a briefing by the historians working on the contents for this, who assured us that it would be specifically and only about the Holocaust, not about genocides generally, and that it would not relativise or compare the Holocaust to other genocides. We have been assured about that repeatedly by the Minister and the people working on the content, and we should accept that assurance.

On the question of the location, the Holocaust Commission recommended a new national memorial in central London

“to attract the largest possible number of visitors and to make a bold statement about the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust”.

Victoria Tower Gardens was chosen as the right setting because it would be a permanent reminder, as we have said before, to people next door in Parliament, to UK citizens and to visitors from all over the world of what can happen when politics is poisoned by racism and extremism.

If you go to Berlin, you will see its Holocaust memorial and learning centre right at the centre of its national life. If you go to Paris, you will struggle to find it, and in Vienna, it is a bizarre concrete block tucked away in a square, miles from anywhere. It would be much better to have this right at the centre of our national life, too.

There are serious voices in the Jewish community who do not support this, not least the noble Baroness, and I respect them, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of Holocaust survivors and refugees, their families and the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community support this project. As we heard a moment ago, the Chief Rabbi is not only happy about this project but described the venue as inspirational—his word—and said,

“it is in a prime place of … prominence and it is at the heart of our democracy”.

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[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. As I understand it—and I am prepared to be corrected—neither of these amendments amend the plan. They just say that the plan must be stuck to, so all they are concerned about is what I describe as mission creep. Secondly, vanishingly few of us—certainly not me, and, I think, nobody else here—object to the idea of a memorial. Thirdly, he will understand that no Minister, of any party, can bind their successors. Assurances are fine, but circumstances change and so can the arrangements and the background to which assurances were given. All these amendments are seeking to do, I think, is to make sure that the assurances given by my party’s Front Bench—and, no doubt, by the noble Lord, Lord Khan, in due course—can be put into legislation, into statutory form, so we have assurances that it will not go any further than that.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

People have argued against this proposal from day one. They have argued against not just the location but the idea of having a memorial and it being in Victoria Tower Gardens. I accept and understand that the tactics now are to say, “Well, look, we are not against the memorial being in Victoria Tower Gardens, but we do not like the design or the size”, or some other spurious reason, and to drag this whole process out for as long as possible and make it as controversial as possible in the hope that, in the end, the Government will change their plans or drop the whole thing in its entirety.

I say this to noble Lords: people can table all the amendments they like, and we can have all the lengthy debates they want. I think there is cross-party support for this project. There is majority support in both Houses and, as I have said, widespread support in the Jewish community, too. It is about time we stopped tabling amendments and having lengthy, repetitive debates on the same points week after week. I can see that the noble Lord is about to get up and make all the same points once again, but we will respond to them, and we can drag this out for as long as he wants.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I cannot speak for my noble friends, but I deeply resent the suggestion that our suggestions for a proper memorial are somehow a tactic to delay and destroy the Bill. All of us on this side of the argument are deeply committed to a proper memorial, the memorial the Holocaust Commission recommended: one which is appropriately British and which recognises the killing of 6 million Jews, not the thing that was accepted by the last Government. I exempt the Minister from most of the blame for this; he is carrying on the vanity proposals of the Cameron Government.

I want to get to the bottom of a comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Austin, and my noble friend Lord Pickles: that it is purely for the Shoah, and no other genocides will be there. But paragraph 3 of the Explanatory Notes refers to

“the persecution … of other groups … subsequently”.

On Second Reading, the Minister said:

“The learning centre will also address subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur”.—[Official Report, 4/9/24; col. GC 1224.]


Is the noble Lord saying that the Minister was lying when he told the House on Second Reading that it would commemorate other genocides? Was he telling the truth, was he misguided, or was it a lie? [Interruption.]

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Let me respond to that point; it is a valid question, and I want to answer it. Every single Member of this House and the other place had the opportunity to sit down with the historian responsible for the content. As far as I am aware, the only three people who have bothered to take part in any of these debates are myself, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Pickles. I think it fair to say that all three of us were impressed by what we were told by the historian, who assured us—we have also had this assurance from the Minister and the relevant officials—that this will be a memorial to the Holocaust, not to genocides in general. It may be the case that, as people leave, there is a board saying, “Since then, there have been atrocities in Cambodia and Darfur, so clearly, we have not yet learned the lessons”. But this is specifically and solely about the Holocaust.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

In his argumentum ad historian, is the noble Lord suggesting that the rest of us do not know our history of the Holocaust? If so, that is extremely insulting.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Of course I am not suggesting that; I would never do so.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

That is what the noble Lord just suggested.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Hold on. Let me be really clear about this. Of course I am not suggesting that—not for one moment. What I said, very specifically—the noble Lord should concede this—was about the historian responsible for the content of the memorial. I was speaking about that specifically and not about anybody else’s knowledge of the history of the Holocaust. I would never do that. I would not presume to do that—certainly not to the noble Lord; I really would not.

I offer this right now: let us ask that historian to come back to Parliament before our next session. I hope that everybody here who is concerned about this matter will attend. They can sit down with him, listen to his assurances, and look at the plans and the content in detail.

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Austin, says that he wants to move things on in this Committee; I completely agree with him. So why does not he let the Minister answer the direct question about the assurances—or non-assurances—he gave about the content, rather than wasting our time with talk about historians, very interesting though it is? I attended an online seminar, and it is nonsense to say that no other noble Lords listened to what the historian had to propose. Instead of the noble Lord speaking for the Government, it would be interesting if, in due course, we moved on and let the Minister answer the charge that has been made by my noble friend Lord Blencathra and others.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord seems to have no objection to people making lengthy speeches on all sorts of points and tabling a million amendments that support his argument, but he objects now. This is a debate: people make points and others are allowed to respond to them. That is how it works. I offer the noble Lord this: if he can get everybody else not to make lengthy, repetitive speeches on spurious points, I will be very happy not to respond to them.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

What about the consultation’s representation of the Jewish community? That has never happened. There is a saying in the Jewish community: when you have two Jews, there are three opinions, and if you have one synagogue you have to have another one because someone has to have a synagogue they will not go to. A Rabbi of the Orthodox persuasion, which is about one-third of the community—he is a leader there—is opposed to this project, as is Rabbi Dr Romain, the recent leader of the Reform Judaism element. There is no one view. There has been no proper consultation, and most people have no idea what the design is or what will be in the learning centre.

