Holocaust Memorial Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsTuesday 11th March 2025
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Holocaust Memorial Bill 2022-23 View all Holocaust Memorial Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 4-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee - (7 Mar 2025)
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Eccles in his Amendment 5 and will speak to my Amendment 33. When I first saw the department’s plan to manage this, I was tempted to ask the Minister facetiously whether he would put the experts of HS2 in charge of the project since they seemed to have all the matching qualities outlined in the devastating “red for danger” Infrastructure and Projects Authority report. But then I had a panic—perhaps they might not realise that I was being facetious and actually put HS2 in charge.
The National Audit Office said in a devasting report of 2022 that the department had informed it that it hoped to get an NDPB up and running about a year before the centre opened. It would be in charge of running it but have no role in managing its construction. The key findings of that NAO report were that:
“The Department does not have a track record of managing programmes of this nature … The Department has recruited specialists from across the civil service and externally, but the team does not have staff with programme management expertise in senior positions”.
However, the devasting criticism of the project is not a comment by the NAO but is printed on page 11 of the report as an organisation chart showing the nine bodies under the Secretary of State that will have input into its management. The department calls this “the governance structure”. I have given a copy of this to the Minister, to Hansard and to the clerks. Of course, we cannot enter it into Hansard, so I will read out what it says.
At the bottom of the chart are three organisations credited with giving independent assurance. One is the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which has already condemned the management of the project. Another is the Cabinet Office, which must give approval on business cases and procurement. Then there is the Treasury. The NAO report says that the Treasury’s role is to be:
“Responsible for allocating funding for the programme. Treasury approval is required at different stages as per the Integrated Assurance and Approval Plan … As a condition of the funding, the Department must seek further Treasury approval if the programme is forecast to use more than half of the approved contingency”.
We all know what the Treasury is like: no one will be able to buy a nail to build this place without months and months of Treasury approval. That is another government department with management rights over this project.
Then there are three advisory boards: the foundation advisory board, the academic advisory board and the construction advisory board. The members of the foundation advisory board are extremely distinguished and will all have firm views on fulfilling their role of defining the overall vision for the programme, including content of the learning centre. But the academic advisory board,
“Provides a peer-review process and discussion forum for the envisioned exhibition content”.
So now we have two expert bodies advising on content and a paralysed programme board terrified to decide between them or reject their advice. This is a recipe for delay and completely contradictory decisions as the programme board attempts to please everyone.
Above those advisory bodies, we have the programme board itself. I hope that noble Lords are listening carefully, because this is what it will do:
“Meets monthly and is chaired by the senior responsible owner. It is the decision-making authority for the programme and collectively owns the programme’s objectives. It monitors the performance of individual projects and work packages, as well as the risks and issues affecting delivery and the mitigations in place to address them. Members include the programme director, programme manager and project leads. Representatives from other parts of the Department, such as Procurement, and external stakeholders, including specialist contractors, are also invited to meetings”.
What an extraordinarily huge bunch of people with no power except to monitor performance, assess risks and pass things on to the oversight board.
The oversight board is one level higher up. It will meet
“2-3 times a year with representatives from the Foundation Advisory Board and senior government. Sets the strategic direction of the programme and is the escalation point for the Programme Board; any changes to the strategic direction need Oversight Board approval”.
Next, we have the investment sub-committee, whose remit is:
“The ISC must approve new project or programme business cases. The programme must seek further ISC approval if it is forecast to use more than half of the approved cost contingency.”
Finally, at the top of this indecision tree is the Secretary of State as
“the ultimate escalation point and sits on the Oversight Board”.
In summary, we have three advisory committees, one organisation with responsibility for finance, two powerful government departments with the final say on finance and two other boards that monitor things and talk about them. There is one thing missing—a straightforward delivery board whose mission given to it by the Secretary of State should be simply this: “You will deliver this project X at a cost Y by day Z and you will suffer penalty P if you fail to deliver and you are a day late.” Get rid of all the other talking shops except the foundation advisory board, which can advise on content but with no say on design or construction. Once new plans are approved in detail, no changes should be made at all. We have all seen in the buildings around Parliament—from Portcullis House onwards—how architects and designers loved to have a committee of politicians in charge, who changed the design regularly, costing an absolute fortune.
This Heath Robinson so-called management structure devised by the department is a recipe for argument, delay and cost overruns. However, it has one magnificent feature cleverly built in by civil servants: with this structure, not a single person can be held accountable for failure. If the cost goes from £138 million to £200 million, which of these bodies gets the blame, or if it is three years late, or if the Jewish community condemns it at the end as not being appropriate? That is why we need a new non-departmental public body set up now and given a simple set of objectives to deliver a set project at a set date at a set cost. That is the only way this can ever work.
I turn now to my Amendment 33 and the future management of Victoria Tower Gardens. In April 1946, the Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, told Conservative MPs in a Commons debate:
“We are the masters at the moment, and … for a very long time to come”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/4/1946; col. 1213.]
I now hear Cabinet Ministers saying that the new Attorney-General is telling them, “I am the master now”. Be that as it may, the relevance of this comment is that I fear that any new NDPB set up to run the completed project will feel that it is the all-powerful master of Victoria Tower Gardens, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out.
The NDPB will be under the overall control of a Secretary of State, partly funded by the Government, and possibly eventually fully funded if the costs grow out of control. It will have, no doubt, a senior civil servant or two from the department, and some others of the great and the good. With the clout it will have from government, it will feel that it can dictate all aspects of the governance of the gardens.
We can guess what will happen: if it finds long queues, it will create roped-off chicanes, like those zigzag lines you get in airports, and do so with no consultation with the garden authorities. What will it do to stop visitors spreading out over the rest of the garden to have picnics, as in Berlin, and taking up the space of other garden users?
We simply have no idea what pressures may arise to infringe on the rest of Victoria Tower Gardens. Therefore, as Amendment 33 makes clear, the NDPB must not have any authority over any other parts of the garden and must consult local residents in advance through the relevant local amenity societies with regard to any matters which may affect the free use of Victoria Tower Gardens as a garden open to the rest of the public. Anything else would be inappropriate.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, I want to say a word or two in support of my noble friend Lord Eccles and his amendment and my noble friend Lord Blencathra. Much of what I was going to say has been well forked over already, but I think it underlines the importance of moving towards a clear structure and organisation as quickly as possible.
The spider’s web of committees and advisory boards referred to by my noble friend on page 11 of the National Audit Office’s report must be a recipe for disaster. As he pointed out very forcefully, it is a way to ensure that nobody will ever be blamed for anything. It does not matter whether it is too much money, design faults, cost overruns, failure to meet timescales or failure to meet commitments, as page 13 of the National Audit Office’s report puts it—they can only have been designed and drafted by Sir Humphrey—it is, in effect, an organisational blank cheque. We need to make sure that it is very much better controlled, in the interests of performance delivery, the taxpayer and Parliament as a scrutinising body.
I hope that the Minister, who has so far put his foot to the metal, will take some time to think about these organisational problems, which are very real and have been brought forward by the National Audit Office on other pages of its report. If we do not do that, we are setting ourselves up for a very unhappy period during which this project gets going.
Lord Pickles (Con)
I think I was with my noble friend on his last visit to Yad Vashem. Like him, I have been there many times, and I am always moved by the process. However, we need to make it absolutely clear that there is only one Holocaust. A number of genocides have occurred before and after, but there is only one Holocaust: that was the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.
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 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.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, before I support my noble friend Lord Pickles, I should say that I voted for this back in 2013 when I was a Member of Parliament under David Cameron. Since then, every Prime Minister—May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and indeed Keir Starmer, the current Prime Minister—supported this. All Prime Ministers will support this application. Why is it that Prime Ministers support it? Because they are global leaders. Go around the globe or around Europe, to Berlin, for example, or to America. The Holocaust memorial in Berlin is its centrepiece; you cannot visit Berlin without seeing the Holocaust memorial.
In my view—I am biased, I admit—London is the greatest global city, so therefore to have this memorial as close to the British Parliament, the mother of all Parliaments, is exactly the right place. I say to some noble Lords—many of them are my friends—that this is starting to sound like a local authority council chamber. This is not a local government council chamber. This is the mother of all Parliaments. I believe that this is the right memorial in the right place in this great city.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I am going to stick to the Bill in front of us, particularly the amendments in this group that relate to the future management of the Victoria Tower Gardens. Many noble Lords use the gardens frequently. I used to do so twice a day. Many use it often—every day. It is an important green space in the heart of our capital city and noble Lords are right to raise questions about the future management of the gardens. I know we will be debating the protections for the existing installations and trees in the next group.
During my time as a Minister in DLUHC, now MHCLG, I worked on the delivery of the Holocaust Memorial. We support the delivery of the memorial as soon as possible. It is almost a national shame that we are 10 years down the road and it is 80 years since the release of many people from those terrible camps. As I said last week, however, it is vital that the memorial is delivered soon, so that some of our survivors can still be with us. I just cannot imagine the opening of this memorial after so long without some survivors still to be there.
I was interested in the amendment of my noble friend Lord Eccles and Amendment 33 in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra. They raise important questions for the Government about who will manage the learning centre and the memorial. I will listen with interest to the Minister’s reply, as this is an important area where we deserve some clarity from the Government on the future direction of their project. However, my noble friend Lord Pickles is absolutely right. We do not have even planning permission yet, let alone the future management structure of the memorial and learning centre. It will be important for the body responsible for the memorial and learning centre to work with local communities as well. I am sure the Minister is listening to that. As we move forward, the two groups will have to work together regularly on what is happening at the centre and how the park is protected.
I am inclined to support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans in his Amendment 22 on closures of the gardens. It is important that the gardens are not closed to local people too often. That can be discussed with local people on an ongoing basis. That happens all over this country where parks are sometimes used for community use, whereby the community talks to the people responsible for the park. I am sure it happens with the Royal Parks as well. Many people enjoy Victoria Tower Gardens regularly; we must consider their interests as we work to deliver the memorial.
I see an argument for the gardens being closed to the public on only a small number of days, and Holocaust Memorial Day would be one example. But the underlying theme here is that we must balance the rights of the different groups who use the gardens, and the right reverend Prelate’s amendment may help achieve that balance. However, it is inappropriate for that to be in the Bill. That is not what the Bill is about. As with many of the amendments that we shall debate today, these are planning considerations. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the amendments in this group.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My noble friend said that we have not yet had a planning application. Would she care to join the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, in pressing the Minister on this yes or no question: will there be a new, fresh planning application? Also, will she press the Minister in demanding a new planning application?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I will make that ask of the Minister in our debate on a subsequent group; if he does not answer now, I will repeat it.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, makes an excellent point. In response to his request, I am absolutely happy to provide all the details on the structure and the associated issues that he raised. We will write not just to him but to the wider Committee.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I think the Minister said that the Secretary of State will be in charge. Do I take it, therefore, that the delivery body will be the Secretary of State and the department? The Secretary of State will draw up the design for the architects, after the planning permission, and she and her officers will let the contract and put in its terms and conditions, the cost overruns and all that sort of thing, so that by the time the NDPB is set up to run it, the Minister’s department will be managing the delivery of this contract. Is that right?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
The Secretary of State is responsible for the delivery of the project.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I want to move on because there are a lot of points to come on to that I am pretty confident noble Lords will ask about, but I assure them that I will come back to the points raised.
In our response to the Select Committee’s report, we have said that we will seek to work with the Royal Parks in taking forward the recommendation. That said, I believe it would be completely wrong to set a formal limit on Holocaust-related events and not on other types of event. The Bill should not pre-empt the discussions we will have with the Royal Parks at the appropriate time by setting an arbitrary statutory limit on closures. We will work proactively with the Royal Parks to find a suitable solution that properly respects the rights and interests of all parties.
Amendment 33, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, seeks to set out the future management responsibilities for different parts of Victoria Tower Gardens.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but the infrastructure authority did not say that the only reason this project is undeliverable is that we did not have a Bill. It listed a whole host of reasons why it was undeliverable: no plan, no proper costing and no one really in charge. I do not want to go on at length about it, but I can certainly look out the exact quote for the Minister.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, finally, I turn to Amendment 5 from the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, which would require the Holocaust memorial and learning centre to be managed by a non-departmental public body. The Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission report included a specific recommendation for the
“creation of a permanent independent body”
with responsibility for implementing the commission’s
“recommendations to commemorate the Holocaust and ensure a world-leading educational initiative”
in the long term.
