Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Khan of Burnley

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

[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.

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[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.

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[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.