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[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords, and the Minister in particular—I would like to take up his offer of letting us see a model. That would be a very good idea, because the basic problem behind a lot of our amendments on this side of the argument is a complete lack of trust. This saga has been going for so long, with so many twists and turns. We have managed to spend £21 million so far on professional fees, and it seems to just be drifting on and on. To stop uncertainty, particularly about dimensions and sizes, and to see everything at scale would be really helpful.

Let me reassure my noble friend Lady Scott on the answers given: I do not for a moment suspect that she was doing anything other than reading them out, so please do not spend any time checking. They are all there. In summarising the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Austin and Lord Pickles, and all of us who joined in, I am reminded that at Second Reading, a noble Baroness on the Cross Benches—I apologise; I have rather ungallantly forgotten who—said that the expert opinions, whether of Jewish dignitaries or of historians, are really divided along geographical lines as much as anything else. Those of us who live and work near here are completely against the learning centre in particular, and those who live a long way away are, naturally, far more relaxed about it, because they are not going to be affected and it all sounds like a really good idea. That rang true at the time as being a very good dividing line.

We now await the planning stage. We are very suspicious. I remember Robert Jenrick MP called it in last time, and as my noble friend Lord Blencathra said, many further twists and turns are possible, with government manoeuvres to get round it. It has been six years since it last went to planning—it has happened before, and it can happen again. Those are the reasons behind the suspicion, and I respectfully ask the Minister to bear them in mind.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord has just made a point about the basis on which people support or object to this proposal. First, it is not true. I used to live a few hundred yards away from the proposed location—my kids played in the playground—and I supported it all the way through. It is an extraordinary admission to say that the reason we are against it is that we live nearby. If members of this Committee were on a local council planning committee, or even a parish council, they would not be allowed to take part in a discussion about a proposal with an interest like that—on the basis that this is where they live.

I gently make the point that we are here in the House of Lords to make decisions solely on the basis of the public interest; we are not supposed to take decisions on the basis of our personal or private interests, or where we might or might not live. That is not why we are here. In fact, I think I am correct in saying that when we are appointed to the House and the Letters Patent are read out before we take the oath, we are required to set aside all private interests. This is something I have long suspected. It has never been admitted before, but I think it is an extraordinary admission.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

Before my noble friend replies, I point out to the noble Lord that the Lords Select Committee deliberately excluded anyone who did not have a personal local interest or live close enough to be affected by this. That is quite a different matter from noble Lords’ consideration in this Committee. The Select Committee was restricted to hearing only noble Lords who could show a personal interest that might be affected—their property, their use of the park or whatever. The noble Lord should probably get up to speed on the powers of a special Select Committee.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

To respond to—

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord has made a point directed to me and I want to respond to it. The public watching this will be pretty shocked, frankly, to discover that Members of your Lordships’ House think they have the right to intervene in committees such as this, on matters that affect them personally, on the basis of where they live, in a way they would never be able to do on a local authority planning committee or even a parish council. We cannot allow the public to get the impression that there is one rule for privileged Members of the House of Lords living in properties in Westminster, and another rule that affects every other member of the public sitting on any other committee in a parish or local council. We should not allow that.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

To reply to the noble Lord, Lord Austin, I was not for a moment suggesting that anybody here, on either side of the argument, is motivated by that. I was reporting on a summary at Second Reading, which was a generalisation. But time is marching on, and I wish to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for his experience and decades of work in keeping us and our country safe. There are few people who know more about these issues than him, so of course his views should be taken very seriously and there should be proper security risk assessments. I do not think that anybody will argue about that, but I think we need to bear in mind a couple of other points. As I understand it, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is that the learning centre in the gardens is too big a risk. I know that other noble Lords here today feel that the learning centre should be elsewhere, but Westminster is the most secure and protected place in the country, and if the learning centre and memorial are not safe here, where would they be safe?

Secondly, if one or the other were moved on security grounds, residents near any other proposed location would be completely justified in saying, “Look, if it is too dangerous for Westminster, how could it possibly be built near me?” Of course they would say that. That is what people near the Imperial War Museum, the Barbican or elsewhere would say.

Thirdly, if we think about this and take it to its logical conclusion, this is an argument against having the memorial or learning centre anywhere at all. In fact, if we take this argument to its logical conclusion, it is an argument against having anything that people think is controversial or dangerous and which they might oppose being built anywhere. This point has been glossed over, but it is an important point that we should take seriously because we should not be making a decision on the basis that we are scared about what racists or extremists might do. We have to deal with what racists or extremists might do.

The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, made a couple of other points that I want to pick up on. I do not think that anyone has suggested, anywhere, that there will be 1 million visitors to the memorial or the learning centre, which I think was the figure that he suggested.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I was present at a meeting with Mr Ed Balls and Michael Gove, and Mr Ed Balls said there would be 3 million a year. He said it would be the most visited memorial in the whole world.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Well, I am not sure I would take Ed Balls’s figures on this. It is not going to be 3 million. I have talked to the government officials about this, and I think that the estimate is in fact 500,000, but the important point to bear in mind is that already 25 million people visit Westminster every year, and many of the people who will visit the memorial will be people who are already visiting Westminster or who work here. That is the important point I want to make, and if we break it down, it actually works out at a few hundred people an hour.

The noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, also made a point about transport. My understanding is that this is estimated to attract 11 coaches a day. It is on a main bus route, and many more buses than that already go past each day. I do not know, but I would have thought that Parliament Square attracts hundreds of thousands of vehicles a day, so again, I think that the traffic and the number of visitors that this memorial will attract will be a fraction of the amount of traffic and number of visitors already visiting Westminster .