The noble Viscount talked about the learning centre. We envisage an ambitious programme of educational activities. Some will be delivered on site and many will be delivered by working in partnership with other organisations, such as the Holocaust Educational Trust. The commission’s vision, which the Government accepted, was that such a body would guide, sponsor and facilitate ongoing commemoration and educational initiatives to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust and its lessons remain vibrant and current for all future generations.
A range of options are being considered for operating the memorial and learning centre. As a significant public investment, responsibility for managing the centre will need to rest with a body ultimately accountable to Parliament. The cost of running the memorial and learning centre will be met through a mixture of fundraising and grant funding, as with many other government-sponsored organisations.
As no decisions have yet been taken by the Government on the right model for operating the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, it would not be right to tie our hands by including a statutory requirement that it be a non-departmental public body. Indeed, it would be premature to do so, given that we do not yet have planning permission for the centre to be built.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, asked about future planning permission. It is for the designated Planning Minister to decide what he will do and what approach to take to planning.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, raised numerous examples of the creation of Holocaust memorials and museums across the world. I want to talk about the one in the United States, which I visited in 2018. The proposal to create a Holocaust memorial museum in Washington was announced in 1979, yet the memorial did not open until 1993. It was announced by the Administration of President Carter and opened by President Clinton. The site chosen, next to the National Mall in Washington, DC, generated considerable opposition, including on the grounds that it would lead to anti-Semitism because Jews would be seen as having privileged status, that injustices in American history were more deserving of memorials, that it would be used to whitewash America’s responses to the Holocaust or not do enough to celebrate its responses, or that the Holocaust was not relevant to American history.
All these reasons for opposition were given; another was that it was the right idea but in the wrong place. By 1987, the final architectural design was agreed but criticism and demands for changes to the design continued. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was opened by President Clinton in 1993.
I understand that there is opposition and that there has been delay, but time is of the essence. I want to echo the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. We want to ensure that Holocaust survivors are, we hope, present and alive to witness this being built and completed. I hope my explanations will enable noble Lords to understand why I am unable to accept their amendments. I request that the noble Viscount withdraws his amendment.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
May I just make sure that the record reflects accurately what the Infrastructure and Projects Authority actually said? On 16 January this year, it said:
“Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed”.
Never once did it mention that it was undeliverable because we had not got a Bill yet and I would like the record to reflect that accurately. I am afraid that the Minister may have been fed a line.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
Before we round up the debate, these generic arguments are not relevant to the Bill. Let me remind the Committee, in the kindest way, that the Bill has two main functions. One is in Clause 1, which allows the Secretary of State to spend on the project; the other is in Clause 2, to disapply the 1900 London Act for the project to be built. I appreciate the noble Lord’s reflections but we are speaking to amendments here. However, there is an opportunity for discussion during the planning process.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, in supporting my noble friend, I will speak to my Amendments 11, 12 and 37 in this group.
As my noble friend Lord Strathcarron said, this well-known memorial commemorates the 1833 Act to emancipate slaves and marks the immense contribution of British parliamentarians who campaigned for abolition, including Wilberforce, Clarkson, Thomas Fowell Buxton and others. It was commissioned by Charles Buxton MP, the son of Thomas Fowell Buxton, and designed in the neo-Gothic style by Samuel Teulon. It was completed in 1866 and originally placed in Parliament Square. It was removed from there in 1949 and reinstated in Victoria Tower Gardens in 1957, being placed carefully at an axis with St John the Evangelist church in Smith Square. It is a grade 2 listed monument both on architectural merit and because of the significance of the historical event that it marks.
The setting of the monument will undoubtedly be harmed by the proposed Holocaust memorial and learning centre. Even the planning inspector, who ultimately recommended the approval of the memorial and learning centre, accepted that there would be significant harm; however, he felt that the other benefits—having ignored the impediments of the 1900 Act—outweighed this harm.
Like my noble friend Lord Strathcarron, I am grateful to the architect member of the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust who has measured the distance between the memorial and the riverside as approximately 5 metres. If the proposals for the Holocaust memorial go forward, the Buxton memorial will be just 2 metres away from the courtyard drop. Those proposals include the suggestion for a stone bench around that 2-metre edge of the memorial. Were this to occur, it would create a pinch point, with the remaining crowds walking along the riverside. I suggest that that is quite unacceptable. The Buxton memorial is a vital part of British history and it should not be infringed upon or sidelined.
I stress that this is not a matter of prioritising a monument to the abolition of slavery over the extermination of 6 million Jews. We on this side of the argument all say that there should be an appropriately sized and relevant monument to the Holocaust in Victoria Tower Gardens. We reject the grotesque, oversized Adjaye fins as not suitable for this space. These giant fins would overwhelm the Buxton memorial; any poky little path between it and the fins or the learning centre should be at least 8 metres wide, so that the memorial can be properly seen from a reasonable distance.
I do not know whether noble Lords have ever gone up Parliament Street on the southern side and looked across at the Treasury and the FCDO buildings. They are quite magnificent, but you cannot appreciate their beauty since you are only 30 yards away. They are as magnificent as the government buildings in Washington or Paris, but, in Paris, Baron Haussmann made the streets so wide that you can see and appreciate the beauty from a distance. I suggest that we need that same principle to apply to the Buxton memorial and to any properly sized Holocaust monument. They should be magnificent and visible from all parts of the gardens. The awful thing about Adjaye’s giant fins is that, since he could not design a proper monument to honour 6 million Jews, he went for size and the same monument that was rejected by Ottawa.
I am not necessarily a conspiracy theorist, but I have looked at dozens and dozens of artist impressions of the Adjaye monument and I am stumped. I am willing to be corrected and pointed in the right direction, but I cannot find any artist impression which has got more than 16 fins. The thing is going to have 23 fins, as represented in the plan, but I cannot find any artist impression showing me what 23 fins would look like. It has been minimised to show 16 fins, and so these impressions show that the 16 fins do not interfere with the Buxton memorial at all. As I said, I am not a conspiracy theorist but, if anyone has got an artist impression with the 23 fins, please send it to me.
I appreciate that when the great and the good are conned by architectural psychobabble into accepting a design, they do not then want to admit that they got it wrong. I can see my colleagues digging in as deep on this as Adjaye’s bunker. However, if we are forced to accept this second-best solution and have the 23 fins, let us make sure that they are not so gigantic as to dominate the gardens and obscure the Buxton memorial or the view of the magnificent southern gable of Parliament.
If one of the key components here is supposed to be the underground learning centre, grossly inadequate though it is, then surely we do not need such a giant monstrosity on top of it. If we have to have a monstrosity, let us have a smaller monstrosity. My Amendment 11 says that any Holocaust monument must not exceed the dimensions of the Buxton memorial. That would leave ample scope for a good and magnificent Holocaust monument.
The base of the Buxton memorial is octagonal, about 12 feet in diameter with open arches on the eight sides, and is supported on clustered shafts of polished Devonshire marble. I will not go into all of the details, but what was cleverly designed into the memorial is quite magnificent. All of that magnificent work and story is delivered in something that is 12 feet wide and about 40 feet high. If we can commemorate something as important as the abolition of slavery, where some estimates say that 2 million died in transit, we can commemorate the murder of 6 million Jews in a similarly and appropriately sized monument.
Of course, the Buxton memorial was not always there; it was originally in Parliament Square before it was moved. There were heated debates in Parliament on moving it, and the last word must go to Lord Winster, a junior minister under Clement Attlee, who said:
“This memorial is not a statue. It is a memorial fountain which commemorates a noble deed, the reversal of a system which was the very negation of humanity”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/12/1949; col. 1430.]
I suggest that those words should apply to the Holocaust memorial as well. It is very fitting. That is why the Buxton memorial must not be diminished or hidden by giant, irrelevant bronze fins, à la the discredited Adjaye design.
My Amendment 37 seeks to protect the path used by 95 % of the local people and visitors who use the gardens. The promoters say that they will try to keep open the path alongside the river. I travel through the gardens twice a day when the House is sitting, unless we are sitting so late that the garden is closed. I have only once in 30 years gone along the huge detour of the river path, just to see if it were worthwhile—hardly anyone uses it.
However, on the main footpath, which runs parallel to Millbank, I see daily heavy use. Each morning and evening I will see four or five people exercising their doggies and collecting any mess. The main footpath is essential for them. Every morning, at a regular time, I see two or three nannies with tiny tots in tow. These kiddies are no more than 18 inches high, in their little yellow vests, and each nanny will have two or three of them on either side, safely holding hands or tied together. They make very slow but safe progress along this path. I do not know where they come from or where they go, but I have never seen them on the river path. Indeed, that may be too far for them to walk.
These are some of the main users. The others are individuals—not organised games—playing football or other games. There are those having little picnics, but not hundreds of people and 40 buses squashed into the place to have picnics.
If this main footpath is taken over for construction purposes and cannot be used, thousands of users every day will be deprived of the use of the garden. None of us will want to take a detour round by the river path to get to the route that we normally use.
The promoters need to create access for their construction equipment—possibly at the southern end of the park, where the children’s playground currently is, and possibly a new one—so that the whole of the current path, the main footpath alongside Millbank, remains open during construction and afterwards. It should not be beyond their ability or that of the department to tell the constructors to create a new access route so that the path can be kept open. Those are my amendments and I commend them to the Committee.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 25 and 40 in my name. Before I do so, I express support for Amendment 26, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Saint Albans, about the refreshment kiosk. I believe that it is neither appropriate nor fitting to have somebody selling burgers and chips and ice cream in a place that should be devoted to reflection and remembrance of the cruel murder of 6 million people and the lifelong impact on the lives of survivors and their families. I also support Amendment 43, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on fire risk. That is on the basis of public safety, which underpins my amendments as well.
Among the dangers associated with the choice of siting an underground learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, the most serious is the flood risk. This is a critical issue, given that large numbers of visitors, including children and people with disabilities, are expected to visit. The site chosen for the learning centre is in flood zone 3a according to the Environment Agency, which means that it has a one in 100 or greater annual probability of river flooding if undefended. Normally, planning regulations would not allow a basement development in a zone 3a area. Atkins and Co carried out a flood zone 3 risk assessment for the original planning application. It is clear that the risks revealed by that report have not been correctly considered.
There are four kinds of flood risk, the most serious of which is the risk of inundation from the nearby tidal River Thames. This could happen either by overtopping of the embankment wall, if the water level is higher than the defences, or by breach flooding, in the case of a break in the wall. The latter would be catastrophic to life and property, as the proposed development is below ground level and the design of the proposed building has no above-ground refuge.
I turn first to the danger of overtopping. Because of the development’s proximity to the river, the Environment Agency requires that it must be a minimum of 16 metres from the flood defence wall—presumably to avoid the development undermining the wall’s foundation—and that the wall must be demonstrably high enough and in good condition for the lifetime of the development. A visual assessment at the time showed some defects that required maintenance, ongoing monitoring and inspection. However, the Environment Agency had no current plans for maintenance of the river wall at this location. I therefore ask: who is going to do it? We do not really know the effect on the wall of the construction work of this major underground development.
Because of climate change, and the fact that presumably the building is meant to last until at least until 2100, if not longer, the EA plans that the wall’s height will need to be raised by then to take account of the rise in sea level and consequent river level. By then, the EA expects the peak river level to rise by 950 millimetres above the current level. When this is reached, it will be more than 1 metre above the general level of Victoria Tower Gardens and the entrance to the proposed below-ground learning centre. However, there is a margin of error of only half a metre between the proposed increase in wall height and the expected river level, which is very little in a storm. The learning centre could have to be closed, not just on three days a year but on several days every month because of the risk of river water overtopping the wall.
Flooding has happened here before. The southern section of the site is partially within the area of the historic flooding information. However, data confidence is low because the records were hand-drawn and their extent is limited. It could be even more at risk than the records show.
Breach flooding is much riskier. Westminster City Council’s map shows what would happen if there was a breach in the embankment wall—perhaps in the case of terrorist action, contact by a vessel, a disastrous collapse of an adjacent building, or undermining of the foundations of the wall by unusual pressure from several storms one after the other, such as we have had this winter. What the map clearly shows is that the site is not only smack bang in the middle of the likely inundation area but right in the middle of the area that would be flooded within 30 minutes of the commencement of such an inundation.
Lord Finkelstein (Con)
I am literally repeating the noble Baroness’s points. If she feels that they are flippant, maybe she should not have made them. These are all points that were raised.
In addition, it was said that people will be trampled to death in the communal areas and poisoned with Novichok. These are all points that were made seriously, and that could apply, of course, to any structure. We are talking about building a reasonably modest structure near Parliament, with four rooms underneath it. We have managed to build nuclear power stations, railways and shopping centres in this country, almost all of them without all these terrible consequences happening because people are able to organise themselves and plan things so that disasters are coped with.
We absolutely have the capability of doing that with this centre. These are all alarmist ideas that will not come to pass. This is an extremely simple proposal for a very fitting memorial. I can understand why people might not want it, particularly if they live nearby, but it is a fitting response to the Holocaust and it is in the right place.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Finkelstein said that this is a modest memorial. It may be a modest underground centre, which is inadequate for the purpose, but it is 23 giant bronze fins that will dominate the park. There is nothing modest about that at all. I think he diminishes some of the concerns that people have.
On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, my concern is not that terrorists may set off some device underground—the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is the best person to advise on this—but that they may set off a harmless smoke grenade or device underground, so that everyone piles up outside and that is when the terrorists execute their main attack.
Lord Finkelstein (Con)
So that it is not seen as though I have raised points that were not raised, it was specifically said that poisonous gas would be set off. I did not make that up.
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.
Viscount Eccles (Con)
My Lords, on that last point, that is exactly what the management of a non-departmental public body would discuss with the management of the gardens—how they will cope with litter and what facilities there are. They would need to work together, but we have not got anybody whatever to work with on the garden management at the moment. Until we have a public body, there will not be anybody.
Lord Inglewood (CB)
My Lords, I want to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Carlile. I am a lawyer; I am also a chartered surveyor in the planning and development division of the RICS. I worked professionally in this area, a long time ago, for a number of years.
The point is that there is a fundamental difference between the covenant and the planning consent. We are not being asked to form any view about the merits of a planning application or anything like that, because were that to be the case, the draft legislation in front of us would make it explicitly clear that we were taking by statute the power to grant planning permission. The two consents run in parallel, and we should view them like that. The criteria that apply in determining each of the two are not the same.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I too wish to support what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, though I may say it less elegantly. The reason we are talking about planning in this Committee is that we simply do not trust the Government—the previous Government or this Government—not to overrule Westminster City Council. If the Government will give a cast-iron commitment that they will abide by whatever Westminster City Council decides—that they will not call it in or get an inspector to reverse it, and that the Minister will not reverse it either—then all my concerns about planning would be removed. If the Government will trust the decision of Westminster City Council, I think no noble Lords in this Committee would be talking about the planning application.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, that is the norm and to be expected. It is totally independent from the whole process. It is for him to decide how we will proceed with planning on this particular point; that is the normal process when Ministers are calling decisions. That is how these options work.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
This will be my last comment of the evening. Is there anyone in this Room who seriously believes that the Minister will pick the option of a fresh planning application to Westminster City Council? Of course he will not.
Baroness Deech (CB)
Can the Minister explain what would happen to his three options in this scenario? On the day this Bill receives Royal Assent—if it does—what is there to stop the Minister saying within 24 hours, “The only obstacle that existed against giving planning permission last time has been removed, and I am giving it here and now”?
Holocaust Memorial Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsTuesday 4th March 2025
(1 week, 1 day ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Holocaust Memorial Bill 2022-23 View all Holocaust Memorial Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 4-I(a) Amendment for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (3 Mar 2025)
Lord Blencathra
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I am a member of Conservative Friends of Israel and a supporter of its current fight against the new attempts to destroy the Jewish homeland from the river to the sea. I say that because I do not want my opposition to this Bill to be misconstrued.
So why am I opposed to the Bill? It is because it fails in every way to implement the recommendations of the Holocaust Commission. The commission recommended a campus with large amounts of space:
“The Learning Centre should include facilities to host lectures and seminars and to run educational courses and workshops, as well as the opportunity for Holocaust organisations to locate their offices, or set up satellite offices, within the wider physical campus”.
This Adjaye design fails that requirement. The commission recommended a unique British design; Adjaye has given us a cast-off rejected by Canada. The commission said in its first recommendation that
“it is also clear that a memorial on its own is not enough and that there must be somewhere close at hand where people can go to learn more”.
about the Holocaust. “Close at hand” does not necessarily mean shoehorned into the wrong space, which is too small to do justice to the commission’s recommendations but far too large for this little garden.
The commission recommended three possible solutions: the Imperial War Museum site, Potters Field and a site further along Millbank. Indeed, it waxed lyrical about the Imperial War Museum and a plan to build a whole new wing to house the campus on the extensive land around the museum in Lambeth. Victoria Tower Gardens never entered its contemplation because the experts on the commission knew it was entirely inappropriate. Ed Balls claimed that Victoria Tower Gardens was his suggestion, but we have never heard why the Imperial War Museum offer was turned down. Nothing has been produced regarding any comparison of the sites, why they were rejected and why Victoria Tower Gardens was picked on a political whim. I think I know why: politicians in my party took the arrogant view that Victoria Tower Gardens was an easy win, right next to Parliament and run by the Royal Parks, which would buckle to political domination.
In summary, I am opposed to this project because it fails to implement the recommendations of the Holocaust Commission, is grotesquely ugly and is designed by a discredited architect whose previous iterations of this were rejected by Ottawa. It does nothing to properly commemorate the evils of the Holocaust nor the ongoing threat of a new one.
I turn specifically to the cost issue, as in my Amendments 1 and 27. I shall use more temperate language and say this: successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery that at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable.
“The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed”—
that is not a Lord Blencathra observation but the words from the national Infrastructure and Projects Authority in its latest report of 16 January 2025. That is the third year in a row where the authority has given it its most damning “Red” categorisation.
I cannot blame the present Government for pushing on with this out-of-control shambles. The Government whom I supported were more guilty, because they were told two years ago that the project was unachievable. Did the department do anything to sort out the project definition, the schedule or the budget, which the authority said was not manageable nor resolvable? No, of course not, because it was a big sacred cow—or, to mix metaphors, no one dared to suggest that this emperor had no clothes. Just as Jewish organisations were told, “You’d better back this proposal or there’ll be no Holocaust memorial”, so no one dared to admit that this project in Victoria Tower Gardens was out of control, for fear of being accused of not supporting Holocaust commemoration.
The project was originally costed at under £100 million, and the Government proposed to finance it with at least £25 million in philanthropic funding. There has been no suggestion that the Government would not fund the rest of the project and its operating costs as well. The latest capital cost estimate for HMLC—the Holocaust memorial and learning centre—is £138.8 million without any contingency, which shows a substantial rise in the estimate before contingency of 36% between 2022 and 2023. This estimate was based on the expectation of starting construction before 2025.
The only comments about costs which it has since been possible to extract from MHCLG has been a figure for the total spend to date of £18 million, given by the then Minister, Simon Hoare, to the Commons in May 2024 and a recent estimate of a further £2.1 million spent in the last six months. That would bring the total to £20.1 million. If the figures are correct and comparable, that would represent an acceleration on 2020 to 2024, when only £2.8 million was spent over 22 months.
In July 2022, the National Audit Office delivered a report with a whole battery of criticisms of MHCLG’s performance in preparing, planning and managing the project to date, at a point when £15.1 million had been spent with absolutely no result. In particular, the NAO criticised the management of the project and the provision of data on cost escalation to justify the project costs between 2020 and 2022. The NAO report described at paragraph 23, among the “emerging risks” causing potential cost increases, the promoters’ failure to consider any alternative site or the possible effects of legislative delay, or
“to quantify, or account for … the risks”
that that has created, but there has been little subsequent evidence that this NAO criticism has been heeded by MHCLG.
The NAO was critical of the fact that MHCLG had made no provision for defining the governance of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. It commented that the MHCLG accepted the need for a non-departmental public body but insisted that it would set up a new, dedicated NDPB which, the NAO commented, would mean a minimum of 12 months to pass the requisite legislation—and it wants to set that up 12 months before the thing is due to open.
MHCLG made an insubstantial reply in 2022 to the NAO’s criticisms but its statements since then show that it believes it has responded to those criticisms, even though no change is visible to the world outside the ministry. For instance, MHCLG has never provided any estimate of the inflation that would apply to construction costs based on starting construction in, say, 2026 and starting operations in, say, 2028. The Government have never made any provision for operating costs and have made the likely costs higher by agreeing in 2022 to make all entry to the learning centre free, although visitors will still have to register online.
The operating costs will be high and have so far escalated from £6 million to £8 million per annum, but absolutely no detail has been provided about what the costs will cover. This is particularly important because it is not clear what provision the department has made for the costs of policing and other security measures required for the project if it is built. I also believe that MHCLG is not charging significant or even realistic amounts of civil servant management time to the project, which is either poor accounting or evidence that the project has insufficient governance, or both of those things. It is therefore no surprise that the Infrastructure and Projects Authority has three times now—in 2023, 2024 and 2025—classified the memorial project as undeliverable.
In 2024, the MHCLG created the post of senior responsible officer for the project and gave that officer the power to act within cost overruns with a contingency of £53 million—£53 million as a contingency for a £138 million project, well above the normal 10% to 15%. There has been no explanation for why this contingency was pitched at that figure. The MHCLG budgeting process within the published management and other accounts remains completely untransparent about what the HMLC costs will be, what they are for and who is accountable for them.
Finally, I note that, despite the MHCLG having stated in 2024 that it had suspended work on the project, thus partially justifying the suspension of Sir David Adjaye, it recently—this year—told the Lords Select Committee that its design team is already working on adjustments to the design in relation to the assurances provided to the Select Committee, so that shows that some design cost has continued to be spent.
Here we are today, debating a Bill for a project which the Government’s own top infrastructure authority says, and has said for the last three years in a row, is undeliverable. I say that pushing on with a failed project with no proper cost control is treating Parliament with contempt. We need to know the best estimates for the operating costs and exactly who will be in charge. We will debate the possibility of a new NDPB to run this in Amendment 5, but it is legitimate to ask about the financial sustainability of the entity or entities which will execute and operate the project. A report on that should be laid before Parliament. If we pass the Bill, Parliament is entitled to see the legitimacy of what we have sanctioned.
When the Minister replies, I do not want him to answer my points, I want him to answer the points raised by the Government’s own infrastructure authority. Let him tell us what the Government will do about
“the major issues with project definition, the schedule, the budget, the quality and/or benefits delivery, which do not appear to be manageable or resolvable”.
Will he do as it has asked and rescope the whole project and reassess its overall viability?
Finally, I apologise to colleagues for speaking at length, as I probably will on some other amendments also. This is partly a reaction to the various gagging attempts we faced when giving evidence to the Commons and Lords Select Committees, where every other week we seemed to be copied in to a letter from those lawyers, Pinsent Masons, telling the committees that they could not ask this or that question and that they had to limit their inquiries. I thought it was appallingly arrogant to attempt to tie Select Committee hands in that way. Well, our hands will not be tied and we will not be gagged in these debates, except by our own rules of order and procedure. I beg to move.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, I shall not mimic my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who has spoken extremely well and raised a great many issues. I did not petition the Government, although I think I signed a couple of petitions, but I happen to know the area very well, not least because my four month-old puppy, who noble Lords would all adore, goes there for exercise every morning, but that is not a particularly good reason for stopping the progress. I am opposed to the Bill, not opposed to a memorial. I am opposed to putting a learning centre in such a small area. It would destroy the park—there is no question of that.
To turn to the amendment, we can all hear from what my noble friend Lord Blencathra said that nobody really knows how much this will cost. I have seen the scope of the archaeologist who has looked at the diggings by the Thames, and it is almost certain that this area will flood. I am not an archaeologist, so I have not got a clue. I have never dug a big pit next to the Thames, but it is almost certain that this will flood. It is a bonkers thing to do—absolutely mad—and that is why I absolutely support my noble friend Lord Blencathra in this. It is the wrong place to put a large building such as this. It will, furthermore, cost a great deal more than £138.8 million, as I think we all know, even including a 15% contingency, so I support this amendment.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, it would help if I can come on to more details about contingencies and costs, and then we can come back. If I do not answer anything specific, I can come back to the noble Lord in writing or in a further meeting.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
We will deal with this issue more extensively in the third group of amendments, but perhaps it would help to quote from page 11 of the National Audit Office report, which sets out all the organisations in charge of trying to run this project. It says that the Treasury is:
“Responsible for allocating funding for the programme. Treasury approval is required at different stages as per the Integrated Assurance and Approval Plan … As a condition of the funding, the Department must seek further Treasury approval if the programme is forecast to use more than half of the approved contingency”.