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My noble friend Lord Robathan has made a very good point, and my noble friend Lord Pickles is right that there is only one Holocaust. But the briefing for this centre says that other genocides will also be commemorated there. So there will be things about Holodomor, and possibly Rwanda, and Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao or whoever they may be. Though there is only one really evil Holocaust, the Shoah, other genocides will also be commemorated. In my opinion, that dilutes the purpose of a Holocaust memorial.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I was one of the few Members of either House—alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, who will confirm what I am saying—who attended a meeting organised to discuss the contents of the learning centre. The meeting was addressed by a historian who made it absolutely clear that this is not a learning centre about genocides; it is a learning centre specifically about the Holocaust, and it will not relativise the Holocaust and it will not compare the Holocaust to other genocides. The only extent to which other genocides may be mentioned is on the way out, where it might say something along the lines of, “Since then, there have been other genocides, showing we have not yet learned lessons”. The learning centre will be devoted specifically and solely to the Holocaust. That is what it is.

I was not going to take part in this debate but while I am on my feet, I have some questions for the right reverend Prelate. Why did he fix on three days? What was the basis for it and who did he consult? Is it based on the number of Holocaust commemorations? Did he speak to Holocaust survivors? Why did he decide that just three days in the entire year might be appropriate to remember the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis?

I point out gently to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that I do not see what would be objectionable about people visiting the Holocaust memorial and sitting on the grass to eat their sandwiches afterwards. Why should they not have a picnic in the park if they choose to do so? It is what many other visitors to the park do. How would he distinguish between people visiting the memorial and having their lunch and people visiting the park and having their lunch? Many of the people visiting the memorial will be people who would visit the park anyway. Lots of people who visit the memorial will be people who live within the vicinity of the memorial or work in Westminster, so why would he object? I assume that he would not object to any of those people eating their sandwiches in the park. Why would he object to visitors to the memorial doing so?

My final point is that lots of the contributions to this suggest that the memorial and learning centre are going to take over the whole park. We have just heard a speech about land use as though it is going to transform the nature of the park. I gently point out to everybody in these discussions that the memorial and learning centre will in fact take up just 7.5% of the land in the park. I am sure that the Minister will confirm this when he concludes. It is a complete fallacy that it is going to take over the whole park and totally transform this part of Westminster.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, will he just accept that if 3,000 to 4,000 people come every day—those are the numbers we have been given—that will affect the way the park operates from the point of view of the local residents? I am not saying that it is impossible to do, but will he accept that there is a distinct difference when that volume of people comes to visit the memorial and learning centre? It is bound to make a difference. To suggest that it will make no difference at all and it will be business as usual is naive, if I may make so bold.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

What I will say is that millions of people visit Westminster all year round. Tourists from all over the world come to Westminster and some of those will visit the memorial. I do not think that this will add significantly to the numbers that we already see visiting Westminster.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

The noble Lord referred to me in his remarks and I wish to respond. It is a matter of numbers. I came through the park today, as I do every day, and there were a few people out exercising their little doggies and picking up their mess, and kiddies having little picnics, but if we are going to have these 40 busloads of people eating their sandwiches, the park will be absolutely overwhelmed by excessive numbers and all those other activities will be frozen out, because of the dominance of numbers of those visiting the centre.

If I may say so, the noble Lord was absolutely wrong. I need to open my laptop and find the report. He may have talked to an expert who said that the Holocaust will be the only thing commemorated, but that is not what the official report says. The official report mentions other genocides that will also be commemorated. Of course, it does not refer to them as a Holocaust, because they are not, but it refers to the commemoration of other genocides. That was mentioned in the official Holocaust Commission report and it is referred to in the report published by the department, so it is incorrect to say that the centre will purely be for the Holocaust. I wish it were and I would like to see amendments saying that it should be devoted to the Holocaust only.

The other point about the size is also utterly wrong. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, it will be four pokey little rooms underground and 48% of the construction underground will not be available to the public: it is ducts, stairways and non-usable space. So we will have an inadequate learning centre far too small for the purpose but far too large for the park, visited, if the Government are right, by tens of thousands of people who will inevitably, in the nicest possible way, with their picnics and so on, squeeze out the other users of that park whom I see every single day.

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[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is completely correct to make the point about Berlin, where the memorial and the learning centre are right next door to the parliament building, right at the centre of national life. It is really significant. If you go to Washington, you will see its memorial and museum right at the centre of national life. If you go to Paris, you would barely know that the Holocaust had taken place and, if you go to Vienna, it is a bizarre concrete box tucked away in a square in the middle of nowhere. The point he makes is exactly right. Next to Parliament, showing what happens when politics is poisoned by racism and extremism—that is why it should be built in Westminster.

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lord, it is quite clear from the exchanges that we have had this afternoon that the site of this learning centre is extremely controversial. It seems to me that a memorial to 6 million people is almost sacred. It should not be built in a place that arouses controversy of this sort. It is disrespectful to the dead that it should be a subject of controversy and, because it is a subject of controversy, it should be moved to somewhere else.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

I am sorry to comment yet again, but it seems to me deeply ironic that people who oppose it, and of course the controversy, then complain about the controversy and say it should be built somewhere else. It also seems ironic that people who have, as the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, said, campaigned against it and caused the delays now say that the delays are a reason for siting it somewhere else. I do not understand these points.

[Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)]

I remind noble Lords that interventions should be brief and for points of clarification. Can we now proceed with the debate? Thank you.

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[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, I feel slightly in the position of that well-known 16th-century Spanish jurist at the University of Salamanca who was arrested by the Inquisition when giving a lecture. Fourteen years later, after he was released, he came back and said: “As I was saying before I was interrupted”. My simple proposition is that we should be entitled to know in detail what is proposed before we are asked to remove the covenants of which we are custodian. I shall leave it at that.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, there is a reason why we do not know the detail. It is because it is for the planning system, and this Bill allows the planning system to deal with the memorial. As I understand it, that is the whole point. It is not for us to grant, debate or decide on planning grounds that will be dealt with by the planning system when it eventually gets there, after Parliament has completed its deliberations.

I was not going to comment on this group, but I want very gently to respond to something that I think the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said earlier. She suggested that the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, had paraded his victimhood, which, frankly—

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

To correct the record, I did not say that.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

I am sorry, it was the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay—

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I am sorry, but I really think we should focus on the Bill in front of us. It is just not helpful to have this to-and-fro between people and to make accusations about things that were not said. I will be interested to go back and see the printed record when it comes out. In the event that I have caused offence to an individual, I will duly apologise, because there was no intention whatever to cause any offence to anyone alive or deceased.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

I was simply responding to something that the noble Baroness said, but I accept what she has just said.