Another box also says that the Cabinet Office must give approval as well.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, the simple answer is that we will seek tenders for the main construction contracts once planning consent is secured but, to use the noble Lord’s words, we need to get on with it.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I do not think I can recall this Committee Room being so packed out with colleagues, on all sides, for such an important and controversial debate. As the Minister would say, some passionate speeches are being made here today; I am grateful to all colleagues who have taken part.
I was particularly struck by the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, who gave a powerful criticism of the Explanatory Notes. It is not just this Bill where I have found that the Explanatory Notes did not explain much; as a former chair of the Delegated Powers Committee, I found that in almost every Bill we got. The noble Lord is right to make the points that there could be substantial changes to Parliament’s visitors centre and that that has not been taken into account here.
The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, rightly praised the dedication of my noble friends Lord Pickles and Lord Finkelstein to a memorial. My noble friend Lord Pickles has for many years championed this cause; just because I think that it may be the wrong place and the wrong memorial does not take away from the fact that he has been an absolute hero. However, my noble friend said that this memorial would improve the park, but that is not what Adjaye, the architect, said. When people said that these fins are despicably ugly, he said:
“Disrupting the pleasure of being in a park is key to the thinking”
on the memorial. I thought that key to the thinking was finding a memorial that commemorated the 6 million exterminated Jews, not putting something ugly in the park. Of course, the Government never mention Adjaye now. In the press release announcing that his bid had been accepted, he was named 12 times as the greatest architect in history. Now, he is wiped out from the memory, and the name is given to the rest of his firm but not to Adjaye.
Moving on, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, was so right to point out that people will come to a memorial if it is good enough, not because of where it is sited. That is a key point.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sterling. His description of his family circumstances and the Holocaust match, if in a different way, the circumstances of my noble friend Lord Finkelstein. The noble Lord, Lord King is right: let us have a decent learning centre and a fitting memorial.
My noble friend Lord Inglewood said that building in inflation, which is going through the roof at the moment, will be absolutely essential. That tied into the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, about the fact that we must have a cost ceiling. It may not be £138 million—indeed, it may be something else—but, unless there is a cost ceiling, the costs will go through the roof.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for her comments and her personal statement. I appreciate that she was not speaking as a party spokesperson.
My noble friend Lord Inglewood said that he was not an accountant, but at least what he said added up and made sense to me in any case.
The shadow Minister, my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market, said that no one wants to break a solemn promise. I suspect that there is no one anywhere in this Room who wants to break the promise to build a memorial, but what we all want is a proper memorial and a big, proper learning centre, as the Holocaust Commission recommended.
I come to the Minister. I have always liked him, ever since he was a Whip. I used to be a Whip in the Conservative Party. Us Whips have to stick together, in a sort of camaraderie; someone should explain that to Simon Hart. I welcome the Minister to his position—he is a thoroughly decent man and a caring, nice Minister—but he has been under some pressure today and that is not his fault. We have the National Audit Office’s report, which is devastating against his department. We have the Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s report, which is also highly critical. That same department has had to give the Minister a brief. He has had to defend the indefensible today, but I give him credit for trying.
I want to conclude by asking the Minister something. Before Report, when I suspect that noble Lords—perhaps better noble Lords than I—will wish to put down a new amendment on costs, will the Minister produce a full, updated cost for the project? Will he give detailed answers before Report, as well as full answers to the NAO’s criticisms? I should say to him that I do not think the NAO criticised this project because we have not got the Bill through yet. It said that this project was undeliverable based not on that but on the fact that there was no schedule, no budget and no quality control. For a whole range of reasons, it found it grossly inadequate.
I think the Minister said that my ceiling of a 15% contingency was an arbitrary figure. Well, the Government have suddenly bunged in an extra £50 million with no justification, and I suggest that that is also an arbitrary figure.
I am grateful to everyone who has spoken. Obviously, I will not push it today, but we will need to get some detailed answers on the costing and control of this project before Report, or I suspect that we will have to come back to this then. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Before the noble Lord sits down, I just point out for Hansard that I am Lady Scott of Bybrook, not of Needham Market.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Saint Albans has had to go to another meeting and asked me, with noble Lords’ permission, to speak to his Amendment 23. It is about an endowment fund to help counter anti-Semitism. An Ofcom report of July 2022 showed that for teenagers, Instagram gave them 29% of the news, TikTok 28% and YouTube 28%. These are the main sources of news with ITV and the BBC way down in fourth and fifth places. The Ofcom report also states:
“Users of TikTok for news claim to get more of their news on the platform from ‘other people they follow’ (44%) than ‘news organisations’ (24%).”
The report continues:
“Teenagers today are increasingly unlikely to pick up a newspaper or tune into TV News, instead preferring to keep up-to-date by scrolling through their social feeds”.
If those social media outlets were accurate, we would have little concern, but also in July 2023 we had a United Nations report History Under Attack. It was a co-operation with an Oxford organisation and found that up to half of Holocaust-related content on Telegram denied or distorted the facts. It said that distortion and Holocaust denial was present on all social media but that moderation and education can significantly reduce this. It went on to say that UNESCO and the United Nations sought to measure the extent of this phenomenon on social networks and commissioned researchers to identify and analyse about 4,000 posts related to the Holocaust on the five major platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok and Twitter. These were the findings: on Telegram, there was 50% distortion and denial of the Holocaust in English language messages; on Twitter, which is now X, there was 19% distortion; on TikTok, 17%; on Facebook, 8%; and on Instagram, 3%. Many of those comments were anti-Semitic as well.
Another key finding of the United Nations report is that the researchers identified that perpetrators have learned to evade content moderation through the use of humorous and parodic memes as a strategy intended to normalise anti-Semitic ideas and make them appear mainstream. I had no idea what anti-Semitic memes were, or any memes, but I found hundreds on the internet, some suggesting that the Jews had attacked USS “Liberty” in 1967, others that the Jews had brought down the Twin Towers in New York. Some said that if America was to save itself then it had to declare war on Israel. Thousands of these memes are absolutely scurrilous, despicable lies and hate-filled, but millions of our young people are lapping them up.
Up to even three years ago, I thought that education on the Holocaust of 80 years ago was all that we needed to do, but now we see hundreds of thousands of people on our streets calling for a new Holocaust, the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Jews. Indeed, in 2019 the BBC published a poll of more than 2,000 people that was carried out by Opinion Matters for the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. It found, and this is quite frightening, that 5% of UK adults—that is, out of 45 million—do not believe that the Holocaust took place, and one in 12 believes that its scale has been exaggerated. Some 45% of those polled said they did not know how many people were killed in the Holocaust, while 19% believed that fewer than 2 million Jews were murdered and 5% believed that there was no Holocaust at all; that is 2.2 million people. That is frightening—all those British people denying the Holocaust or completely ignorant about it.
It is therefore essential that we create an endowment fund to undertake 24/7 Holocaust education and rebuttal of all the new anti-Semitic attacks. That is why we need a proper campus, as recommended in the Holocaust Commission report, staffed by experts who can work online 24/7 countermanding lies about the Holocaust and the new Holocaust demand to push the Jews out of Israel, their homeland, from the river to the sea. Anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, and it seems to be even worse in the UK, so a monument to the unique Holocaust of 80 years ago is essential. Equally essential is annual funding to tackle the new lies about Jews and the calls for their extermination.
I turn to my Amendments 29 and 30, and I believe my noble friend Lord Hodgson will speak to Amendment 31 in my place. I also support Amendments 2, 3, 4 and 6 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. As I said in my speech on Amendment 1, I concluded that Conservative politicians opted for the completely unsuitable Victoria Tower Gardens and ignored the recommendations of the Holocaust Commission because they thought the gardens would be an easier bet. However, the site fails to deliver a central theme of the commission—indeed, its key recommendation 2. Recommendation 1 concluded with the words:
“But it is also clear that a memorial on its own is not enough and that there must be somewhere close at hand where people can go to learn”
about the Holocaust. This is what the commission said about the ideal site for the memorial and learning centre. In its “Delivery and Next Steps” section, it said, and it is worth while quoting it:
“The Commission has identified three possible locations that should be considered as part of a consultation taken forwards by the permanent independent body … The Holocaust Exhibition at IWM London is very highly regarded, as was demonstrated throughout the evidence received. There is therefore an obvious advantage in locating the Learning Centre alongside IWM London in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park near Lambeth. The site is within easy reach of Westminster and accessible via several routes by public transport. It offers existing high footfall with approximately 1.5 million visits to IWM in 2014. IWM has proposed the building of a new wing to house a memorial and a learning centre and to link to newly expanded and upgraded Holocaust galleries in the main building. This would also benefit from being able to use the existing visitor facilities and essential infrastructure of the IWM building”.
Lord Robathan (Con)
As a matter of interest, I do not know how many people in this Room have been to the Holocaust memorial galleries in the Imperial War Museum. They are incredibly instructive and similar to the ones outside Tel Aviv, whereas somewhere here would be about one-eighth of the size.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My noble friend makes a good point. I visited them almost two years ago, and they are extraordinary. The good thing about the museum is that it has physical artefacts, although not many—it has more Nazi uniforms than Jewish uniforms —but it has physical things to look at, whereas the Adjaye bunker will merely have videos showing on a screen that kids can look at on their mobile phones and iPads much more easily. Why build a museum if you have nothing physical to put in it?
The Holocaust Commission concluded on the Imperial War Museum by saying:
“It is the view of the Commission that this is a viable option, provided a way can be found to meet the Commission’s vision for a prominent and striking memorial”.
Then there was Potters Fields as an option—it is between Tower Bridge and City Hall—but I believe that it has been sold and is no longer available. On Millbank, this is what the commission said:
“David and Simon Reuben have been inspirational supporters of the Commission’s vision and have proposed a redevelopment of a large area of their Millbank complex. The location offers great potential for a prominent riverfront memorial, a short walk along the river from the Houses of Parliament. The campus could include a hidden garden, reflective pond, wall of remembrance and a learning centre, incorporating the existing cinema, doubling as a lecture theatre. The complex sits alongside Tate Britain which attracts 1.4 million visits a year. It also benefits from its own pier with river boat connections to Westminster. There may be the opportunity to work alongside Tate Britain to further develop the area to increase its appeal, helping to create a new cultural and educational quarter”.
That is what the official Holocaust Commission recommended on the location of a memorial and a learning centre nearby.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)
I ask the noble Lord to draw his remarks to a conclusion.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I appreciate that. I apologise for going over 10 minutes, but I did not expect to have to do two minutes on the amendments tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans.
If I can conclude with just a few more seconds to go, the commission commended the 9/11 exhibition in New York. In November last year, I had to attend some official meetings at the United Nations, so I thought I would go along to see it. I was half expecting it to be, in the usual American way, a bit over the top and a bit tacky, but I was utterly wrong. It was exceptionally well done, moving and authoritative, with exquisite architecture—and it was absolutely massive. It was to commemorate just—just—2,977 victims. We are trying to commemorate 6 million victims by squeezing them into this tiny little bunker under the ground, which has usable space of just 1,700 square metres. It is simply not good enough. I commend my amendments to the Committee.
Baroness Fleet (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee but this is my first intervention on the Bill. I declare my interest as a former chairman of Arts Council London. I rise to speak to Amendment 29 and the consequential amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra.
I would like to put on record my admiration for the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and all the work that she has put into this extraordinary debate today. I have a few brief observations to add to the comprehensive remarks that my noble friend delivered just now with his customary eloquence and wisdom, with which I entirely agree. I support the analysis by several noble Lords of the problems of this site in Victoria Tower Gardens.
I must begin by saying that I am entirely in favour of a Holocaust memorial in central London. We all want present and future generations to recognise, understand and learn what the Holocaust was, why it happened and why it still matters. It is frightening that anti-Semitism is ever present. As my noble friend highlighted, a poll showed that more than 2 million people —about 5% of our population—believe that there never was a Holocaust at all. That figure is probably much higher now as a result of social media. Anti-Semitism must be a central element of whatever or wherever the learning centre is.
As Prime Minister in 2015, my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton had a noble ambition when, with cross-party support, he announced details of his proposal. The memorial and learning centre would be world-class. My noble friends have already set out clearly what was promised and what will now be delivered. There is no doubt that the original ambition has been radically reduced as, now, the proposed learning centre would be just a few rooms, all digital. My noble friend Lady Bottomley once memorably described the learning centre as a “subterranean shoebox”.
Several eminent historians, including Sir Richard Evans, have pointed out that London’s contribution would be put to shame by what can be seen elsewhere in the world—indeed, in our own Imperial War Museum, which has been referred to already, and its Holocaust galleries. In preparation for today’s debate, I revisited the Holocaust galleries. They are indeed world-class: through more than 2,000 photos, books and letters, they tell individual stories of some of the 6 million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust.
The first room is extraordinary. It introduces us, through home movies, music and photos, to Jewish families across Europe in the early 1930s. They are smiling and posing on graduation from school or university, at family weddings, skiing and playing table tennis. With the dark reality of what was to come, we then see personal possessions—a child’s teddy bear, a darning mushroom and sheet music—displayed in the large cabinets. A dozen or so spacious, themed rooms link events from the rise of Hitler through to the final solution. It is a profound, emotional and educational experience.
The proposed learning centre, squeezed into the very limited space of Victoria Tower Gardens, lacks this essential content and impact. Surely the Imperial War Museum, set in the verdant 14-acre Harmsworth Park just a mile from Westminster, is a potential alternative site for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. The Victoria Tower Gardens site is totally inappropriate. As my noble friends have said, it has been criticised by UNESCO, Historic England and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which rated it red—in other words, undeliverable. Victims of the Holocaust and survivors, as well as our future generations, deserve a world-class learning centre. That cannot be in Victoria Tower Gardens.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My noble friend mentioned the Jewish Museum in Camden, which has closed down. Is he aware that it says that it has 28,000 items and artefacts—including Jewish art, and examples showing the Jewish way of life going back centuries—in storage? Can he understand why, on the one hand, we have plans for this learning centre in Victoria gardens that will have no artefacts while, on the other, we have a closed-down museum with 28,000 artefacts looking for a home? Can the Government explain why on earth they are unable to marry them up and put the two together in a big, proper museum and learning centre, as the Holocaust Commission recommended?
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
Well, my Lords, that just shows that you should never speak after my noble friend Lord Blencathra, because of course he is right. I hope I made it clear that I thought the consideration of alternative sites should include the idea that we should have a national Jewish museum, which would pick up the 28,000 items, the number of which I was not aware.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
The noble Lord mentioned the shoebox. Is he aware that, if I remember correctly, the Holocaust Commission wanted a campus of between 5,000 square meters and 10,000 square metres, but in an Answer from my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook on 12 April to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the department said that the Adjaye bunker would be just 3,258 square metres? The Answer went on to reveal that 48% of it will be completely unusable, made out of risers, ducts and unusable space, leaving a mere 1,722 square metres for the learning centre. That is about four or five times the size of this Room—some campus, is it not?
Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)
I absolutely agree and I will try to finish within the 10 minutes, and I believe that there is going to be a vote in a moment anyway. I believe that if the Minister were to listen to the witnesses available in your Lordships’ House, we would have a different conclusion. I promise the Minister, not because I know it but because I know it in my bones, that if we were allowed to build a Holocaust learning centre elsewhere, with the subvention that is already promised by the Government, we would have no difficulty in raising the money for an establishment that would rival the great POLIN museum that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, mentioned.
I finish by saying that if the noble Baroness will allow me to say so, and she knows that I love her dearly, I thought she was a little unkind to some members of the Committee. I do not believe that anybody is ill motivated about this in any way. I believe that, unfortunately, they are just wrong and should recognise it.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
Can the Minister confirm that the Government looked at 50 sites before deciding on Victoria Tower Gardens? Is it not the case that Victoria Tower Gardens was selected first and a search then went on to look for unsuitable sites?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I strongly reject that assertion. That was not the case. It was a competition; 50 sites were considered and after all those considerations, it was decided.
I must make progress. I will answer the points that have been raised in the debate. There is a lot to get through as this is a big group, but turning the clock back 10 years to conduct further searches in the belief that some greater consensus will be found is simply not realistic. Moreover, one implication of these amendments is that the learning centre might be located separately from the memorial. The clear recommendation of the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission in its 2015 report was that
“the National Memorial should be co-located with a world-class learning centre”.
That recommendation was accepted by the then Prime Minister, with cross-party support.
The reasons why co-location matters are clear. We want the Holocaust to be understood. We cannot assume that visitors, however powerfully they may be affected by the memorial, will have even a basic understanding of the facts of the Holocaust. We cannot assume that they will recognise the relevance of the Holocaust to us, here in Great Britain, now and in the years to come. A co-located learning centre provides the opportunity to give facts, setting the memorial in context and prompting visitors to reflect.
I have no doubt that visitors will be motivated to learn more, as I was when I visited the Washington memorial. For many, the learning centre will be a starting point. I am confident that many visitors will want to explore the subject further at the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, at the Holocaust Centre and Museum in Nottinghamshire, at Holocaust Centre North in Huddersfield and at many other excellent institutions in the UK and abroad. If the memorial were not accompanied by a learning centre, how many opportunities would be missed? Is it realistic to expect that thousands of visitors would see the memorial and decide then to make a journey of some miles across London to search out further information? Perhaps some would; I am certain that a great many would not.
Turning to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, making a comparison with the Imperial War Museum Holocaust galleries and the size of this learning centre, the learning centre will have around 1,300 square metres of exhibition space, which is about the same as the Imperial War Museum Holocaust galleries. I want to address the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. To be clear, the great majority of visitors will come via public transport, not by coach. Our plans for vehicle access are included within a construction logistics plan which we previously shared with Westminster City Council and which we expect will need to be agreed with it as a planning condition. Visitors will have access to the gardens using the existing entrances, with the site entrance permanently manned with security and construction banksmen.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said that her offer to meet supporters has been ignored. I must politely disagree. Officials and I have met with her and I will continue to meet her whenever she wants, my diary permitting. I am always happy to meet any noble Lord who strongly wants to raise anything. I can see the passion today. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, referred to the great expertise of the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, and my noble friend Lady Blackstone. I am happy to meet at any time in relation to expertise.
Holocaust Memorial Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsWednesday 4th September 2024
(6 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Holocaust Memorial Bill 2022-23 View all Holocaust Memorial Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee Amendments as at 22 May 2024 - (22 May 2024)
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I want to make it abundantly clear that I favour an appropriate and uniquely British monument to the Holocaust in the heart of Westminster, and a properly sized learning centre somewhere nearby with the capability of telling the whole story of the Holocaust and of Jews in Britain and the ability to operate online to tackle the resurgence of Jewish hatred we have seen in the last few months. Never before has education about the eradication of 6 million Jews been more essential as we see frightening calls for a new Holocaust.
However, I am afraid this is an appalling little Bill. It was appalling when the last Government introduced it and it is still an appalling Bill today. That is no fault of the Minister, for whom I have the highest regard.
This memorial fails every recommendation of the Holocaust Commission and instead foists on us a grossly inadequate edifice that does no justice to the past Holocaust nor the threats of a new one, designed by a discredited architect, David Adjaye—a grotesque design already rejected by Canada, and dumped on a completely unsuitable site in London that was never considered by the commission in 2015. At least the Canadians now have a decent one on a one-acre site next to their war museum. It is three stories high and all above ground—not a pokey little thing buried in a bunker in a small park.
The commission wanted something uniquely British. Instead, we get the same inexplicably obscure but uniquely ugly design that Canada rejected. In February 2019, on the BBC, Mr Adjaye justified the ugliness of it by saying that
“disrupting the pleasure of being in a park is key to the thinking”
of the memorial. What? What an appallingly feeble excuse for bad design in the wrong place. Key to the thinking should be educating people on the evil of National Socialism as practised by Hitler and the Nazi regime.
When the commission reported way back in 2015, the conventional view was that all education and learning had to be in a physical building. All that has now changed following Covid. The only point of a physical museum is if there are physical objects to display and the learning cannot be imparted in any other way but by a physical presence. Look at the brilliant display at the Imperial War Museum, which I visited recently. Of course it has the usual photos and videos we have all seen, but it has some physical artefacts: the striped suits, some shoes, jewellery, and a good mock-up of the railway wagons used to transport Jews to the extermination camps. But the bunker here will just have copies of the same posters and videos we have all seen before, because all physical artefacts have already been scooped up by physical museums.
DLUHC, as it then was, boasted to the House of Commons Select Committee that the exhibition would be
“a powerful audio-visual exhibition that will set out the events of the Holocaust from British perspectives, historically, politically and culturally”.
But why would children and young people—or, indeed, anyone—want to visit a building to see things they can get better on their mobile phones and iPads? How many busloads of children will come from Scotland and Wales, or even the English regions, to look at a video show with nothing new in it? How many would visit the Natural History Museum, the British Museum, the Churchill War Rooms or even this place if all they could see in these magnificent buildings were some posters and videos rather than physical artefacts?
Adjaye’s justification for these fins is that the 22 gaps between them represent the 22 countries from where Jews were plucked to be exterminated. That is a completely irrelevant number that no one has heard of before. Why not one fin representing the country that did it, Nazi Germany? Why not 20 fins, the number of concentration camps, or six, the number of large extermination camps? Many numbers could be chosen but they are all irrelevant except one: 6 million—6 million Jews exterminated. That is the figure that needs to be represented in any memorial, and it is more important today than ever before.
On 27 January 2019, the BBC published a poll showing that 8.5 million Brits—19% of our population—thought that fewer than 2 million Jews had been exterminated. Some 2.2 million people—5% of our population—believed there never was a Holocaust at all. There are frightening, deliberate lies being spread by social media, and that level of Holocaust denial is increasing rapidly. We need not an old-fashioned, analogue bunker in the ground but a large, modern, high-tech, 24/7, digital educational operation, attached to the Imperial War Museum, which would be keen to house it, pumping out the true facts of the last Holocaust and rebutting the lies on social media about Jews in this country and abroad.
I am proud of what Jews have delivered for this country over the past 500 years despite bias and discrimination. Now they are under attack like never before. The Holocaust is being denied, and this failed Adjaye design does nothing to educate millions of people on the horrors of it nor counteract the present threats of a new Holocaust. That is why this Bill fails all the tests of the original commission.
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsWednesday 6th September 2023
(1 year, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 View all Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 142-VI(a) Amendments for Report (Supplementary to the Sixth Marshalled List) - (5 Sep 2023)
Lord Northbrook (Con)
My Lords, I am not quite sure why the Control of Pollution Act is put in the same group as swifts. Anyway, my Amendment 282 is in this group.
My local authority, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, unlike some local planning authorities, refuses to impose by planning condition any requirement on developers to mitigate noise, dust and vibration during construction work in accordance with an improved construction method statement that the developer is routinely obliged to submit as part of its planning application for a major development. Instead, with respect to such developments, it promises to encourage developers to submit applications for prior consent under Section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, failing which it promises that the council will issue a Section 60 notice.
These consents and notices create legal obligations on the developers but the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea can take action only if a breach has been notified. However, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea does not publish the consents and notices anywhere on its website or even the fact that a notice has been issued or a consent agreed to. As a result, residents are not aware whether or when a notice has been issued, what measures a developer has promised to take, what the obligations are under the notice or whether an obligation has been breached. They therefore cannot notify the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea that a breach has occurred. As a result, the system is rendered useless.
My proposed solution is simply that local planning authorities should be obliged to publish all such consents and notices on their planning websites promptly upon issue and not remove them. In the other place, the Minister’s response was that Section 69 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires local planning authorities to keep a register of applications. The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 requires that these registers contain parts 3 and 4 containing details of local development orders and neighbourhood development orders respectively. Part 3, for instance, must include copies of any draft development orders that have been prepared but not adopted by the local planning authority and any adopted local development orders.
The Minister’s reply in the other place completely missed the point. Notices issued under Section 60 and consents given under Section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act are not planning applications or local or neighbourhood development orders. The reply in this place from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, in Committee showed that she did not seem to understand what the amendment was seeking to achieve or why. She said:
“Legislating for information to be published in a specific way would remove their ability to make decisions at local level, for little additional benefit”.