On the point about the kiosk, at the moment there is a kiosk where children and others can buy refreshments when visiting the park. If that kiosk were removed as part of this proposal, the Government would have been attacked for that. They are also being attacked because the kiosk will still be there when the memorial is built. To be fair to them on this, they could not have satisfied people either way.

I do not think it is at all offensive to visit the memorial and learning centre and then want to sit down, have a cup of tea and discuss what you have seen and learned with the people who you visited it with. When I went to Yad Vashem with my dad, he was not the least bit offended that there was a restaurant there, where we had lunch. In fact, every time I have visited Yad Vashem, we have had lunch before or after. There is nothing offensive about refreshments being available at or near the memorial.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, in the nicest possible way, I will not challenge my noble friend Lord Finkelstein but merely comment that he must have better eyesight than I do. When I look at the representations of the fins, they do not seem to be entirely modest. They are absolutely massive. He said that they are appropriate. I ask those with strong Jewish heritage whether they have ever heard the figure of 23 or 22—the gaps—mentioned before. All my life, the only figure which mattered for the Holocaust was 6 million Jews slaughtered, massacred, killed. The idea is that these giant fins are somehow appropriate because the gaps between them represent 22 countries. Has any noble Lord in this Committee ever heard of that before, apart from in this planning application? To my knowledge, neither 23 fins nor 22 gaps have anything to do with Jewish history. If we want something appropriate, it must represent 6 million Jews slaughtered.

We will come in a later amendment to what would be an appropriate design, but I am also prompted to ask a question on the refreshment kiosk. I use the park regularly, and in summertime or when there is a coach party to the Commons, the kiddies come into the park. They have their sandwich wrappers and a huge amount of Pret A Manger bags, and they all religiously try to put them into the litter bins. At times, those bins have been stuffed absolutely full and litter is spread all around. If there is a refreshment kiosk for thousands of people, that is likely to happen as well, and we will see a huge amount of litter.

Some may argue that we should have more litter bins and fill them up. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, with his expertise here, may comment on this. The first thing that the Metropolitan Police would do when there is a terrorist threat is remove all the bins. You cannot get a litter bin at Euston station or anywhere else because they are a terrorist threat. We could have a kiosk selling sandwiches, crisps and so on and all the people having their picnics, but end up with no litter bins to put the rubbish in. If there are litter bins, they ought to be policed and patrolled.

This is not a trivial point; I am not trying to diminish the whole argument by talking about litter. It is a legitimate point about other people’s enjoyment of the gardens. They may also want to have their picnic and sandwiches but find that there is no place to put the garbage afterwards.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have been living at Tufton Court since 1982; it is just around the corner from this park. I was not intending to speak to this amendment until I got rather provoked by a number of my noble friends.

My noble friend Lord Finkelstein said, “If it doesn’t go here, where else does it go?” I think my noble friend Lord Sterling has answered that point. There is a very satisfactory Holocaust memorial at the Imperial War Museum, which is not a place where nobody ever goes. It is a place where lots of people go, and it is very regularly visited. Could there be a better location for it than that?

My noble friend Lord Pickles said that this is going to improve the park. It is one of the smallest parks in London. I do not claim to go to it very often, but it is a very, very small park and, with all due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, I am not sure it has been much improved by the Parliament Education Centre, which is a disgracefully low-budget architectural piece of building. I am very glad that it is going to be rebuilt —perhaps it will be rebuilt better than it is now—but it occupies quite a lot of this very small park, and the idea that we should shove yet another building into the park seems unbelievable. I cannot quite understand where we are going on this.

I do not understand why the Government have volunteered taxpayers’ money, when there is so little of it, to finance this. The Jewish community in Britain has an awful lot of money. It has a lot of education charities that would contribute towards this. I do not understand why they should not pay for their own memorial. Unlike my noble friend, I have plenty of Jewish blood, and I am a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, this is not a memorial for the Jewish community—

[Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)]

The noble Lord was not here at the start of the debate.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

I was under the impression that you could speak even though you were not.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

No.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Well, perhaps somebody else might like to make the point that it is not a memorial for the Jewish community.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

No. Thank you.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

It is a memorial for everybody.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I take that point, but the driving forces behind putting up this memorial are the Jewish people in this country. They are people who have property everywhere. I do not see why they should not fund it. I just do not understand why the British taxpayer should be asked to pay for this when there is quite clearly a tremendous shortage of taxpayers’ money to go around. The whole thing is very strapped. I would have thought that this could be financed by individuals, Jewish charities and so forth that would be happy to contribute to it. I am just amazed.

I do not pretend that I go into this park on a regular basis, but I do occasionally go into it. It is very small, and it will be made even smaller if this memorial is put into it. There will be no room for anybody to do anything in it at all. London is not blessed with a number of parks anyway, and the particular park that we are talking about is one of the smallest there is in London. It is not like Hyde Park, where you could tuck this away in a corner; this is going to be completely dominant in a very small park, and it will reduce the amenities available for local people who live in Westminster.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. I will speak today in support of this project. The most important reason for this memorial is to remember, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered by the Nazis. Many visitors will mourn their own families, like my dad’s mum and sisters, who were murdered in Treblinka in 1942 only because they were Jewish, but we must also remember the Holocaust because it matters to us in Britain, now and in the future, for ever. It shows how people can treat their neighbours, how communities can turn against those they consider different, how national leaders can exploit hatred, and how the machinery of the state can be used for terrible evil. This summer shows that there will never come a time when those lessons do not need to be learned.

This memorial will honour those murdered by the Nazis. It will stand for ever to teach why the Holocaust is history’s greatest crime. For decades, this has been taught directly and personally by Holocaust survivors. But, as has been said today, the time when we can listen to them directly is drawing to an end. People have asked why this location. The Holocaust Commission recommended a new national memorial in central London to attract the largest possible number of visitors and to make a bold statement about the importance that Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust. Victoria Tower Gardens is the right setting precisely because it will be a permanent reminder—to people next door in Parliament, to UK citizens and to visitors of all nationalities to Westminster and central London—of what can happen when politics is poisoned by racism and extremism. If you go to Berlin, you see a Holocaust memorial next door to the parliament, right at the centre of national life. In Paris, you would not even know that it exists.