This is incorrect. It would not affect in any way local authorities’ ability to make decisions. She concluded, without explanation, that
“the Government believe the proposed amendment is unnecessary and cannot support it”.
On being pressed by my noble friend Lord Bellingham, she replied:
“Since this is a Defra lead, I will commit to write to my noble friend and share the answer with the rest of the Committee”.—[Official Report, 18/4/23; col. 577.]
She did not do so.
When an LPA imposes a planning condition to require compliance with an approved construction method statement, it is obliged by law to publish on its planning website the text of the condition and the fact that the condition has been imposed. No one argues that this removes or affects its ability to make a decision, nor have I ever seen it argued that there are any circumstances in which it would be justifiable to keep the imposition of a condition or its text secret. Measures whereby the developer promises to mitigate noise and disturbance during construction do not touch on privacy or national security. By analogy, I cannot think of any circumstances in which it would be justifiable for a local planning authority to keep the issue of a Section 60/61 notice or consent, or its contents, secret. The Government have not explained why keeping it secret might be justifiable, and that is why I tabled the amendment on Report.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests set out in the register. It was a delight to listen to my noble friends Lord Goldsmith and Lord Randall describe the importance of swift bricks to the preservation of this species and to stopping their decline. I am delighted to be able to support it.
Installing these bricks is an absolute no-brainer. They cost between £25 and £35. Last year, the big four housebuilders—just four of them, Barratt, Berkeley, Persimmon and Bellway—made profits of £2.749 billion. I am sure they can afford a £25 brick for the 300,000 homes they might or might not manage to build next year. Installing the bricks is a no-brainer.
I learned today—I hope, wrongly—that the Government may be opposed to this measure. That, too, would be a no-brainer if they are. I wonder where the opposition has come from. I hope they have not been lobbied by the Home Builders Federation—the organisation which lied, lied and lied again about the Government blocking the building of 145,000 homes because of nutrient neutrality. That was totally untrue. Of course, housebuilders are sitting on more than 1 million planning applications and are land-banking until they can release them gradually and make maximum profits. If that is legitimate, so be it, but let us not let them attack the Government for holding up housebuilding when it is not the Government doing it.
I understand that in the Commons the Government said they could not mandate this nationally and it must be left to local voluntary discretion. Housebuilding left to local voluntary discretion? You cannot build a house anywhere in the country without the Government almost dictating the colour of the curtains. Look at the national regulations on every aspect of housebuilding: electrics; plumbing; the type of cement; the way the damp-proof course is laid; the tiles and insulation. Nearly every mortal thing of importance in the house—the width of the doorways, the bannisters, the boilers you may install after 2030—is dictated by central government, and rightly so. I am not complaining about that, but I am complaining about the apparent hypocrisy if the Government I support are now saying “Oh, we can’t order every house to have a little brick installed because that is taking national government interference too far”. If that is the case, I think that is nonsense.
I know that some Government Ministers have already installed these bricks. They have done it voluntarily, without guidance. If it is good enough for some Ministers, quite rightly, to save swifts out of their own volition, then it should be quite right that the Government support a measure to impose this nationally.
If it is the case that the Government are opposed to this, I would really like to know where that opposition came from in government. If it is true then some idiot—an adviser, spad or civil servant, but hopefully not a Minister—has decided to oppose this. I exempt my noble friend the Minister, as this is an environmental matter and nothing to do with her brief, but why in the name of God should a Conservative Government oppose this?
In the first three years of this Government, under Michael Gove and George Eustice in environment, we made the biggest strides forward in environmental and nature protection that this country has ever seen, with the 25-year plan and the Environment Act. Now we could lose that good reputation because of a trivial thing if we oppose installing a 25-quid brick in a house wall to save swifts.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 221A on swift bricks, as your Lordships might expect. My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has, in the terms of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, flown back from a nearby cavity just to be here for this debate, but she could not be here at the start, so your Lordships get me instead.
This is something that I have been talking about. I was on TalkTV, talking to Julia Hartley-Brewer about restoring biodiversity. I happened to mention swift bricks in that discussion and the presenter said in response, “Isn’t that just a small thing? Don’t we have to do much more?”. Of course that is true, but, if you are a swift then a swift brick is not a small thing. The fact that you need somewhere to make your home and raise your young is a matter of life and death. As the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said, there has been a 60% decline in the population in the last 25 years. These beautiful and utterly amazing creations of nature depend on having a place to rest and raise their young, and we are closing those spaces off.
The noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, also made an important point about human well-being—how much we all benefit from having swifts around and what a wonderful addition they are to our environment. Think about young people, such as the toddler who says, “What’s that?”, and has it explained so that they learn more. That is crucial.
The state of our biodiversity is absolutely parlous. We are one of the worst corners of this planet for nature. As we heard passionately from the Benches opposite, surely the Government cannot oppose this—they cannot oppose what was said by MPs in the other place and is being said by so many petitioners. Please let us have some common sense here.
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsMonday 22nd May 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 View all Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 84-XIV Fourteenth marshalled list for Committee - (18 May 2023)
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, last week, my esteemed colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, asked whether I would support his amendments on pavement accessibility. I trusted him completely so I said, “Yes, of course, I would love to support them”. Then I read them and, actually, they are quite tough and strict in places, but the more I read them, the more I liked them. I particularly liked Amendment 450, which is about taking bits of the road—I love that idea—and reducing the space for traffic, as well as Amendment 459 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and others, because that is so tough on smoking and I loathe smoking. I support many of these amendments. Obviously, I support all the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. There is, perhaps, some space to bring in the fact that cars park on the pavement. I hate pavement parking and I hate loads of rubbish bins being heaped up on the side of pavements because they inhibit free access.
My local shopping street has gone absolutely bananas with this, and it has changed the whole feeling of the street—it is so much more friendly. At the moment, only the Co-op, Iceland and Boots, I think, do not have tables and chairs outside them, with people eating, drinking and having fun. I am all in favour of this section and look forward to Report, when I would be happy to vote on many of them and perhaps even sign up to them as well.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, it is always a delight to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. She did say that some of my noble friend’s amendments were quite tough but that she liked them. I think the Committee would agree that the noble Baroness is quite tough and we rather like her as well. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond on the initiative he has undertaken in tabling these important amendments. He is to be congratulated by all disabled people, fighting our corner—or narrow strip of pavement, as the case may be.
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsThursday 18th May 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 View all Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 84-XIV Fourteenth marshalled list for Committee - (18 May 2023)
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as per the register. I apologise to the Committee that I have not previously participated in these proceedings, but I have been away a lot with the Council of Europe, monitoring elections in Montenegro and Bulgaria, and other places. As an aside, I must say, with Lib Dem Peers here, that Bulgaria adopted a proportional representation system. It has 14 political parties, organised into seven coalitions, and this was the fifth general election in two years we monitored, with exactly the same result as the other four. It has got a completely ungovernable country and, once again, a Government who will shortly collapse.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, that we have 250,000 miles of footpath, and we will shortly have completed 2,000 miles of the King Charles III England Coast Path. That seems to me to be an awful lot of mileage for people to walk on, but of course there are some right to roam fanatics who want to make a political point about having the right to roam on anyone’s land. I think it is more important that we develop footpaths and make sure they are open for access by ordinary people in every part of the United Kingdom.
I really must congratulate my noble friend Lord Randall on an outstanding speech today, moving his amendment; it was highly persuasive. The current amendment is an important opportunity to further nature recovery aspirations across the 24% of England designated as national park or area of outstanding natural beauty. England’s areas of outstanding natural beauty and the national parks are even more important now as we face the climate, nature and well-being challenges of the 21st century. They are more important than when the iconic National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act was passed in 1949, as part of the World War II settlement.
I have lived in the Lake District National Park for about 20 years—just outside it now—and I can honestly say that the biodiversity of the national park is every bit as bad as some of the silage fields outside it, which are crop-bare three times a year and the hedgerows cut down to almost nothing. There is no better biodiversity in the national park. That is something which the amendment seeks to change, and I know the Government want to change it.
There is widespread recognition, including in the 2019 Landscapes Review commissioned by the Government, that aspects of the legislation need updating if our protected landscapes are to be able to rise to these 21st-century challenges and deliver the crucial benefits people and nature need. My noble friend’s amendment is a crucial opportunity to make these important changes, fulfilling the welcome intentions of the Government announced in last January’s initial response to the review. However, if the Government are minded to add a reference to nature recovery and biodiversity, it should be added, in my opinion, with equal priority to the current statutory purposes, not given primacy over the existing purposes. That is where I depart slightly from my noble friend: it should not be given priority over the other purposes but have equal weight.
I suggest also that the duty of regard placed on public bodies is strengthened and extended to encompass delivery of agreed statutory national park and AONB management plans. It is possible that a similar effect to the amendment, regarding statutory purposes, could be achieved if the Government and Defra, and my noble friend the Minister, asked Natural England, the statutory adviser on landscapes in England, to provide further advice or guidance to clarify interpretation of the current wordings, although I accept this would not give the same strength or security, or the signalling, desired by some concerned with the issue. However, I suggest that it might be an acceptable compromise if my noble friend’s amendment is not acceptable in any way to the Government. Without a slightly tweaked amendment or the compromise I have suggested, I am afraid we may miss the opportunity to build in appropriate and more effective tools to protect these landscapes at this critical time.
In my final comment, I say to my noble friend Lord Hodgson that I live near the A66 and, if I had known he was coming, I would have invited him in for a glass or two of Highland Park. I would hope that, after a few glasses, I could have persuaded him to give up this mad idea of walking the whole length and breadth of the country.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Government on their 30 by 30 target. It is an enormous and ambitious thing to take on. In that context, I urge them to support my noble friend Lord Randall’s amendment. We have large areas of national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, a lot of which does not sensibly qualify for 30 by 30 at the moment. We have structures within them which could help drive them in that direction, if we pass the sort of amendment that my noble friend has suggested. I like proposed new subsection (5) in particular, which would make other agencies join in the purpose of the national park.
My Amendment 504GJC—after 30 years, I still do not understand how the numbering works, but that is where it is—concerns other effective area-based conservation measures. We are not, I think, going to get to 30 by 30 on the basis of national landscapes. We need a structure which allows not for nature protection to be provided somewhere else but for nature protection to be something that all of us can influence and be involved in.
Fortunately, the Convention on Biological Diversity has provided the concept of an OECM, which I think we can adapt in very positive ways. An OECM could be a corner of a park in a city, or a corner of a school playground that is developed in conjunction with the National Education Nature Park, which I see from the Natural History Museum is starting to be rolled out. It could be this great network of connection that we want farmers to develop across the landscape, so wildlife can move across it. It could even be golf courses, for goodness’ sake—I believe there is one golf course which allows daisies on the fairways. There is real scope for getting wildlife back into golfers’ lives—I have not yet met one who wants it but we will get there in the end.
It was one of the underpinnings of the Dasgupta report that everybody should have an appreciation of and involvement in nature. The structure of OECMs allows us to create that, involving everybody in getting to 30 by 30. The structure I have proposed in Amendment 504GJC has a low threshold, because you want people to be able to join in to begin with, without going through huge layers of bureaucracy, but you may well need a fiercer award within that to qualify for 30 by 30. It identifies an individual who has charge of the area and a purpose for it. This should be something personal which is down to a group of people or an individual landowner, which they are doing themselves and for which they are responsible, for which we can thank them for taking responsibility, but to which we can also hold them to account. I therefore very much hope that the Government will democratise 30 by 30, spreading it out and making it a national rather than a purely institutional ambition, and that they will give us the tools with which we can do that.
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsMonday 27th March 2023
(1 year, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 View all Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 84-VIII Eighth Marshalled list for Committee - (23 Mar 2023)
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and the other cosignatories on putting forward the two amendments in this group. My only concern is what time commitment and resources would be required of the local authorities, given the fact that they are very heavily challenged at this time. I pay tribute to the lead local authorities, especially on the work they are doing on flood prevention, which is already a major resource commitment timewise. I know it has made a big difference already in areas such as north Yorkshire, which I am most familiar with, where we do have a number of functional flood plains. Across the country, the advice of the Environment Agency is not always pursued.
As regards the habitats directive, we need a firm steer from the Government on how we are going to steer this path, where we have the retained EU law Bill where, presumably, we are going to park the habitats directive on one side. But there is a possibility here, through this group of amendments, for nature recovery strategies to try to achieve a balance.
I end by saying that my noble friend is only too aware of my commitment to farming and ensuring that, within nature recovery, farming is recognised as a major contributor to these strategies.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as in the register. I came in to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, because I thought I liked the wording of her amendment. Having listened to her and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, I am absolutely convinced of the justice of their case. As my noble friend will know, one of the most crucial parts of the Environment Act is local nature recovery strategies—it is what it is all about in many ways. At the moment, the Bill says merely that local authorities must “have regard to” it. We all know—the lawyers present will explain no doubt ad nauseum and for a reasonable fee—that “having regard to” is fairly meaningless in many ways. A local authority could “have regard to” a local nature recovery strategy and then find a dozen reasons to reject it, because they had regard to it but for this reason or that reason did not wish to pursue it.
I particularly like the wording here, which does not seem to tie local authorities’ hands. It says that they
“must ensure that their development plan (taken as a whole) incorporates such policies and proposals so as to deliver the objectives of the local nature recovery strategy”.
It does not tell them what to do or how to do it; it just says that they have a free hand to invent their own policies that deliver the objectives of local nature recovery strategies. I ask my noble friend the Minister: what is the point of us developing local nature recovery strategies at a national level if they are not going to be implemented locally in local development plans?
I do not think that my noble friend is right that there will be great additional cost to local authorities in doing this—I can see nothing here to suggest that—but, if local nature recovery strategies are to work as every single person in this Chamber wants them to, the wording of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, is probably the only way to deliver that. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could explain to me what the problem is with the noble Baroness’s wording.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I too support these amendments. The noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Willis, have made an absolutely convincing and compelling case for strengthening the responsibility of local planning authorities to consider local nature recovery strategies.
This is exactly the arrangement that the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, set out when he was trying to persuade us not to press our amendments on this issue to a vote during the passage of the Environment Bill. At that time, he made it clear that the Government viewed local nature recovery strategies as key to identifying where action for nature and the environment would have the most impact. He went on to make it clear that Defra was working with the then Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to develop planning reforms that would contain a defining role for local nature recovery strategies and set them at the heart of decision-making. Obviously, there have been some changes in government and some movement on this since then, but that does not alter the nature of the pledges that were given at that time.
Since then, we have made good progress on establishing a network of local nature recovery strategies around the country. They are getting on with the job of surveying their local biodiversity priorities, providing crucial local data and mapping their local habitats. Their local knowledge and insight are proving crucial in identifying what action and resources can best be targeted. Through their partnership in stakeholder roles, they are also bringing together a wide group of interests to support a local strategic biodiversity recovery plan. However, what is the point of them doing all this work if local planning authorities can simply override their work and priorities? If we are not careful, those involved in drawing up these strategies will quickly become disillusioned and this will be seen as yet another talking shop.
This matters because, as we know, we have crucial statutory targets; for example, to halt the decline of species abundance by 2030, to deliver on our COP commitment to protect 30% of land and nature by 2030, and to deliver the many nature recovery targets set out in the environmental improvement plan. These are simply not going to happen unless local planning authorities put nature recovery at the heart of their decision-making. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, pointed out, there is widespread support for greater weighting to be placed on these local biodiversity recovery plans. There is also a real concern that, when it comes to the crunch, those nature recovery strategies will once again slide down the list of priorities and be seen as a second-tier concern.
I am grateful for the Minister’s letter to me and my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone on this issue. Again, she flagged up that the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023 commits to publishing guidance on how local nature recovery strategies can be reflected in local plans. As we have heard, we have received statutory guidance since then; however, it does not answer the central challenge that, unless we have wording along the lines of Amendment 184ZA or something very similar, the current imbalance will continue and local nature recovery strategies will not play their deserved and necessary part in decision-making.
This is not a total determination but about getting the balance right and ensuring that local nature recovery strategies are part of the decision-making. I am very pleased to hear so much support for these amendments from around the Chamber today. I hope that the Minister is hearing that strong case and can reassure us that the Government will take this away and come back with a stronger commitment, along the lines of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter.
Building Safety Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsTuesday 26th April 2022
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Building Safety Act 2022 View all Building Safety Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 147-I Marshalled list for Consideration of Commons Amendments - (25 Apr 2022)
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the constructive amendments that the Government have tabled at this stage and for listening to the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Blencathra, who have been very helpful during the passage of the Bill. However, there are still concerns outstanding, as has just been said, so I will speak now to my Motion H1 as an amendment to Motion H.
We on these Benches have consistently argued that all leaseholders should be protected from the cost of remediating historical cladding and non-cladding defects and the associated secondary costs, irrespective of circumstance. Although we fully acknowledge that the waterfall system set out in Schedule 8 provides leaseholders with a far greater deal of protection than was proposed when the Bill first came to us, when it was originally drafted, it does not protect all of them fully. Just as importantly, the Bill does not provide redress for the countless blameless leaseholders across the country who have already been hit with huge bills and have paid out significant sums as a result.
That is why I have tabled Motion H1 to reduce leaseholder contributions to a maximum of £250. I am aware that the Government have said that leaseholder contributions are fair in principle because they will apply in only a very limited number of cases. The Minister has said that leaseholders will pay up to the cap or a proportion of the cap in only a minority of circumstances. However, if it is only a very small number of cases that we are talking about, why are the Government so reluctant to provide proper and full support? For many people, £15,000, or £10,000 as the cap currently stands, is simply an impossible sum to find.
Leaseholders have refused to give up. They recognise more than anyone that the situation they face is simply not fair, and your Lordships’ House recognised that by supporting the amendment that I tabled on Report. I ask for noble Lords’ continued support in agreeing Motion H1 and, in so doing, to acknowledge the determination and persistence of the leaseholders and cladding groups that have been pressing for redress in this matter.
In sticking rigidly to the position that a minority of leaseholders will have to pay sums that, although capped, are still significant, in order to resolve a scandal that they played no part in causing, we believe that the Government are not acting equitably and will not ensure that the most vulnerable leaseholders will be protected. Our Motion H1 would provide such protection. If the Minister is unable to accept it, we will seek to divide the House, with a view to ensuring that all leaseholders are fully protected.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to the House for missing the first two minutes of my noble friend’s magnum opus; the last business went slightly faster than I had anticipated. I declare a personal interest as a leaseholder in a block of flats that may contain some non-cladding works that may require remedial treatment.
I have to praise my noble friend the Minister yet again for the tremendous changes that have been made to the Bill since it came from the other place. I also congratulate my right honourable friend Michael Gove on forcing all the big building companies to sign up, including bringing the Galliard Homes horse kicking and neighing to the water, although he will need to ensure that it and the other companies actually drink the water—they will throw millions at lawyers to weasel out of what they have signed up to.
I am told that the owner of Galliard Homes, Stephen Conway, has accused Michael Gove of acting like Al Capone and the mafia. My respect for young Gove increases by the minute. Conway had an estimated worth of £270 million in 2015; imagine what he is worth now. It seems to me that the owners of the big building companies have made their billions by being a bit more ruthless mafiosi than Michael Gove ever was. However, that is for another day.
Despite the excellent progress on the Bill, there are still some gaps. I regret that we do not have anything specific in the Bill protecting enfranchised leaseholders. All Governments have encouraged leaseholders to buy out the freehold. Those who have done so are still exactly the same as other leaseholders who have not, and they should get the same protection. I welcome the consultation but I hope it is speedy, and I hope that, if legislation is necessary or this can be done by regulation, that is brought in as quickly as possible.
I acknowledge that the Government have increased the number of properties qualified under buy to let, but in my opinion they have not gone far enough. As a small buy-to-let owner said to me, why does the Bill support with cost-capping a billionaire oligarch non-dom with two buy-to-let leasehold flats in Mayfair, valued at millions, yet leave completely exposed a pensioner buy-to-let leaseholder with a small portfolio of just four flats? These people are not big landlords. Although nothing can be done in this Bill now, I hope something can be done in future.
Nor am I happy that we are planning to reject buildings under 11 metres. They may not be as big a risk but they are unsellable. When an estate agent or lawyer tells prospective buyers that the flat they have looked at has some dangerous cladding—but not to worry because you will probably get out in time if it burns down—I do not think that they will find many buyers. These flats are simply unsellable.
Finally, I disagree with the removal of “zero”, and like the Opposition’s amendment of £250. I do not accept that the government caps set a proportionate balance, as was said in the other place by my right honourable friend Stuart Andrew MP, who was also an excellent Deputy Chief Whip in his time. As Michael Gove said, no leaseholders should pay a penny for any remediation works. We heard impeccable legal advice in this House from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and a former Supreme Court Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, saying that making leaseholders pay in order to avoid an ECHR challenge was misguided and wrong. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said, the challenge will happen in any case, no matter what level the Government set the cap at, and those building companies will try it on.
If Motion H1 succeeds today, I do not want the Government in the other place to take on the role of the wonderful Ukrainian Snake Island defender, Roman Grybov, who offered sexual advice to the Russian warship. We are not the “Moscow”, and I hope that the Government will bring forward a compromise amendment, perhaps higher than £250 but much lower than the government caps.
With those quibbles, I wish to congratulate my noble friend yet again on the massive progress he has made with this measure. “One more heave”, as Jeremy Thorpe said in 1974—but hopefully with a bit more success.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I have been living with this matter since we first debated the Fire Safety Bill in 2020. I declare an interest as chair of the Built Environment Committee. I believe that the building industry has an important part to play and has tried to rise to the table in the current circumstances. The Government, and my noble friend the Minister in particular, are to be congratulated on all they have done to find a way through on cladding, but the measures legislated for are inevitably costly and should not, in my view, be legislated for in respect of buildings under 11 metres, as proposed in Amendment D1.
I have some news for my noble friends. Since Michael Gove’s Statement on 10 January about proportionality and common sense, the logjam in buildings under 11 metres has eased. I have experience of this, relating to a family leaseholder in a nearby village, where there is now a less absolutist and more flexible approach to fire safety in a block of homes; this has become apparent in recent weeks since the changes were made. I believe, therefore, that there is a limit as to what we should provide on a contingency basis. I do not believe that taking the proposed powers, as now suggested, is justified. I think that the situation is improving in relation to buildings under 11 metres, and we should welcome that and see how that approach can be progressed.
I end by thanking my noble friend the Minister for the progress that has been made. Obviously, there are horrific problems, right across the board, in relation to taller buildings and cladding. Howeever, I urge people to be a little careful in bringing into the legislative framework, without looking at all the details, a very much larger number of homes.
Building Safety Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsMonday 4th April 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Building Safety Act 2022 View all Building Safety Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 144-I Amendment for Third Reading - (1 Apr 2022)
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comments. I am glad to be associated with proportionality, especially in relation to safety and the unintended consequences of a zero-risk approach to any policy, actually. I thank everyone who has been involved—the Minister, the government team and all the people across the House far more experienced than I am—for making the discussions around this have a certain sense of a collegiate endeavour, trying to solve a problem that we all knew was there. I thank your Lordships for your encouragement and, often, your patience with my own inability to quite understand the process.
I particularly thank leaseholders. I got involved with this issue because I was lobbied, not by big business but by ordinary, grass-roots leaseholders. As a leaseholder myself, I found that there was a whole community out there. While we have done a huge amount to benefit their situation, going from where they were to where they are, we are not quite there yet. As much as I would like it to be the case that they are grateful for our endeavours, many of them still feel frustrated, fearful and nervous—and you cannot blame them, because they are just not sure what is going to happen; there are too many question marks. I do not think we should be disparaging of them or think that they are lacking in gratitude for what has happened.
I encourage the Government not only to give time in the other place to consider the amendments but not to wash their hands of the Bill, as it were, once it eventually fully goes through. I think we have all noted that there will be unintended consequences: hidden costs and service charges. While there might be a formal review, this will be an ongoing issue for many years to come. Therefore, I hope the Government will be open to those lobbying for leaseholders, even when we are not discussing a Bill in Parliament. I would like the department to still keep listening to them, as I certainly will. I will raise issues whenever I get the chance. Generally, this is far better than when we started, but I always want more.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, simply look at the Bill that came from the other place, then take a look at what we are sending back. It has changed beyond all recognition. I pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister and his boss, my right honourable friend Michael Gove, for that extraordinary transformation. I also thank my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and noble Lords and noble Baronesses on all sides of the House, and the right reverend Prelate, for the many amendments they have made, many of which have been accepted by the Government. We are sending back some important amendments that the Government might not quite like as much as we would like them to. However, I appeal to the other place to accept them and not to remove them, especially the zero amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock.