There are serious voices in the Jewish community who do not agree. I respect them, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of Holocaust survivors and refugees, their families, the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community, and its leadership support this project. The Chief Rabbi said the venue was “inspirational” and that

“it is in a prime place of prominence, the heart of our democracy”.

Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich asked:

“What better symbol to remind our Parliamentarians and the wider public of where apathy as well as prejudice and hate can ultimately lead?”


Her brother, the late Sir Ben Helfgott, was one of the driving forces behind this project and its location. Yesterday, a number of us met Eve Kugler, who told us that she has devoted her life to Holocaust education and supports this project and its location because her mother told her:

“Everyone has to know what happened, so that it may never happen again”.


I will deal with some of the objections that have been raised. It is not true that the memorial will dominate Victoria Tower Gardens. It is a fact, accepted by Westminster City Council, that it will take up just 7.5% of the park. That is a matter not of opinion but of fact, so it is not true that the memorial will prevent the peaceful enjoyment of the park, as we have been told. The Buxton memorial will not be moved and the river walk will remain open.

Claims about a dramatic increase in traffic and tourism are not true either. The number of visitors will actually be a tiny fraction of the millions of tourists already visiting Westminster. In fact, many of the memorial’s visitors will be people who would already be visiting Westminster. It will also not have any real impact on traffic: 11 coaches a day is a fraction of the traffic on what is already a major bus route.

It is also claimed that the Government’s approach to Holocaust commemoration and education is wrong because anti-Semitism is increasing in our country. I have seen students, in places such as Dudley with no Jewish community at all, learn about the Holocaust, listen to survivors and dedicate their lives to fighting racism. The increase in anti-Semitism is actually an argument for the memorial and for increased spending on Holocaust education and commemoration.

Of all the objections I have heard this afternoon, the one I find least powerful is the claim that it will be a security threat or will attract anti-Semites or even terrorists. First, Westminster is already the most protected and safe place in the country. Secondly, and much more importantly, since when did we make decisions like this on the basis that extremists and racists might object? That is no basis on which to take this decision.

I will ask the Minister a couple of brief questions. When it comes to the content, will he confirm that this is clearly and specifically a memorial and learning centre about the Holocaust, not genocides in general, and that it will commemorate the Holocaust properly and specifically? Will he confirm that the learning centre will teach about the history of anti-Semitism? Will he do everything he can to accelerate progress and get this built much more quickly? It was announced in 2016 by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and we were promised that it would be built by the end of 2017. As it stands, it will not open until 2029. It must be possible to build it more quickly than that.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Friday 2nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow a moving and brilliant speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson.

I will start by telling your Lordships about a 10 year-old Jewish boy from a town called Ostrava, in what was then Czechoslovakia. One night in March 1939, he was awoken by a noise in the street. He got out of bed, peered out the window and saw the German soldiers march into the town square. It was the night Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. A few days later he was waved off on a train by his mum and teenage sisters. It was the last time he would see them: they were rounded up and sent first to a ghetto, then to Theresienstadt, and finally to Treblinka, where they were murdered in October 1942.

That little boy arrived in the UK a few months before the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. When he arrived, he was able to speak only three words of English: “hot”, “cross” and “bun”. However, he grew up to become the youngest grammar school head teacher in the country, was honoured with an MBE for his work in education and charity, and brought up four children—of whom I am the second.

As noble Lords can imagine, I grew up hearing about the Holocaust from my parents, hearing about the suffering and the appalling cruelty, and the industrial nature of the slaughter. That left me with a lifelong conviction that prejudice leads to intolerance, then to victimisation and then to persecution, and that every one of us has a duty not to stand by but to make a difference—to fight discrimination, intolerance, bigotry and racism wherever we find it.

Every year, we have these debates and Holocaust commemorations. Every year, politicians pledge to combat anti-Jewish racism and proclaim “never again”, but look what we have seen over the past year. On 7 October, more Jewish people were killed on a single day than on any day since the Holocaust. This was not resistance or self-defence, as Hamas and its supporters claim. This was mass murder motivated by racial hatred, organised by anti-Semitic fascists committed to destroying the world’s only Jewish state and not just wiping out the Jewish people who live there but causing the genocide of Jewish people worldwide. The Hamas charter makes that absolutely clear. On campuses, on social media and even here in Parliament, we see history distorted with deliberate and offensive false equivalence drawn between what the Nazis did in the Holocaust and a democratic state defending its citizens.

Let us be really clear what we are commemorating today: this debate is to commemorate the Holocaust. It follows Holocaust Memorial Day last Saturday. That date—27 January—was chosen because it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a death camp where 1.1 million people were murdered after being transported from all over Europe in cattle trucks. We are commemorating what happened there and at other death camps: the industrial slaughter of 6 million Jewish men, women and children, and the Nazis’ attempt to wipe out the Jewish people in their entirety. That is what the Holocaust was. It is very specific.

Yet this year, disgracefully, people and organisations have attempted to mark Holocaust Memorial Day without mentioning Jewish people at all. Even the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Scottish First Minister and some local authorities chose instead to waffle meaninglessly about general vague genocides. We have also seen messages from Holocaust charities and even survivors or their families besmirched by comments calling them Nazis or accusing them of supporting genocide, even as they carry out the solemn act of remembrance.

I believe—I am sure there is not a person in the House who does not—that the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is dreadful. War always is. The death of innocent people is always devastating, and I want an end to the death and suffering as soon as possible. However dreadful it is, though, and however much pain and suffering there is, it is not genocide and it is not comparable to the Holocaust. In fact, drawing these comparisons is the latest form of Holocaust denial: not only does it minimise the industrial scale, the planning and the determination of the Nazis’ attempt to wipe out the Jewish people in their entirety but it is the latest attempt to accuse the victims of the Holocaust and the victims of genocide of being its perpetrators.

We have seen placards on the streets of London since 7 October at the so-called pro-Palestine demonstrations comparing Israeli policy to the final solution, comparing Israeli leaders to Hitler, and replacing or equating the Star of David with the swastika. On Holocaust Memorial Day itself, “Gaza Holocaust” was trending on social media. The poster advertising a demonstration in Glasgow scheduled for Holocaust Memorial Day said, “This Holocaust Memorial Day, join us as we protest the genocide in Gaza and demand that never again is now”. Claiming that Israel is committing genocide, calling Israelis Nazis, comparing the world’s only Jewish state to Hitler’s Germany or saying that Zionism is racism is not just completely untrue; they are appalling insults. What could be worse than smearing a country that Holocaust survivors helped set up as a safe haven after centuries of pogroms and persecution, and then the systematic attempt to wipe out the Jewish people in their entirety? What could be worse than comparing it to the Nazis?

Think about this: in the Middle East, half a million people have been killed in Syria, almost 400,000 have been killed in Yemen and almost a quarter of a million have been killed a little further away in Afghanistan. The victims of these conflicts are barely spoken about, are not on the news every night, and their deaths are certainly not labelled genocides or compared to the Holocaust. The perpetrators are not called Nazis. The charge of genocide and comparisons to Nazis are reserved for the Israelis because of the pain and grief this specific insult causes them.

As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, within hours of the attacks on 7 October—even as people lay dying and before the bodies of the dead had been recovered—people were celebrating on the streets of London. People were justifying or supporting the attacks. We see marches every Saturday and anti-Semitism on the streets of London. I have been down to look at some of those marches for myself. You see lots of signs calling for Israel to be eradicated; you do not see any calling for peace, for Gaza to be freed from Hamas or for the release of the hostages.

There were people chanting about a massacre of Jews by a Muslim army and a mob outside Downing Street calling for Hamas to bomb Tel Aviv. No one is marching in London every Saturday for victims of slaughter in Yemen, Syria, Somalia or Sudan. I am not saying that everyone who joins these marches is a racist, of course, but if the only country you march and protest against just happens to be the only Jewish one, do not tell me you are not an anti-Semite.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, did, I want to thank the Community Security Trust for its work to protect the Jewish community and fight anti-Semitism. Sadly, since 7 October, that work has never been more important. Last week in north London, a man with a knife attacked a kosher supermarket. What did he say to the visibly Jewish staff? “What’s your side? Where do you stand on Israel and Palestine?” Restaurants and synagogues have been vandalised. The noble Lord, Lord Polak, and I met a group of students here in Parliament only yesterday. We heard how they have been subject to racist abuse, been targeted on campus and are scared to show religious symbols on their way to lectures, as are pupils on their way to school. Anti-Semitic incidents referencing the Holocaust have increased by over 100% in 2023. According to the CST, incidents involving Holocaust denial also rose by 268% on the year before. All this tells us why the work of organisations like the CST and the Holocaust Educational Trust is so important.

We need to teach people very specifically and clearly about the racism and the truth of the Holocaust. We need to be clear about the nature of anti-Semitism that led to this greatest tragedy. Yes, of course, it was a human tragedy, but people were not herded into the gas chambers because they were human beings; they were human beings who were herded into the gas chambers because they were Jewish.

This is not genocide memorial day; this is Holocaust Memorial Day. It is not too much to ask to have just one day in a whole year that is reserved for the commemoration of history’s greatest crime, and to give us the opportunity to pay our respects to its victims. It would be a wonderful thing to have a genocide memorial day to commemorate the victims of other atrocities. Of course I would support that and help organise it. However, that is not what Holocaust Memorial Day is about. I have always felt strongly about this. When I go to events, I see equivalence drawn between the Holocaust and other terrible atrocities. I have always thought about this, but it is particularly important this year because of the false comparisons that we have seen drawn that I listed earlier.

I ask the Minister to ensure that we commemorate the Holocaust properly and specifically, that she will ensure that government-sponsored events commemorate the Holocaust properly, and that the new memorial and learning centre she is leading concentrates on the Holocaust properly and specifically. I also ask her what steps the Government will take to support proposals for a Jewish history week or month, so that people can learn about the contribution Jewish people have made to our country and the whole world, and so that Jewish people are not seen merely and purely as victims. What more can the Government do to support wider teaching on racism and the Holocaust? We need all this because we need people to understand that the Holocaust did not start with gas chambers and the industrial slaughter of 6 million people; it started with words, speeches, prejudice and hatred. It started with conspiracy theories and scapegoats. It started with communities being divided and people being singled out and bullied on the basis of how they worshipped, what they looked like, or their race and religion. That is how it always starts.

In conclusion, as we honour of the memory of the people who were murdered and pay tribute to the survivors, let us pledge again to fight anti-Semitism, prejudice, racism and bigotry wherever it is found, because that is the best tribute any of us can pay to the memory of those who were killed in history’s greatest crime.

Holocaust Memorial

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, all that work was done many years ago, in the early days of this project. We believe that the development will not in any way compromise the Buxton memorial. The design of the Holocaust memorial means that the Buxton memorial will be kept in its current position, with its views preserved. In addition, new landscaping and seating will actually improve the setting of that memorial and the viewing experience from it. The Holocaust memorial will be no higher than the top of the Buxton memorial, and the memorial’s bronze fins will step down progressively to the east in visual deference to the Buxton memorial.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, there is no more appropriate location for a memorial that shows what can go wrong when politics is infected by extremism, racism and hatred than here in Westminster, at the centre of our politics. That is the whole point. We have heard all sorts of red herrings about this memorial. It will take up less than 10% of the area of the park, and it is at the opposite end of the park to the Palace of Westminster so will have no impact on the work that is to be done here. I take this opportunity to urge the Minister to do everything she possibly can to speed up progress so that Holocaust survivors like Sir Ben, who tragically will not get to see it completed, can be guests of honour at the opening.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

May I start by saying what a pleasure it is to hear an Opposition Member who believes in the concept of private property—not something that is shared by everybody on the hon. Lady’s Front Bench or, indeed, her leadership? I am pleased that she shares Conservative Members’ obsession that people should have the ability to own their own homes where they want to. In the end, the solution to the problem that she poses is a massive increase in housing supply. We are committed to building 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s, not just for one year but for a series of years—perhaps for decades, if we can get there—to address this issue. In the meantime, the Government have put significant funding—billions of pounds—behind schemes such as Help to Buy to make homes more affordable. I hope that as many of her constituents as possible will avail themselves of the assistance that is there.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Ind)]

That is all well and good, but 30 years ago, when I bought my first house in Dudley, people were able to do so because the average cost was about three times the average income. As we have just heard, the average cost is now seven times the average income. At the same time, the number of homes for shared ownership and low-cost home ownership has fallen. So what is the Minister going to do to enable people like the ones I meet in Dudley every single week who are working hard in low-paid employment, desperate to own a home of their own, to fulfil their ambitions?

Residents of Leisure Park Homes

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Ian Austin (in the Chair)]

I have to call the Front Benchers at 5.10 pm. There are four people who want to speak, so I would be grateful if Members could restrict their remarks to about four minutes.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day 2019.

In the middle of the night on 14 March 1939, a 10-year-old Jewish boy in a town called Ostrava, in what was then Czechoslovakia, was woken up by a noise in the street outside. Peering out of the window, he saw German soldiers marching into the town square. It was the night that Hitler invaded, and four days later, the boy was put on a train to England by his mum and teenage sisters. He was the only member of his family able to leave, and it was the last time he would see them. They were forced into a ghetto, then sent to Theresienstadt, and then to Treblinka, where they were murdered on 5 October 1942. He escaped to the UK. He grew up to become the youngest grammar school headmaster in the country, and he was honoured with an MBE for his contribution to education and his work for charities. He adopted four children, of whom I am the second, and I suppose that makes the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year—Torn from Home—particularly appropriate, and it is an honour for me to introduce this debate.

Right at the outset, I want to pay tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust and the brilliant work its fantastic team do to teach young people about what can happen if hatred and racism become acceptable. Thanks to their hard work and Government grants—launched in 2006 and continued, I am delighted to say, by every Government since—the trust takes two students from every sixth form in the country to Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have seen young students from Dudley go on those trips, come back and campaign in their community against racism.

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Leader of the House and the Backbench Business Committee for this debate, and I thank all the right hon. and hon. Members who supported the application for this debate or who are here to take part in it. I also thank the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for everything everybody is doing this week to commemorate and remember those killed—the 6 million people killed—in history’s greatest crime.

There is a particular group of people to whom I want to pay tribute today: the survivors—men and women like Eva Clarke BEM, whom many of us heard speak here in Parliament on Tuesday about the horrors that her family faced during the holocaust; or Zigi Shipper BEM, who at the age of 89 will travel to Dudley tomorrow to speak to hundreds of local people at our annual holocaust commemoration; or Mala Tribich MBE, Sir Ben Helfgott, Hannah Lewis MBE, Susan Pollack MBE and Eve Kugler—who all spend so much of their time travelling around the country to tell communities like ours where racism and prejudice can lead. I think it is extraordinary that these heroes, many of them now in their late 80s and 90s, use their direct personal experience of these terrible events to help us build stronger communities and a more tolerant, united country. I am sure everybody here will want to salute them and pay tribute to them all.

Listening to those survivors and visiting Auschwitz or other sites of mass murder is a truly life-changing experience. I thought I knew what to expect when I first visited Auschwitz with the Holocaust Educational Trust and students from Dudley, but nothing can prepare you for seeing the place for real. I will never forget seeing a mountain of human hair—two and a half tonnes of it—shaved from the heads of inmates to be shipped back to Germany and made into cloth, or the huge piles of shoes, glasses and suitcases.

Last year, I spent a week touring Poland with a brilliant project called March of the Living, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan). We visited the sites of ghettoes and concentration camps, before marching—thousands of us—from Auschwitz to Birkenau, but I will never forget visiting Belzec. It is a tiny site, about as big as two football pitches, where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered. Imagine this: at the peak of the killing in 1942, three or four transport trains arrived every day. In one month, August 1942, 130,000 Jews were murdered in Belzec. Imagine that: 130 000 people slaughtered in a place the size of two football pitches in just one month.

What also brings home the horror of the holocaust is visiting towns and cities where whole communities were wiped out. A few years ago, my dad and I went back to Ostrava. We found the flat that he had lived in and the site of his school and his synagogue. In 1937, 10,000 Jews lived in Ostrava. The town had several synagogues and Jewish schools and businesses. In the single room that serves as its synagogue today, there are seats for 30 people —30 people. In Poland, we went to a place called Nowy Targ, where we found what had been my dad’s uncle’s shop. There is a mass grave of the 500 Jews butchered in a day, including at least one of his cousins. Some 3,000 Jewish people lived there before the war. “How many live here now?” I asked the local historian who was showing us around. She looked at me as if I was mad. She said, “None”—none.

A few weeks before Christmas, we met in Speaker’s House to commemorate the anniversary of the Kinder- transport. We remembered how, when other countries were rounding up their Jews and herding them on to trains to the gas chambers, Britain provided a haven for thousands of refugee children. Think of Britain in the ’30s: the rest of Europe was succumbing to fascism—Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain—but here in Britain, Mosley was rejected. Imagine 1941: France invaded, Europe overrun, America not yet in the war and just one country standing for freedom and democracy, fighting not just for our liberty, but for the freedom of the whole world.

It is true that Britain did not do enough during the holocaust and could of course have done more, but it was British troops who liberated Bergen-Belsen, rescuing thousands of inmates from certain death. So when people say to me, “What does it mean to be British? What is special or unique about our country?” I say that it is because of who we are as a people and what we are as a country that British people stood up to the Nazis and laid down their lives for freedom. What makes you British is not what you look like, where you were born or how you worship, but the contribution you make and your belief in the timeless British values—values British people have fought and died for—of democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance.

No one embodies these values more than Major Frank Foley. He was an MI6 agent at the British embassy in Berlin in the 1930s, working undercover as a passport control officer. He provided papers to let Jewish people escape, forged passports and even sheltered people in his own home. He went into concentration camps to get Jewish people out and enable them to leave the country. Last September, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge visited Stourbridge in Dudley to unveil the statue that we produced of Major Foley. It was a huge honour for the people of Dudley, and a wonderful tribute to a great British hero. I think it was so impressive to see our future monarch taking such a close interest in these events, as we saw with his recent visits to Stutthof and to Yad Vashem.

Frank Foley sheltered people in his own home and, as I said a moment ago, even rescued people from concentration camps, including the father-in-law of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. However, the really extraordinary thing about Frank Foley is that his courage, decency and determination were matched by his modesty. He retired in complete anonymity—never telling anybody about what he had done, never boasting about his heroism—to a quiet street in Stourbridge, where he lived out his retirement until his death in 1958. When people are singled out or extremists try to divide our communities on the grounds of race or religion, we should remember this great hero’s example and find it within ourselves to stand up for decency, fairness and tolerance.

I was flicking through The Daily Telegraph a couple of years ago when I came across the obituary of Rose Evansky, who had died aged 94. She pioneered modern hairdressing and became one of most famous and influential hairdressers ever. The amazing thing about her, however, is that she had been born in Germany in 1922 and when, in 1938, her Jewish father was imprisoned in Dachau, she managed to escape on the Kindertransport and she arrived in Dudley as a refugee. She was able to escape only because a local family, who were not related to her and had never even met her, heard about her from a refugee committee and put up the £50 guarantee—a lot of money in those days—that had to be paid before she could escape.

A few months later, in 1939, a 14-year-old German refugee called Kurt Flossman arrived at Dudley Grammar School aged just 14. His father had died in 1937, and he made his way across Europe on his own. His classmates—I think this is brilliant—clubbed together to fund his expenses, and local firms paid for his clothes. Stories like this show that Dudley, like the rest of our country, has always worked to help those in need and to build a tolerant community. Over the years Dudley—Britain—has welcomed refugees from around the world, so when our country opens its doors to what we now call unaccompanied minors or to others fleeing persecution, let us remember that this is what Britain has always done: this is who we are and it is what we do.

I grew up learning about the holocaust from my parents and hearing stories about the suffering, the appalling cruelty and the scale of the slaughter, and that left me with a conviction that I have held ever since. It is a conviction that prejudice leads to intolerance, then to victimisation and eventually to persecution. It is a conviction as well that we have a duty, every single one of us, not to stand by, but to make a difference and to fight discrimination, intolerance and bigotry wherever we find it.

One of the reasons I joined the Labour party as a teenager in Dudley 35 years ago was to fight racism. I believe that just as passionately now as I did then, and I am shocked that a party with such a long tradition of fighting racism has caused such offence and distress to the Jewish community. The first thing I did when I became an MP was lead a campaign to drive the British National party, which had a councillor in Dudley, out of the town. Since then I have stood with Muslim constituents who have been targeted by the English Defence League, but that would all be completely meaningless if I ignored antisemitism in my own party. It is easy to oppose racism at events or in meetings where everyone agrees with you. It is easy for those of us in politics to criticise our opponents, but that is completely meaningless if we are not also prepared to criticise when it is more difficult. Labour Members must understand that we will have no right to criticise our opponents on such issues if we do not first get our own house in order.

I wish to finish on a more positive note and say how pleased I am that we will soon have the new national holocaust memorial and learning centre next to Parliament, at the very centre of our democracy and national life. It will enable future generations to remember the victims of the holocaust, and learn the lessons of history through individual stories of survival, bravery and courage. For me, the importance of remembering the holocaust is to remember history’s greatest crime, and to pay our respects to all who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, as well as in more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and the rest. We must remind ourselves that what makes us the people we are, and Britain the country it is, is the unique response to the holocaust and the Nazis. Let us use this debate to rededicate ourselves to the timeless values of democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance. Let us pledge again to fight prejudice and racism wherever it is found, because that is the best tribute any of us can pay to the memory of those who were killed in history’s greatest crime.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Austin]

This has been an amazing debate. We have heard moving and powerful speeches, and had some amazing contributions. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to have the debate, and every Member who supported the application for it and who took part in it. It has given us the opportunity to pay our respects to the victims of history’s greatest crime and to dedicate ourselves to opposing racism and prejudice wherever we find it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day 2019.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

It may be worth pointing out to the right hon. Gentleman that core spending power per household in the most deprived local authority areas in the country is 23% higher than that in the least deprived. This Government support all communities with the resources that they need.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

9. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of new homes provided for social rent since 2010.

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

Since 2010, we have delivered over 378,000 new affordable homes, including 129,000 for social rent. We are investing over £9 billion in the affordable homes programme to deliver more than 250,000 new affordable homes, including at least 12,500 for social rent.

[Ian Austin]

There are thousands of households languishing on Dudley’s waiting lists. I meet families every single week who are desperate for a home of their own. Funding for new affordable homes has fallen from over £4 billion in 2009-10 to less than £500 million last year, and the amount of social housing built for rent is actually falling to its lowest level since the war. In that context, what hope do my constituents have of the decent, secure and affordable home that they dream of?

[Kit Malthouse]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, we are throwing literally everything we have got at the housing market at the moment in the hope that we can build the homes that everybody in the country needs. In particular, in the social sector, we have increased the size of the affordable homes programme. We have reintroduced the idea of social rent; removed the housing revenue account borrowing cap for local authorities; and are setting long-term rent deals for councils and housing associations, enabling them to plan. We have also committed funding beyond 2022 for housing deals and partnerships with housing associations, which we think will deliver significant numbers of houses. It must be remembered that the Labour Government the hon. Gentleman supported induced local authorities to get out of house building. I was a councillor at the time. We were offered large amounts of money to get rid of our housing stock. That has to end. We want councils to start building to address exactly the needs he raises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

I have done better than that—I have met them. I did so just two weeks ago to discuss their fascinating ideas, not least on how we can make the principle of neighbourhood planning work in urban areas, an issue that I know is of great importance to my hon. Friend.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

T9. Does the Secretary of State agree that the establishment of the new all-party group on the national holocaust memorial, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and me, is very much to be welcomed? Is it not fantastic that so many Members from both sides of the House came together, at a time when antisemitism is on the increase, to establish this group and that we want to commemorate here in Parliament history’s greatest crime and support the establishment of this memorial, right here in Westminster, at the centre of not just our political life but our national life?

[James Brokenshire]

I absolutely recognise and commend what the hon. Gentleman said on how collectively we challenge antisemitism and stand up for the values of this country. I pay tribute to him for the personal contribution that he has made on this issue, and equally, I reflect on the statue of Frank Foley, which the hon. Gentleman was instrumental in bringing into effect. It recognises Frank Foley’s contribution in saving the lives of thousands of Jews fleeing from persecution in Germany, and we must never forget the contribution that he and others have made.