The Government, apparently, have had legal advice on the dangers of breaking the ECHR if we changed the cap figures, but we heard, I submit, even better legal advice that that is not so. In any case, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, said, some developers will challenge the figure in court no matter what level the Government set.
We also need to do more on enfranchised leaseholders. They were encouraged to purchase their freeholds, and they must not be treated like rapacious landlords. Nevertheless, this Bill now gives leaseholders infinitely better protection. With a few further tweaks it could give them full protection. When I see the contribution my noble friends have made to the Bill, I am reminded of the words of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, or almost his words:
“Antonius! … Yond”
noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham,
“has a lean and hungry look … Let me have men about me that are fat”.
I commend this Bill and hope the other place will improve it further.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, as one who has been involved in housing policy for over 50 years, I pay tribute to my noble friend for his time, care and effort, and his listening qualities, which have not always been a feature of those on either Front Bench. I offer sincere thanks to my noble friend.
Building Safety Bill
Lord Blencathra ExcerptsTuesday 29th March 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Building Safety Act 2022 View all Building Safety Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 125-I(a) Amendments for Report (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (28 Mar 2022)
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I particularly like her slogan, “Get the work done.” Somehow it reminds me of a similar slogan we heard rather successfully a couple of years ago: Get Brexit done. I am glad that the Liberal Democrats are picking up some Conservative slogans.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
I support Amendment 233, so ably moved by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham in his usual erudite way; he had the detail but was still succinct. Because he set it out so well, I can be commendably brief, for a change.
I start from the position of my right honourable friend Michael Gove, and I totally support what he has said and done. I usually support what he says and does, except when he was Conservative Chief Whip and was a bit cuddly, caring and too kind. But apart from that, I liked it when he said that
“leaseholders are shouldering a desperately unfair burden. They are blameless, and it is morally wrong that they should be the ones asked to pay the price. I am clear about who should pay the price for remedying failures. It should be the industries that profited, as they caused the "problem, and those who have continued to profit, as they make it worse.”—[Official Report, Commons, 10/1/22; col. 284.]
You cannot say better than that. So I am rather sympathetic to any amendments, including the one moved by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, trying to make sure that developers or perpetrators pay every penny. It should not be leaseholders and, ideally, it should not be the taxpayer.
However, this amendment creates a remediator of last resort and allows the Secretary of State to step in and undertake the works. In either case, it would allow the Secretary of State or the local authority to pursue the responsible developer with debt claims to recover the money laid out on remedial works. As my noble friend so ably said, that ensures that there is a failsafe mechanism in the law. The Government’s legislative proposals do not tell us what will happen if remedial works are simply not started or cannot be completed as a result of the effect of the caps imposed in the Bill and the restrictions on buy-to-let landlords.
The duty in this amendment would fill the gap. The Government’s proposals would require some sort of remediator of last resort. Because they are imposing caps on what can be collected toward non-cladding costs, the Government are creating a gap in funding, which will have to be plugged somehow. Ultimately, someone is going to have to pay; otherwise, as my noble friend said, buildings will never be fixed. This amendment allows building work to be started and buildings to be fixed, with the taxpayer providing a form of bridging finance—but they must get that money back from the building safety fund; this is not carte blanche to make the taxpayer pay for these things.
As I said, I am sympathetic to the amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. I just worry that if we adopted these four or five new clauses, we might be tearing the guts out of the Bill and would have to rewrite a lot of it. But I think his heart is in the right place in where he is aiming to go. I understand that my noble friend might be worried about the legal position under the ECHR. This is another area where the noble Earl’s amendments might technically fall foul of the ECHR. Some of us have seen legal advice circulated from Daniel Greenberg, who is well known to everyone in this House. He says:
“On the basis of this analysis, l am satisfied that the draft clauses are compatible with the Convention rights and that Ministers will be able to comply with Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (Acts of public authorities: duty not to act incompatibly with ECHR) when they come to perform the functions conferred by the draft clauses”—
referring to draft Clauses 234 to 237.
I am not capable of suggesting whether Daniel Greenberg QC is correct or not, but I would love to hear what the Minister has to say about that. If the amendments from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, are not right, it would be helpful to hear from my noble friend how far they can go towards what the noble Earl is trying to achieve. If he is going to reject them, I would love to hear how far he can push to get as close as possible to the noble Earl’s position. With those words, I am content to support my noble friend’s Amendment 233, and I would love to hear explanations on the noble Earl’s amendments.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for a brief Committee-style intervention, given the novel nature of the group of amendments we are looking at. I have two points.
First, I am very grateful for the agreement earlier to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best. I thank my noble friend for that but, as he knows, I am concerned about the position of leaseholders who are also involved in the hard task of managing even a small development as an enfranchised leaseholder. I have a family member with an interest in that area. What happens if a cladding or other building safety issue arises? I know that such leaseholders may face big bills and responsibilities. Amendments 186 to 193 appear to make enfranchised leaseholders of this kind liable even if they have ceased to act or sold out and become previous landlords. Have I understood this correctly? If I have, then it undermines the case for enfranchisement that has been encouraged by successive Governments to get rid of excess service charges.
Secondly, a strong case has been made for the non-government amendments in this group. I too have received many worrying letters from leaseholders. Do we have a feel for the cost, especially the net cost, of these Back-Bench amendments we are debating? I feel this is a matter that will be of concern in the other place, given current fiscal pressures, and might therefore determine what is eventually agreed in this important and urgent Bill.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I have not spoken in these debates either. I hope, like the noble Lord, Lord Marks, I might be forgiven for intervening very briefly.
I took the opportunity of looking at Article 1 of Protocol 1 shortly before coming into the Chamber today, and at some of the background authorities to which the noble Lord has referred. I agree entirely with his carefully worded speech in every respect. There is, of course, a question of balance and a question of the margin of appreciation and the other technical phrases that he has used, with which I am very familiar, but I think his assessment of all these points is absolutely right. The prospects of a successful challenge really are very remote, and the Government would succeed. I agree with his assessment, and I hope this might be of some comfort to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, in her amendment, and to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to speak after hearing from two such knowledgeable noble Lords. I am tempted to say: let us cut to the chase and go straight to the vote on Amendment 115 and get it over with.
In the meantime, I would like to speak on Amendment 115, which I strongly support, and Amendment 123. I would like to comment on Amendments 155, 156 and 157, and to my Amendments 158, 159 and 163. Before doing that, although I will not speak to them, I was privileged to support Amendment 117 on enfranchising leaseholders, Amendment 124, moved by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, on pensioners, and Amendment 153, moved by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham.
On Amendment 115, concerned with buildings under 11 metres, I strongly support what is proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. I hope he presses it to a vote unless my noble friend is willing to accept it. I have heard my noble friend the Minister say repeatedly—and he is largely right—that a building of under 11 metres may be less dangerous than a building of 20 or 30 storeys. I accept that even I could get out of a building of three storeys a bit faster than I could get out of one of 13 or 30 storeys. The risk is lower, but there is still a risk—that is one of the main points: there is still a risk. When we saw Richmond House burn down in nine or 10 minutes, it was horrifying. I hope that, if I was in there and woke up in time, I would have got out, but there might be some disabled people who could not have done so.
There is also an issue of principle. If someone has built a building, whether it is 1 metre high or 11 metres high, and used flammable materials or the wrong materials, they should be made to fix it, no matter how wealthy they are—if it is Abramovich or anyone else. If the building has flawed materials, it should be repaired, irrespective of the height. I appreciate that my noble friend has gone a long way on this and that he has been very kind in telling us at countless meetings that there is a lower risk in those buildings, but there is still a risk. Of course, he also said that the numbers were very small: in that case, if the numbers are very small, it is a small problem to fix.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
Let us do it—that is a slogan for the next election for the noble Baroness. If the numbers are small, it is a small thing to fix.
Moving on to Amendment 123, again I support my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham in changing the definition of “qualifying lease” so that buy-to-let landlords with an interest in up to five properties, including their main home, benefit from the leaseholder cost protections in Schedule 9. As my noble friend said, this is important because there are many buildings where there are a lot of little flats owned by buy-to-let landlords. If those landlords cannot pay their share of the bill, it will mean that not all the money is available to do the work for the whole building. Similar issues may arise when landlords own flats in multiple different affected buildings that have received help from the building safety fund.
I appreciate that many of those landlords hold their buy-to-let properties as part of or, in some cases, all their pension provision. We have all had many emails from people in the past few days setting out some rather sad examples. I know my noble friend has increased the protection from two by-to-lets to four, but I do not think that goes far enough and we suggest that the overall figure should be five, but even then it omits many small landlords. I know it is not good law to quote hard cases, but I have an example of just one of dozens one has received in the past few weeks.
This person says, “I am 57 and have worked as an electrical contractor most of my life. I now have nine small rental apartments in Salford, valued at £80,000 to £100,000 each, a total of approximately £800,000 before they were valued at £0 since the cladding crisis. These properties were purchased in 2007-08 with years of savings and dropped 40% in value due to the financial crash of 2009 caused by the banks, which were bailed out, so my properties are still in negative equity. My nine apartments in the same building are all subject to safety issues, and my total service charges for 2022 are approximately £250,000 for the external wall system only, and this quote is from last year. The managing agents are in the process of getting updated quotes, which will be much higher. This does not include firebreaks, compartmentalisation, fire doors, et cetera, so my total costs are likely to be over £300,000 on property valued at £800,000. Having nine rental apartments seems to deem me to be a large-scale landlord not worthy of protecting from these costs, whereas someone with one or two rental properties in London worth a similar value to my nine little flats will be protected under the latest proposals.” He concludes, “The developer of the building has not replied to any letters from our managing agent or us leaseholders and has been trying to close the company for months, which we have objected to. The company has not traded for six years and there are zero funds in the accounts.”
That is a good example of why these amendments are necessary. It is not just the numbers, as the right reverend Prelate said, it has to be the overall value, and that is why I support my noble friend Lord Young’s amendment on having a percentage figure. If we cannot have zero or peppercorn, then 1% seems a fairer way of going about it.
On my Amendments 158, 159 and 163, the Government’s proposals require leaseholders in properties worth more than £175,000 and up to £1 million outside London to pay £10,000 towards non-cladding remedial works if money cannot be found from developers or landlords. In London leaseholders in properties worth more than £325,000 and up to £1 million may have to pay up to £15,000. Again, that is if money cannot be found from developers or landlords. Higher caps of £50,000 and £100,000 apply inside and outside London for properties worth more than £1 million or £2 million. The Government say that these caps are necessary, again because of legal advice which we have just heard rebutted and on which I shall comment in a moment. The claim is that in order to impose measures on developers and landlords it is necessary for leaseholders to contribute in some cases or we fall foul of the ECHR.
Amendment 158 in my name, also supported by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Pinnock, simply says
“leave out ‘£15,000’ and insert ‘£7,500’”,
halving the figure. For buildings in London, the amendment halves the contribution of leaseholders to non-cladding costs. Similarly, Amendment 159, for buildings outside London, reduces it from £10,000 to £5,000, halving the contribution of leaseholders on non-cladding costs; again, supported by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Pinnock. Finally, Amendment 163, again supported by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, says,
“leave out ‘£50,000’ and insert ‘£15,000’”.
That applies to the properties inside and outside London worth between £1 million and £2 million. The amendment would reduce the leaseholder contribution to non-cladding costs from £50,000 to £15,000.
All told, as we come to the end of this debate, the Government have been given four options by the various amendments. There is the zero option, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock; the peppercorn option, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock; the 1% option proposed by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham; or they can lower the cap, as in the amendments that I have just described. We have done all those amendments on lowering the cap in the hope that we could get around the Government’s view that the ECHR would put a block on this and that they would have to say that the Bill, or Act, was not compliant with the ECHR. But we have just heard from two eminent and learned noble Lords and an ex-Supreme Court judge that none of these amendments would be in breach of the ECHR. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, pointed out, even if we do not accept of these amendments and stick with the government ones, there will be some freeholders, landlords and developers who will still go to the ECHR and complain about anything to slow it down. So sticking with the Government’s level does not get us out of litigation in the European court.
I look forward to what my noble friend has to say on this. The legal arguments produced by the noble and learned Lords are very telling. I commend my amendments to the House, and also commend those from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton.