Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 38. I think Members of the Committee can probably all agree about at least one thing: it is not a usual Committee stage. Apart from anything else, the Bill proposes to amend the LCC Act 1900, which confers on Parliament rights as a landowner through a statutory covenant. This, I suggest, imposes legal and fiduciary duties in respect of the adjoining land. The Bill proposes to remove those rights. This in turn, it seems to me, is reflected in the fact of the Bill’s hybridity, which is the rationale for the special provisions that apply where rights of those who are specifically affected are concerned. This includes, inter alia, the other petitioner and Parliament itself.

It is interesting, and I suggest very relevant, that the Select Committee questioned the appropriateness of the current rules as regards the admissibility or otherwise of certain evidence in front of it. There was some debate about this, and I refer to paragraph 74 of the report of the Select Committee. While the committee and clearly Parliament in the current legal context are not an alternative to the planning authority, the Select Committee, in my view entirely properly, considered matters that might be considered planning matters to the extent that they had relevance to the in-scope amendments under consideration, which I have just mentioned. In any event, once the Bill moves into Grand Committee, the scope of what may be properly debated widens.

It is very important to notice and to focus on the fact that the Select Committee sought assurances and undertakings from the promoter—I am now referring to pages 33 to 37 of the committee’s report. The Select Committee concluded that under the rules of procedure it was not in a position to bring forward amendments. However, the recommended assurances and undertakings that it sought, if honoured, would in the real world have had very similar effect to amendments to the Bill. They would also have much the same effect as planning conditions, and might be seen by some as analogous to them. But, as I have already indicated, that does not make them the same; they are different.

Let us look at the Government’s responses to the Select Committee’s report. Some assurances appear to have been accepted and a couple not, but it seems to me that, in reality, the promoter’s responses, based on the way that this project has been taken forward both inside and outside the House, are not worth the paper they are written on because of the caveats that the promoter will use his best endeavours. These are unenforceable and entirely nebulous and vague.

As I said, having seen the way in which the promoter’s case was presented, both to the Select Committee and more widely, in a strictly not improper way but vigorously and robustly, it seems completely fanciful from the facts that we know to suppose that the Government’s best endeavours have any realistic prospect of properly dealing with the Select Committee’s real concern, because they are weasel words.

Against that background, bearing in mind the rights conferred on it by the 1900 Act, which mean that Parliament is not acting solely as a legislator in this case, it therefore cannot possibly be right to leave all the detail for later consideration by others. On the contrary, in order to honour the obligations, both legal and moral, imposed on it by the LCC Act, which is still on the statute book, and more generally, it must insist on requiring greater detail on what is actually going to be done. That is not incompatible in any way with Parliament’s legislative role and, in my view, is a necessity prior to relinquishing its responsibilities under the 1900 Act.

It seems that the only way this can properly be done is for Parliament to reserve its position until after planning consent—including listed building consents as required, if any—will have been granted, because there is no certainty about to what Parliament is consenting until that is settled. After all, we know the Government cannot guarantee what the outcome of the planning process might be, because if they could do that, they would be denying their impartiality. We also know—this has been confirmed by the Minister in Committee—that even if consent is granted, conditions can be imposed that fundamentally change the substance of the application. Indeed, I might go even further and say that in any event, at any time after Parliament has passed the legislation, other planning applications can be made. There is no guarantee at all that the one currently held up by the courts will be the one eventually implemented.

I may be accused of being ignoble and doubting the good faith of the Government. All I say is that I am a farmer, and I have a certain perspective on certain undertakings that the Government have given.

It has also been suggested that such a process might rack up huge extra costs, but I do not think that can possibly be correct. As long as Parliament deals with the matter expeditiously at the last point in the process, it will make no material difference because any expenditure before the obtaining of planning permission is always speculative. So if Parliament then responds appropriately at the end of this process, that argument cannot stand up.

Perhaps most tellingly of all—this came to me just recently as I thought about it—let us forget that we are talking about Parliament and imagine ourselves as a householder who has a house subject to various covenants that protect it and the adjoining plot of land. If a developer was to approach that householder and say, “We would like to build on this adjoining plot of land—are you prepared to release the covenant?”, what would the response be? First, it would be, “Well, tell me exactly what you want to do”. It is absolutely basic common sense and a responsible way to deal with that sort of circumstance, and it is exactly the approach that we in this House should take in response to this piece of draft legislation. Quite simply, Parliament must know the full facts of what is going to happen before deciding whether to give it its go-ahead.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I start with a reference to Amendment 38, to which my noble friend Lord Inglewood just spoke and which I support. The starting point of this legislation is that Parliament is being used by the Government as a vehicle for development to be permitted on otherwise prohibited land. To allow Parliament to be used as such a vehicle is a very significant responsibility, taken on by the promoters of this legislation. However much enthusiasm is shown by the various bodies—perhaps described in best detail in the Audit Commission’s 2022 report, which revealed many imperfections in the management of this scheme—Parliament should have the final say, as my noble friend Lord Inglewood said.

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[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, what a relief it was to hear the brilliant speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, for which I will always be grateful. I had hoped to avoid too much controversial material about antisemitism today, but it is impossible. I agree with the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, about what happened during the war, but I think it amounts only to the possible removal of the word “Nazi” from Amendment 32, which I otherwise support. I also support Amendment 38A in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles.

The question we have not asked is: what are we supposed to be learning from the learning centre? No one has ever told me. We know that it is to be about the British involvement in or reaction to the Holocaust, which is a far cry from the broad panorama of history outlined so well by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles. So I do not see why that has any bearing on the apparent plans for the so-called learning centre, which is just a small exhibition.

I wonder what is meant when Britain’s politicians and the promoters of this project support Holocaust remembrance, memorials and “never again”, because what I see is ignorance of the history of antisemitism, as so eloquently set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, and the noble Lord, Lord Pickles. Unfortunately, as we all know, antisemitism is on the rise again, despite more than 300 memorials around the world. Sometimes, it seems as though the faster they go up, the more antisemitism grows. Antisemitism is to be found everywhere, sadly, even inside the Palace of Westminster.

I am sorry to see that it has been hinted sometimes that it is antisemitic to oppose the memorial and learning centre. Far from it: the Jewish community is divided. Indeed, in some ways the memorial and learning provide a sort of fig leaf. It is all too easy to imagine an antisemite sitting in the front row of national Holocaust remembrance events, posing to have a photograph taken in Parliament, signing the book of remembrance and then going on to have tea with Hamas and say, “My friends, Hamas”, because, as the American author put it, everyone loves dead Jews; the living, not so much.

Unfortunately, the words “Holocaust” and “genocide” have been globalised and are now tossed around as rather trivial concepts. It is a continuing threat, and four little rooms in Victoria Tower Gardens are hardly likely to cover a history of at least 2,000 years. What is the learning centre about? It is not about learning; it is an exhibition. The Holocaust was about the culmination of at least 2,000 years of antisemitism, largely fuelled by the Church, and its modern continuation in which Islamism plays a large part.

I submit that the lessons of the Holocaust—if anything is to be learned from the learning centre—should be about the destruction of antisemitism. This means modifying any religious teaching that depicts the Jews as Christ killers—a teaching that I was subjected to at school—or as inferior or evil in any way. It also means, and this is difficult, treating Israel like any other country, many of which were established after the war to meet the independence demands of certain populations and which nearly all involved major displacements of existing populations and their subsequent picking up of their lives again—as did the parents of many in this Room. Only the Palestinians refuse to accept the international reality.

One can combine the history of antisemitism and the situation of Israel today by pointing out that it is the only Jewish state in the world, and the only one guaranteed to protect Jews to the best of its ability and to grant them a safe haven. Note that all the genocides that have occurred recently are of people who were in a minority and lacked their own state and self-defence.

I come to the importance of defining what is to be included in the learning centre and what one is supposed to learn from it. The Government do not seem to know. The 2015 report pointed out the uniqueness of the Holocaust and said that the learning centre would also help people understand the wider lessons of including it in other genocides. Then Mr Greenberg, who was involved in planning the layout of the learning centre, gave evidence to the public inquiry and said that it would include the murder of millions of Cambodians, Rwandans and Bosnians. But the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, in reply to my Written Question of 12 February 2021 said that it would include all victims of Nazi persecution and subsequent genocides. Then the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, said on 10 May 2023, in answer to another Question of mine, that it would include Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

Other replies have said that inclusions remain to be considered and the noble Lord, Lord Khan, said on 20 March that:

“The learning centre will look at subsequent genocides through the lens of the Holocaust”,—[Official Report, 20/3/25; col. GC 437.]


whatever that means. We have no firm statement from any Government that it will be confined to the Jewish genocide and the politics of this have always been about including other genocides in government-funded Holocaust ventures, lest the Jewish genocide is treated as superior or exclusive. This matters because of the cheapening of the word “genocide” and its application to any loss of life that is widely deplored.

Worse still, the new term negates the Jews. There are those who regard the 1948 exodus of Palestinians from Israel as a genocide and those who regard the deaths in Gaza as a genocide, disregarding the legal definition and the lack of intent. Germany has been accused of focusing too much on the Holocaust and of ignoring so-called colonial crimes and not allowing comparisons with the Holocaust. Almost unbelievably, the first version of this year’s invitation to Holocaust Memorial Day included the Gazans in the objects for commemoration. This aroused shock and dismay among many in the Jewish community and had to be withdrawn and the chair of the HMDT apologised.

Apology is insufficient, because it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the politics of genocide and its inversion. One cannot separate out HMDT and the other Holocaust establishment organisations from what is going on and Holocaust remembrance. Whatever happens in Gaza cannot be compared with the Holocaust. To place Israel’s self-defence on a continuum with, for example, the Einsatzgruppen during the war is to show the damage being done by the lack of scholarly input into the so-called learning centre: input from learned Jewish scholars who are not taking orders from politicians. The Holocaust is being used now to tell a nationalist or politically convenient story, and that is what the learning centre appears to be about, because it packages what happened in a box labelled 1939 to 1945 and the British reaction.

It is time for the Jewish community to reclaim the memory of our unique tragedy and explain its antisemitic roots our way. These national Holocaust ceremonies are being used to defame Israel and divert attention away from the roots of antisemitic murder. The learning centre cannot compare with the scholarly output of, for example, the Weiner library, UCL, the National Holocaust Centre and the educational programmes of the 21 learning centres already in existence. If it goes on down this multi-genocide path, the allegations against Israel will get worse. One can only hope that those who are, as it were, the establishment and are responsible now for the national remembrance events will not be leading the contents and administration of the centre, if it is built.

It has been assumed too readily, without evidence, that being exposed to the facts of the Holocaust prevents lapses into antisemitism, but it has not—it has failed. The late Lord Sacks explained how antisemitism now focuses on the one and only Jewish state. It is only a state of one’s own and the means of self-defence that stop genocide. If Israel had existed in 1938, which it did not because there was a British mandate, rather than in 1948, and if it had been able to take in refugees, rather than being blocked by the British, how many thousands or millions of lives might have been saved? Now we see the inversion of the words “Holocaust” and “genocide” against the Jews. I ask the Minister to explain exactly what we are supposed to learn from the learning centre and what genocides or Holocausts it will include?

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I have been listening carefully to this debate and asking myself the question: for whose benefit is this memorial to be created? For whose benefit did the noble Lord, Lord Pickles—and I praise much of the work he has done on this—and does the Minister believe that this memorial and learning centre ought to be created? Who are the intended direct beneficiaries and who are the intended indirect beneficiaries—for there are those two categories?

One thing that this proposal is not intended to provide is justification for entrenched views held by former and current Ministers or other politicians. The two groups for whom this proposal provides benefit and should be the intended beneficiaries, I suggest, are as follows. I start with the first group by referring to the Haggadah. The Haggadah, as many in this Room will know, is the liturgy that is read at seder dinners at the beginning of Passover, and it tells the story of the Exodus. That is a very important concept in what we are discussing here. The whole concept of the wandering Jew is linked with the Exodus, and the Exodus has now gone on for thousands of years. Jews have left various countries for safety, come to other countries where they have found a good life and then, from time to time, it has been disrupted by yet another bout of terrible antisemitism, with huge quantities of murder.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

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

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

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

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

That is what the noble Lord just suggested.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

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

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

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Moved by

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

15: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Report: effects of the construction, presence and use of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre on the security of the site and surrounding area(1) Within three months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out the predicted effects on the security of the site and surrounding area arising from the construction, presence and use of a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre on the chosen site.(2) The report under subsection (1) must include—(a) a list of those bodies and individuals consulted before construction of a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre (subject to redaction of names where necessitated by national security),(b) a summary of the advice provided by each body and individual consulted,(c) a full description with visual depictions of all road and traffic changes, at and near to the chosen site, proposed to be made during construction and following completion of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre,(d) proposals for the continuing assessment of the security of the site and nearby buildings, and(e) such other security information as the Secretary of State considers to be relevant.(3) The Secretary of State may delegate the preparation of the report referred to in subsection (1) to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.(4) The Secretary of State must arrange for the tabling of a motion for resolution in each House of Parliament within 56 days of laying the report before Parliament.”

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I apologised to the Minister before we started, as I am down to introduce the debate in the Chamber on the Crown Court. I came up in the ballot, so I am obliged to be there. If I am not here at the end of this part of the discussion this afternoon, I hope that I will be forgiven for a breach of normal order.

I hope that the Minister, and even the noble Lord, Lord Austin, will give me as much attention in what I am about to say as they have given to one outside historian. I believe that we should be prepared to stand up to terrorism, that we should not readily surrender to threats that come from elsewhere. However, in this instance, I believe on strong evidential grounds that the doubly iconic nature of the site in Victoria Tower Gardens, near Parliament and a memorial to the Shoah, could render the terrorism risk disproportionate. I do not wish to be the person saying “I told you so” in the foreseeable event of a terrorism outrage or attempt at this memorial and learning centre, if built.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, that it was a little unworthy of him to say that I moved this amendment so that I would be safe. Most of us who come to this House as Members have a choice as to whether we come in or not, but an awful lot of people who work here do not. Also, I am concerned that families and children buying a sausage roll at the kiosk might be unsafe, as well as all the other people who might visit the centre if it is built.

The Minister is always extremely courteous and I enjoy our discussions; we have a common interest in a certain very interesting yo-yo football club. I have also spent quite a lot of time in planning appeals over the years, and I say to him that a planning appeal is not a place where secret matters of national security are discussed. There is no provision in a planning appeal for closed hearings; it would be grossly exceptional to have them. That is something provided in a Bill—potentially an Act—of Parliament.

What happens in reality in your Lordships’ House is that if the sort of provision that is in my amendment were passed and debated, there would be discussions on Privy Council terms or the equivalent. That is quite different from anything that happens in a planning appeal. I re-emphasise that there is another planning process here: it is called a parliamentary Bill which has rescinded another Act of Parliament which would have meant that planning permission would have had to be refused. Indeed, the application would have been rejected with what is sometimes called pre-refusal.

I am disappointed in the response we have been given and I shall return to this on the Floor of the House in due course. I will hope for the support of a considerable number of Members, many of whom are not in this Room, and we will see what happens. Until then, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 15 withdrawn.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I speak in support of all the amendments in this group, which are about closure and governance. Perhaps I will wrap up closure first, because it is a discrete issue.

There has been a tendency, since it was first chosen, for the promoters to treat Victoria Tower Gardens as a private park of their own. It was closed for a day in May 2024 for a Holocaust commemoration event in which the main message was that people had better get used to it. The Royal Parks, which manages the gardens, said that its initial decision to refuse permission for the commemoration event to take place there was based on its “longstanding policy” of not allowing “religious activity” in its parks, apart from annual acts of remembrance where memorials already exist”. But, lo and behold, the gardens have been closed again this year for the same purpose.

Issues of transparency are being played out now in real time. The park was closed last year on a May bank holiday weekend. We were told that that would be a one-off, but we now discover that it is planned again for April this year, without any consultation or forewarning. This is creating a precedent in breach of existing Royal Parks policies.

One can see what will happen: because the learning centre will be so small, every time there is a need for a meeting, the whole of the park will be closed off. Little gilt chairs and a tent will be put in, and the park will be taken over. That is why it is extremely necessary to have something in the Bill to prevent this total takeover.

This brings me to governance. In a nutshell, those of us who are concerned about governance—Peers sitting in this Room today—have written to the National Audit Office reminding it that, on 5 July 2022, it put out a report that was critical of the management of the project and called for reforms. We do not know whether those reforms have been carried out. The ministry says that it has done so, but many Peers do not think that any of those reforms have been carried out. There is no evidence that the department has addressed the National Audit Office’s concerns about the lack of management and project management, or the number of bodies, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, referred to. There does not seem to be one body that is in charge of delivery. When questioned last time about who is responsible, the Minister said simply, “The Government”. Again, we await a response from the National Audit Office, and hope that it will re-open its report.

The governance of this project has always been a mystery. The original foundation was composed of more donors to the Tory party than scholars, and no executives. Can the Minister tell us, in straightforward language, who is in charge of executing this project and its future governance? A new NDPB will have to be created to manage it, its relationship with the park managers has yet to be defined, and there is no information about how it will deal with local residents. It will have to be limited in its power. We need enlightenment on how it will work—including the clash with the various bodies running the gardens—and how it will relate to the bodies responsible for the restoration and renewal of this Palace, with all the building equipment that will be required. How will these things all work together?

We were told at the outset of this project that the Government would kick-start a society-wide fundraising effort to deliver the project and an endowment fund. There has been no sign of that. Incidentally, some Holocaust survivors live very modestly; they are all elderly, and they need the extra comforts demanded by age and their past suffering. Perhaps that would be a better way to direct fundraising, if there is any.

The insubstantial nature of management may explain why countless attempts by me to get any information about the project from the department, by way of freedom of information requests, have been fiercely resisted. It is almost as if the department is ashamed of what might be revealed. We hope that, today, the Minister will tell us what plans there are for management.

The problems revealed by the National Audit Office report were that the department was an unsuitable sponsor, was not perceived as independent and has never sponsored a comparable institution or any major cultural sector initiative. Its near-exclusive focus on the search for a site has not turned out well, as we know, and there has been a failure so far to create an independent body. There has been no transparency around site selection or finance, and value for money has never been mentioned or addressed.

There has also been no parliamentary scrutiny of the project until now. There has been a lack of qualified external appraisal of the project brief, the design and the environmental effects of the proposals. There has been a lack of sufficient consultation with the public on the site; such consultation as there was was very much rigged and curtailed. There has been a lack of attention to public feedback on the design. There has been a lack of consultation with the academic community; there is a British association of Holocaust scholars, who feel that they have not been involved.

There is no business plan in evidence, let alone consulted on, or management clarity. Even operational management is unclear. The management of the project has been invisible, shifting and problematic throughout; for example, there have been issues with the Royal Parks throughout the process, that organisation having been in opposition. No charitable foundation of substance has been created. We believe that there is a small one, organised by Sir Gerald Ronson, but where is the major endowment fund that is required? That is the subject of another amendment.

Of course, the department is conflicted in every way. It has made no effort to carry out an independent planning process but has made itself the planning applicant—and, at the last minute, it has had to delegate the calling in and determination of the application to a junior Minister; this was 12 months after the application was submitted. Now, we call on the Minister to be clear about the management. This project has been known about for nine years. I cannot imagine any other project that has been left to drift in the way this one has; I therefore support all the amendments in this group.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, in particular. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, referred to a document, a copy of which I have in my hand: Programme Governance for the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, issued by DLUHC. It refers to 10 different entities, which have together produced, on the academic content of the learning centre, a box containing 13 words:

“Provides a peer-review process and discussion forum for the envisioned exhibition content”—


whatever that amounts to. If there had been one NDPB in existence, it would have been put to shame in both Houses of this Parliament for producing such an empty vessel as is contained in those 13 words. It contains no reference to the content or structure of the learning centre; to the opportunities that would arise from the learning centre; to the academic components of the centre; or to the staffing of the centre.

I invite the Minister to look at those words as an example of how this multiplicity of components has, in effect, led to no programming whatever of this learning centre. At the moment, all it is—despite those 10 entities—is four small rooms in which there will be computerised images that someone will choose. Are we to take it that the whole purpose of the academic advisory board is to do a show of computerised images and select the ones that will be shown for the time being? That does not sound like any learning centre I have ever seen, and does not accord to the definition that we heard reference to earlier.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans on closure dates. I was a member of the Select Committee, which, as he told us, took the view that it should not table an amendment to the Bill. Select Committees are very reluctant to amend a Bill; if we did so, we would have the Bill amended before it reached discussion in this House. The place for consideration of amendments is in Committee or on Report. Whatever you see in paragraph 104 should not inhibit in any way the freedom of this Committee or the House to discuss whether an amendment is appropriate. We set out in appendix 7 to our report the various inhibitions and restrictions on a Select Committee in making amendments. It is well to bear in mind that, while we said that there should be no amendment, that in no way need operate against the right reverend Prelate’s amendment.

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[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 26. First, I add that, living in Hertfordshire, I am in touch with the distinguished Buxton family of today, one of whom is about to become our high sheriff sometime soon. They have expressed to me in correspondence something of their great concern.

Amendment 26 seeks to prevent the establishment of refreshment kiosks or static outbuildings in Victoria Tower Gardens. The first thing I want to mention relates to the preservation of the atmosphere of the park, which provides a valuable place of rest and relaxation to so many. Hot dog stands, souvenir stalls, litter and crowding would significantly change the character and experience of the park. If this project is as successful as it is planned to be, it will attract large numbers of people and potentially long queues. I believe that it would be proportionate and necessary to protect the park from this in the Bill. It has already been questioned whether it would be appropriate to have snacks, crisps and drinks for sale at the site of a memorial that is reflecting on the extraordinary suffering of so many people.

Further, the plans proposed for the centre show a new kiosk at the southern end of the garden, near the children’s playground. The Select Committee reported significant concerns regarding large crowds of visitors to the proposed centre at a kiosk immediately adjacent to the playground, raising child safety issues. Its recommendation 1 is that the kiosk be removed from present plans. Significantly, in response to this recommendation, the promoter stated only that they would look carefully at the design and location of the kiosk, not that they would remove it. The promoter has given the Select Committee an assurance that a review will be carried out with the design team of the arrangements proposed for the southern end of the gardens, with a view to ensuring an appropriate separation of the playground from other visitors to the gardens, including visitors to the proposed centre.

My concerns around the enforceability or account-ability of the assurances given by the promoter, which I mentioned earlier with reference to Amendment 22, also apply here, and give rationale for my seeking to enshrine these restrictions in the Bill.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I will say a few words in support of the excellent presentation made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, of her Amendments 25 and 40.

I would never accuse the Minister of being predictable—I would not offend him in that way—but I think I hear a little echo in my ear of him making a speech in response to the noble Baroness, saying that all these things could be dealt with at the planning proceedings. If he is going to say that, I just remind the Committee about the reality of planning proceedings.

First, they are very large and expensive on an issue such as this. Every aspect of the planning is considered at those planning proceedings. I hope, in a few minutes, to move my Amendment 15, which relates to security, and a similar point arises here. If we can discover at an early stage, through the mechanism that the noble Baroness suggests in Amendment 25, that this site is too dangerous, for flooding reasons, for planning consent to be given, let us discover that now and not during planning proceedings on the 47th day of the 78-day hearing—if we are lucky that it is that short. All that the noble Baroness is suggesting is that there should be a report, but that report would define whether this site was fit for the purposes expressed in Clauses 1 and 2.

I suggest that some aspects of this issue are, for obvious reasons, of genuine interest to Parliament, not least its proximity to Parliament and the fact that, for example, flooding in Victoria Tower Gardens because of the construction of this underground edifice—if that is not a contradiction in terms—could affect our enjoyment, as people working here, and the enjoyment of those who work for us, of what goes on in this Parliament.

I just remind the Minister of what happened last Saturday. A quite small incident occurred in which somebody managed to get through security and climb up the Elizabeth Tower. I promise that I will say nothing that is sub judice—nothing to do with the perpetrator or the case. If that had happened on a Monday when we were here, Parliament would probably have had to be adjourned for two days for that issue to be dealt with, on grounds of safety and security. One of the ways that we can deal with such issues, before a lengthy planning appeal, is to allow the sort of measure proposed here.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I have an amendment that I put in this group because it should go with the amendment introduced so eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.

On 4 March, the Minister was asked whether a new full planning permission application would go back to Westminster City Council. He replied that

“that is in the hands of the designated Minister”,—[Official Report, 4/3/25; col. GC 92.]

so I hold out no great hope for revised planning permission.

My amendment relates to safety. I was pleased to be able to be heard by the Select Committee. I draw attention to its report, which stated that the promoter has undertaken to

“make representations to the Secretary of State in relation to security considerations”

and

“consult with the Corporate Officer of the House of Commons and the Corporate Officer of the House of Lords, Community Security Trust, the Metropolitan Police, the National Protective Security Authority and Westminster City Council”.

There is no mention of the London Fire Brigade, yet here we have a proposal for an underground learning centre with a single entrance.

I had quite a lot of difficulty, so I am grateful to those who managed to let me see some floor plans of this proposed education centre. I was becoming increasingly concerned about the security and fire risks—and the gas risk, which links to fire—that could be incurred in an underground centre. I notice that there are several staircases, which all come up into a communal area, and so-called fire escape routes.

I then looked at disasters that have happened underground. We all remember the King’s Cross fire, in which there were 31 fatalities. One of the findings was that there was a flashover—the trench effect where a tongue of fire comes up into a central area so fast that nobody can escape. Here we are talking about people being trapped underground. In that fire, there were alternative routes that a lot of people escaped through—although one was blocked by a locked door, which aggravated the disaster. The other thing is that, if you use water fog equipment, people have to be trained in its use. Has there been consideration of whether the paint and surfaces used in this underground space will be fire resistant?

I also looked at what happened in the Moscow theatre siege. People were held in an enclosed space and fentanyl gas was used, which rendered them unconscious very quickly. One problem was that it suppressed respiration in many of the unconscious people and there was not adequate naloxone available to reverse the effect. I can envisage someone going in with a canister of something like fentanyl gas in a plastic container and releasing it. I hope noble Lords will excuse me if they do not like the language, but we know that people hide things in body cavities; it would not be difficult to hide 10 to 20 mil of some compressed gas in either the rectum or vagina and go underground.

My other concern, which relates to that, came from the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo underground, where it was evident that people had to get to the victims rapidly but there was no advanced airway support available, hence the mortality rate went up.

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We are attempting to create a system whereby objectors and supporters will be placed at a peculiar disadvantage. I do not think that we should have a two-tier system. We need to be very cautious about these things. Take all the questions around flooding and the like. Flooding was addressed solidly by the planning inspector, and all of these things should rightly be decided by a planning inspector, who can balance them not through absolute decisions and not by, if we are being really blunt—I apologise for saying this—near neighbours.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

The noble Lord was formerly a distinguished Minister in charge of planning. Does he not recall that, on several occasions, as a Minister, he called in planning applications and took those cases out of the hands of the local authority, where they would have been considered, and made decisions that dramatically affected the future of those proposals? Does he not agree that there is a significant difference between a case where somebody applies for planning permission to build even a memorial and a case where there is a parliamentary Bill that allows a Minister to spend money on that memorial?

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords—

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Lisvane (CB)]

My Lords, I cannot contribute with the degree of fluency and authority of those noble Lords who have spoken so far, but I have a question for the Minister and an observation.

The question stems from the Explanatory Notes. Years ago, I had the function in another place of looking at Explanatory Notes in draft—not taking responsibility for their contents but ensuring that they were not used by the Government of the day for the purposes of advocacy. I looked at these Explanatory Notes, and they were pretty much typical of the breed: they are certainly notes but they are by no means explanatory. Where I hoped that I would have their assistance was on Clause 1(3) of the Bill, which states:

“For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), ‘construction’ includes erection, extension, alteration and re-erection”.


I would dearly like to see the instructions that counsel was given before it drafted that particular provision. It sounds as though the memorial is going to be mobile, which I am sure is not the intention.

If I can move on to the observation, at the north end of the Victoria Tower Gardens is the education centre; I have a particular reason for remembering this because, as a corporate officer, I was the applicant for the planning permission when it was originally given in 2015. As noble Lords will know, the planning consent ran out on 22 August last year; it was renewed or extended to 2030. When that runs out—or in anticipation of it running out—there will be substantial works, but I have not seen any reference to those in any of the supporting papers that the Committee has before it today. There will be traffic of substantial character, such as heavy lorries moving kit to and fro. If that is going to happen, as is possible, as the memorial and learning centre is in the later stages of construction, whatever difficulties of security, access and safety that that is going to pose will be exacerbated by doing all this to the education centre at the same time.

I am not sure whether my observation should find a home in our discussion of security or in our discussion of planning, but it seems to me that the Clause 1 stand part debate is a pretty good place to put it to begin with. I would be very grateful for the Minister’s reaction to that simultaneity of works and to the additional element of complication and cost that is no doubt to be introduced.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I was not proposing to speak on this group, but I have been moved to do so by the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Finkelstein and Lord Pickles. As I do so, I make clear my gratitude to them and to everybody else who has been determined that there should be a memorial and a memorial learning centre. I absolutely applaud that, for reasons I explained in another debate in the Chamber. However, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, that I was rather shocked by what I hope he will forgive me for describing as his grandiose lecture creating an analogy with Nelson’s column. First, I remind him—I regret having to remind him, because he has an extraordinary family history, of which we are all aware, and we are hugely grateful for the contribution that his family have made to the remembrance of what happened to my and many other people’s families and ancestors—that Nelson’s column was a memorial to a man who had lived and not to 6 million people who had died. It is a very different proposition.

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[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, particularly as he has been so amenable to consultation throughout the process of the Bill. Is he saying that the passage of the Bill would allow the Government to raise the money, whatever the cost of the project would be? Is it not the case that all that the Bill would do is allow the Treasury to be asked, from its vote, to allow a certain sum of money to be granted? My understanding is that the Bill does not give a blank cheque to the Government without further checks and balances in normal Treasury procedures. If that is the case, please would the Minister not leave that impression?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall clarify what Clause 1 is about. Clause 1 allows the Secretary of State to spend money to build the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. That is what it is about.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

With respect, the Minister is not answering my question. Of course this Bill, once an Act, would allow the Secretary of State to spend money, but the implication of what he says is “any” money. Is it not a fact, and the law, that it has to be provided from the Treasury vote? Therefore, decisions have to be made as to how much money will be permitted. Can he help us, if that is true, as to how much money it is intended to permit?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, that is correct. The appropriation Act allows us to spend the money.

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[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 Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

It is the Baldwin concordat.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I must make progress but, very quickly, we will follow the normal public expenditure rules, as I have illustrated. I remind noble Lords that Clause 1 refers to allowing us to spend the money to build the project. I understand that it does not say how much money, but whatever the Government do will follow the normal Treasury rules, as indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile.

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[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, had there been time yesterday, we would have disaggregated this group because it covers three enormous topics that are very different, and I will not have time to say everything that I wanted to. I will start with the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, which is perhaps the most obvious and sensible of all of them. I call them over and under. If we stick to over and avoid under, nearly all the problems are solved—in other words, a memorial overground, and a learning centre somewhere else. That would avoid all the complications and costs of excavating Victoria Tower Gardens and the disruption and damage. Moreover, apparently the learning centre will have only digital and audio material in it, so why not just send us round the country, in whatever way can be done technologically these days, rather than bringing people to London?

I turn to the issue of endowment—what is in the learning centre and what it is supposed to do. The inadequacy of Holocaust education, which is well known, can be seen on the streets of London every week and on our campuses. Young people who have had some education about the Holocaust at school cannot make the connection between that and the vicious hatred of Israel today, the attacks on the survival of Jewish people, the resurgence of Nazi language and images, and the violence we find against Jewish people as they go about their businesses or go to synagogue. That is because of the failing of Holocaust education in two respects. First, it places the hatred of Jews in a box, something that was the exclusive province of the Nazis 90 years ago and ended at the end of the Second World War. The planned learning centre will compound that.

The other failing is the presentation of many genocides as if they had anything in common. The messages coming from the learning centre, as far as one can tell, will be “Do not be a bystander” and “Hatred is what brought on the Holocaust and other genocides”. That serves as an obfuscation and diversion of blame. It misses the point entirely: it was 2,000 years of anti-Semitism. The civilised world has said “Never again”, but that is overoptimistic. Anti-Semitism remains alive and well, not only among the denizens of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran but of course, since 7 October, in countries hitherto thought immune, such as the Western world.

Holocaust education has failed, but it should include the place of Israel in the world and in Jewish life and history. Scholars say that the Holocaust found Jews defenceless. After 7 October, sadly, a Jewish state was able to hit back and may eliminate its enemies, but certainly Israel provides a haven for Jews elsewhere who find themselves threatened by this new anti-Semitism. That fairly obvious statement shows what is so wrong about the theme and location of the memorial planned for VTG. As the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, has said, his intent is that seeing the Palace of Westminster and being reminded of the power of democracy means that there is protection for Jewish people under British values, but that is historically and contemporaneously wrong. Democracy here, now and in the past, has not protected Jewish minorities. We can see that even today there are plenty of people in our democratic Government who wish Israel ill and who have failed to protect the Jewish community from the pressure that it faces right now.

What saves people from genocide? It is having a state of one’s own and the means of self-defence. Take, for example, the Uighurs, Armenians and Tutsis. What they have in common is that they were minorities in a state that had power over them. As the late Lord Sacks of blessed memory pointed out, today’s anti-Semitism is directed at the world’s only Jewish state, which should be a haven for a persecuted minority. He called for Holocaust education to be in context—the context of Jewish history over the millennia, and Jewish culture. In regard to the Holocaust, it is wrong for people to learn only about that and nothing else. The ill-educated person in the street often associates Jews only with the images of concentration camps and knows nothing other than that—nothing about Jewish history and practices.

That is made worse by the films, some of them ghoulish, that deal with that period. This concentration on the Holocaust, taken out of context and history, turns it into just a word for describing something dreadful, which is casually used, as is the word “genocide”. It even results in those accusations being turned against the Jewish people. Holocaust education needs a complete overhaul, rather than being frozen into the same inadequate frame that we will find in the learning centre. That is why there needs to be an endowment fund and a professor, as suggested in Amendment 32, because those awkward topics of anti-Semitism today and Israel need to be faced up to and explained. We want to know why the Government have abandoned the suggested endowment fund.

I turn briefly to alternatives. No effort was made to find a suitable location when Victoria Tower Gardens was announced, but the supporters have clung stubbornly to that site, though they must know in their hearts that it is no good and that the choice has provoked litigation, disharmony, delay, expense and discord in the Jewish community and elsewhere. Indeed, the choice of site has provoked adverse comment around the world. In 2015, the call was only for a central London site of up to 10,000 square metres, with room for conferences, offices and all the appurtenance of a campus, and only near at hand to the memorial given that proponents also recommended that the site incorporate the Imperial War Museum exhibition. So they could not have had in mind an underground construction somewhere else. The choice of VTG was reached without consultation, given that the consultants came up with the London Museum, Millbank Tower and other sites.

I imagine that VTG was chosen because it was free, whereas Imperial War Museum co-operation over the use of its green space was ignored. My own ideal compromise would be a suitable figurative memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens and a suitably sized learning centre somewhere nearby, maybe along Millbank. Buildings on Millbank have been offered. They are available to rent or buy. What about College Green, whose underground is not being used, the education centre in Victoria Tower Gardens or Victoria Tower itself, as the archives have been removed? My favourite is Richmond House, which it seems will not now be used for decant during R&R and which has a forecourt suitable for a memorial and is right by the Cenotaph. No position is more visible and important. Others have suggested the former Museum of London, the Barbican and underneath Carlton House Terrace. There has never been any meeting with the department to consider these suggestions. Michael Gove offered a round table but did not pursue it. The only other meeting with him was a formality, with no intent other than to head off my repeated complaints that there was no discussion. My offers to talk to supporters have been ignored or worse.

We know about the drawbacks of VTG—the cramped nature, the deprivation of local residents, the breach of trust, the environmental damage, the flooding risk, the fire risk, the crowding and the security. The cost is bound to rise. Climate protesters and the public will not be sympathetic to a project that flies in the face of all the government pledges to be green and economical. The Jewish community is sharply divided, with establishment figures and donors on one side and those who study the situation—scholars and most ordinary members, whether of the reform, Orthodox or mainstream persuasion—on the other. Once they know what it looks like and what it will contain, which is carefully hidden from most of us, they are against it.

Advances in technology lessen the case for the exhibition hall. There are already six memorials in this country and 21 learning centres. No one has stopped to think what effect they have or what they achieve. Is anything lacking? Why do we need another one? What is it for? Of course, people outside London will find it hard to get to. I have said before that this is not a memorial, it is not about the Holocaust and it is not a learning centre. The choice of VTG is to make a political point which is naive and misleading: that putting a memorial close to Parliament will make the point that democracy protects Jews and protects against genocide. This is the British values narrative, a project led by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and Mr Ed Balls, who also leads the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation. The placement of memorials makes no difference if you look around the world—nor are they a reminder to parliamentarians of the dangers. If parliamentarians have to have a memorial next door, at a cost of £200 million, they must be in even bigger trouble than we thought.

There is no evidence that a visit to this will make any difference. There are 300 memorials around the world, from New Zealand to China, and nobody measures the effect. In fact, anti-Semitism is growing. The memorial will provide a nice political backdrop for politicians who want to pose against it and say, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body”, but it will not help prevent anti-Semitism today. I support the movement to create a wonderful new Jewish museum like the fabulous one in Warsaw, which is placed where the Warsaw ghetto used to be and has made that into a sacred site.

I support all these amendments.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I particularly support Amendments 13, 29 and 30. Their effect would be that there was a sculpture but not a learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens. In doing so, I urge the Minister to consider the difference between your Lordships’ House and the other place. Many Members of your Lordships’ House are very modest about their achievements, other than possibly us lawyers.

However, we have heard in this debate two Members of your Lordships’ House with great expertise in the matters that we are discussing. One is the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, who has a long history in education. She was master of Birkbeck College, the paradigm of education to a large external audience. That is an example of what we are trying to achieve, at least in part, with the learning centre. Also, the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, who made a superb speech, is a person with real experience of cultural arenas and the like—of how cultural issues are delivered to a much larger public right across the cultural spectrum. It would be useful for the Minister to focus particularly on their expertise before any final decisions are made about what should go in Victoria Tower Gardens.

I am very much in favour of a memorial and a Holocaust learning centre, but not in Victoria Tower Gardens. A memorial there could be one of the most magnificent sculptures in the world. To give one example, Anish Kapoor, the great British sculptor, has already done a small Holocaust sculpture in London. Someone such as Anish Kapoor might produce one of those sculptures that lives for the centuries, maybe rather like how the Burghers of Calais, which has lived for well over one century, anyway. Putting a sculpture in Victoria Tower Gardens but nothing else would remove many of the security concerns, which I will address later, that will arise if a so-called learning centre is built in the gardens.

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[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 Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, that is my cue. I was going to take the noble Lord up. He quoted me earlier as saying something I had not said, but I realised that it is the kind of thing I would have said, so I did not object to being misquoted.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I did not quote the noble Lord.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I did.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Oh, it was you.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

On the improvements to the park, the grass is not of very high quality, but it will be returfed. The paths will be redone. Those paths are important because, as they stand right now, they are strangling the roots of the trees and causing long-term problems. It will be possible to get water to the existing trees, there will be access to the Embankment for wheelchairs for the very first time and there will be extensive tree planting.

Some very interesting points were made about fire, flood, transport and, of course, planning matters. We will discuss any new planning application. I just want to address the questions of whether it is too small and what new things have been found. In terms of its size, it is by no means unusual among Holocaust museums. I talked about the Berlin museum, which is subterranean and roughly that size. Jasenovac is roughly that size. If we talk about museums in Warsaw, a short walk from the POLIN museum is a museum dedicated to the uprising, which is roughly the same size.

As for new things, we have discovered, hidden for 80 years, some tapes by Patrick Gordon Walker, who many here will remember. He went in the week after Dimbleby did his famous interviews and interviewed inmates of the camp as well as perpetrators. We also have the first recording of the singing of Hatikvah after liberation. As the Government took the decision to release all the documents relating to the Holocaust, we have lots of new material that has simply not been seen. It will certainly address what we knew and when we knew it.

In terms of getting an idea of what it would look like, if Members have visited Hut 27 at Auschwitz, which is an audio-visual experience of the book burning and the effect that it had on Jewish life and young people, they will know that that gives you an idea. You cannot say, “We need to embrace new technologies”, then criticise us for doing precisely that. It is not as though we are in a position where we are waiting for this to happen; the United Kingdom has already created a portal of evidence. Everyone here can now see the testimonies of Holocaust survivors going down the years, no matter where they were given. It is a big leap forward. Other countries are following suit because, to ensure that our stuff is worth while, it must be accessible.

My noble friend is right about TikTok and other social media, which is why we produced—it was just a tentative idea—80 Objects/80 Lives in which Holocaust survivors describe a particular object that kept them going through the Holocaust. That was repeated in 35 countries. It is not an answer in itself, but it is a fact that we are trying to lean out and to make a difference.

There will be natural light. There is going to be light; it is going to be used extraordinarily well with regard to a staircase.

I am very pleased that Members have gone to see the Imperial War Museum. It is a magnificent new exhibition, particularly about the use of the V-2 rocket, because it manages to bring the whole of the Second World War galleries together and demonstrates—better than the previous exhibition, I think—that the Second World War was a war of annihilation. I am pleased to say that that the past chairman of the Imperial War Museum is on the foundation’s board and that the Imperial War Museum is a key partner. I am also pleased to say that the former director of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, which is apparently well disposed to here, is also on the board. In order to ensure that we never lose sight of the Jewish nature of the Holocaust, our director of the exhibition is a former deputy director of Yad Vashem. We work regularly with Yad Vashem on this, and there is a lot of interest.

I want to say something about numbers. I was quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. If she is going to quote me, let it be right. I do not take credit for that; it was from the widow of the great historian Martin Gilbert, who, in talking to her before his death, said that it should be about coming out of a building and recognising that democracy is there as a bastion against tyranny. It is not about the Jews to say that; it is a bastion against tyranny. However, it is also for the people in this building to look the other way and understand what happens when a compliant legislature passes various things.

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot give that guarantee. I want to be clear because noble Lords must understand this: that is in the hands of the designated Minister. It is the role of the designated Minister to see how he takes that forward.

I repeat that the proposals put forward include more than 300 square metres of exhibition space, comparable to the International War Museum’s Holocaust galleries and capable of accommodating a world-class exhibition. I ask the noble Lord not to press Amendments 29 and 30.

Amendment 31 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who I thank for his kind words earlier, which I thought were most respectful. The amendment calls for a review of the feasibility of including the Holocaust learning centre within a Jewish museum. I want to affirm straight away that the learning centre must and will set the Holocaust in the context of Jewish history. It is simply impossible to provide an accurate account of the Holocaust without addressing the long history of anti-Semitism. For a British Holocaust memorial, that will include addressing the history of British anti-Semitism, working with an experienced curator with the advice of eminent and respected academics. That is what our learning centre will do. I know that several noble Lords may have had the opportunity to see a short presentation from Martin Winstone.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

I am troubled by the Minister repeatedly using the term “world-class”. Could he give us some comparators that enable him to say that what is offered in this centre is world-class? In what respect is it in the same class as the POLIN centre in Warsaw or Yad Vashem? Those centres set the standard for world-class. How can he make that claim for a small centre that will have only computerised images?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I will affirm the point. The noble Lord talked about Yad Vashem. The content for the learning centre is being developed by a leading international curator, Yehudit Shendar, formerly of Yad Vashem. The ambition and vision is to have a quality curator with a strong academic advisory board.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Earl makes a good point. We will create a new single construction regulator to bring together oversight and enforcement. This will close gaps in regulation and ensure that those responsible for building safety are held to account. We accept the recommendations and will respond to them. That is something we are working on but, as I said earlier, we have to work through this. As we accept the recommendations in full, we need to do it in a way that does not have any conflicts of interest. It will take time, but rest assured that, for the issue the noble Earl raised, we will take that back, feed it into the system and ensure that we cover the pertinent points he raised.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, given the rigour, skill and knowledge shown by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, and taking into account the question asked earlier by my noble friend, will the Government consider inviting Sir Martin in one year’s time and in two years’ time to prepare a short report on the implementation of his recommendations? I am sure that the public and this House would deem it to be of great value.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as always, makes a very important point. We are working on the response to Sir Martin’s report. We accept the inquiry’s findings and will address all the recommendations. I will take that suggestion away and we will have conversations to ensure that we deal with the recommendations and work through all of them. We will explore the opportunity for noble Lords, if not here then in another setting, to have an opportunity to listen to Sir Martin’s recommendations and how the Government are doing.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Well, my Lords, I have been looking forward greatly to today’s maiden speeches—without trepidation in the case of the noble Lords, Lord Katz and Lord Evans of Sealand. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Katz, on his maiden speech, and I look forward to that of the noble Lord, Lord Evans; they will bring much to your Lordships’ House. But at this point, I have the heartfelt—I use the word deliberately—honour of thanking my noble kinswoman for her remarkable speech. I had to check with the clerks what the right appellation was. She demonstrated her eloquence, her wit, her determination and her critical faculty, of which I have some experience, all of which will make her a valued Member of your Lordships’ House. Her contributions on many subjects, I think—declaring my interests firmly—will be welcome, especially those founded upon her unusual and profound knowledge of and contribution to our criminal justice system. I should add that she brought me closer, much closer than I had ever been before, to my Jewish heritage, and I thank her for that.

I turn now directly to the subject of the debate. I say that the Shoah, the Holocaust, was the event of the most unnatural scale and horror in the history of humanity. It brought the end of six million lives, some my own close relatives: people who had no interest in politics, no interest in government, no interest in how their country, Poland, was ruled.

I was denied meeting one pair of grandparents because they were murdered. My half-sister’s mother died in Auschwitz, after spending three years there. On her death certificate it says typhoid, but we know that she became ill and was shot against a pole outside a shed in Auschwitz. Visiting there—I will never do it again, because I do not think I could take it—was an extraordinary experience for me.

In my view, what happened to those people has left an indelible mark on the living. I want to talk a little—nobody has yet—about what is generally referred to as survivor’s guilt. It is not a good description of what it is, but I cannot do better at a moment like this.

I do not know how many of your Lordships have seen the remarkable BBC series, “The Last Musician of Auschwitz”. It is required viewing. It tells the story of brilliant musicians, among the best in the world, who faced the moral dilemma of whether they should play music while others in the camps were marching to their deaths as slave labourers. What happened is that survival won the debate, and that is what survivor’s guilt is about: survival often wins the debate and they were right to do what they did, but it did not go away after they had done it.

I have seen it at close quarters. All my father’s family died of murder, except my beloved sister—my half-sister, in fact—who is now a lovely old lady living in a nursing home. She is spared, by dementia, from the memories of her experience as a hidden child. Before she became ill, she wrote a remarkable book, published by Bloomsbury Publishing, about what she remembered of her childhood between the ages of two and seven when she was hidden in Poland. She was hidden by an audacious young woman called Frederika, who was a distant cousin. She ensured that the child, my half-sister Renata, survived the war. After the war, that woman brought Renata to her father, who had been a solider in England—a medical officer. In a glorious flash, he and Frederika had a speedy romance. They married and I am their son.

Until I was 10 years old, I knew nothing about that background. My parents converted to Christianity while my father was a general practitioner in Burnley. My mother walked into Manchester Cathedral and demanded to see the bishop, and that is how that happened. I was not told until I was 10 years old that Renata, by then 20, was not my full sister. As it was put to me, she “had another mummy”. It bonded us for the rest of our lives and still does, but it was an extraordinary early example of what survivor’s guilt is all about.

Another example from my family is my cousin, Willy Verkauf. He left Poland when he was 17, just before the war. He went to Israel, came to Europe and became an art dealer in Basel. How did he express his survivor’s guilt? He discovered a painter called André Verlon, who you will see referred to in books about paintings of the Holocaust. André Verlon became a reputed Holocaust painter and artist. The survivor’s guilt is that André Verlon and my cousin Willy Verkauf were the same person: he invented an alter ego through which he could express his earlier experiences and the loss of his family in the Holocaust. I am proud to own two of André Verlon’s works, which I keep at home.

Then there is my cousin Ewa, who came for lunch with me in this place. She looked at me as though it were completely bizarre that we were having lunch here, that I had no business to be here and asked, “What on earth is going on?” We have all had these sorts of experiences; I can see the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, nodding.

Ewa told me that she was in a concentration camp with her mother and her baby. The baby died and she helped her mother to commit suicide. One day, she was sitting in a room with a number of women in the concentration camp and a Nazi guard came in. He took a 13 year-old girl by the hair and dragged her out of the room. A few minutes later, the girl returned, weeping, saying, “He raped me, he raped me”. A few minutes later still, the guard came back into the room, stood the girl up against the wall in front of all the other women in the room and shot her dead in the back of the head.

My cousin Ewa had real survivor’s guilt, so much so that she married an American and had two fine sons, and did not tell them until she had nearly died that they had had a brother or sister who died in a concentration camp. People have to live with these experiences.

The importance of memorialising the Holocaust is that we must make sure that the rest of society lives with these experiences. The wonderful work of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs—I pay great tribute to him; I have watched him in Parliament for more decades than I would care to mention, because we are all getting older now—demonstrates that it is very important to educate so that people know that the Holocaust not only really happened but was the worst event in history.

My real point is that Holocaust Memorial Day is not merely a day in which we remember, but it is very much part of the present. We who carry the sort of history that I have appreciate the huge public support that comes through Holocaust Memorial Day. The day stands as a memorial and a reckoning for all of us who celebrate the innocence of our grandparents and other close relatives and commemorate their death. It is also for those of us who suffer the benefit of survival, as my parents and my cousins did and as I do to a lesser extent in coming to terms with the past, of which I knew nothing until I was 10 years old.

I could say much more, but for now it is enough that, in a debate such as this, I say about the past that we have the opportunity to learn important lessons for the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gold (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, this afternoon. I, too, would like to add my congratulations to the noble Lords, Lord Katz and Lord Evans of Sealand, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, on their excellent contributions and maiden speeches. I have no doubt that each of them will make a wonderful contribution to this House. I would like to tell the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, that from my position I was able to see that her husband was smiling right through her presentation, with such pride. I have also come away thinking there is no such thing as a quiet breakfast in their household.

The noble Lord, Lord Khan, in opening this debate in such a powerful way, mentioned seeing Manfred Goldberg last week. I, too, had the privilege of listening to this wonderful, articulate 94 year-old, who vividly described his life in Germany pre-war and how, miraculously, he managed to survive the brutality and suffering imposed on him by the Nazi regime. Unfortunately, though, Manfred is now in the minority; very few Holocaust survivors remain alive to tell us of their experiences and give us first-hand testimony to the wickedness imposed upon them and millions of others.

Unless we continue to remember the Holocaust, and the wickedness shown to the Jewish minority and other minorities across Europe, there is no guarantee this will not happen again. The photograph of released hostage Eli Sharabi captured by Hamas on 7 October 2023, looking so gaunt and emaciated, reminded so many of us of the liberation of Belsen in 1945 and the horror discovered there. We say “Never again”, but the rise in anti-Semitism here—3,528 cases reported by CST in 2024—across Europe and in Australia, Canada and the USA, makes the risk of repetition a real possibility. Particularly worrying is the rise of anti-Semitism in our universities. Although much can be done to inform and educate those born after the war, especially our children—the Holocaust became part of the English national curriculum in 1991—hearing from survivors who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust is the best way of achieving this.

If this cannot be done face to face, giving our children the opportunity of hearing from survivors remotely is the next best thing. Therefore, it is commendable that at a recent Holocaust Educational Trust dinner, our present Prime Minister announced a national ambition that every schoolchild should hear the recorded testimony of a Holocaust survivor. Other initiatives include investing a further £2 million for Holocaust education, announced by the Chancellor in her Budget, and for the teaching of the Holocaust to continue to be compulsory in state schools and expanded to include academies. These initiatives were announced by the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, following a curriculum review.

All this is excellent, but to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to inform and educate today’s and tomorrow’s generations, the creation of Holocaust centres and memorials all around the world is so important. That is why I strongly support the building of a memorial and learning centre. While the Holocaust galleries at the Imperial War Museum are impressive, building a lasting memorial here, right in the centre of Westminster, next to our Parliament—which has always stood for liberty and freedom all around the world—is making a massive statement that we in the UK remember now and will not forget in the future the events of the 1930s and 1940s which resulted in 6 million Jews and other minorities being slaughtered.

Let the world know that in this wonderful United Kingdom, our home, we will always stand against tyranny and prejudice, wherever they raise their ugly heads. The 2015 Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission report recommended the building of a “striking and prominent” new national memorial, to be located in central London. There can be no more striking and prominent location than right here in Victoria Tower Gardens. Objections have been raised to this location. It is argued that there are security and traffic issues, that the atmosphere of Victoria Tower Gardens will be changed, that access may be restricted, that too many people might visit the memorial—3 million visitors a year are expected, and I hope that we increase on that number—and that there are alternative sites. Frankly, I do not believe that these objections stack up. Security and traffic issues will arise wherever the memorial is located, and we will sort them, as we always do. As for the atmosphere in the park, I know how sensitive those responsible for the memorial are to this issue and how they truly believe, as do I, that the park can be improved.

By going ahead with the building of the memorial and learning centre here, we are raising awareness of the Holocaust and acknowledging its importance, just as was achieved last month by the visit of His Majesty King Charles to Auschwitz on Holocaust Memorial Day, commemorating 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. No other memorial in any location in the world will be as prominent as this one—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

The earlier part of the noble Lord’s speech was very moving and compelling, but a number of us have avoided burying this debate in a difficult discussion about the Victoria Tower Gardens proposal. Will he do the same and move on to another subject?

[Lord Gold (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. It so happens that I am through on this. I just wanted to add one last word, which is that we should be very proud of going ahead with this. I accept the noble Lord’s intervention and have nothing else to say except to pay tribute to everyone who has spoken here today. Every single speech has been most moving.

National Policy Planning Framework: Housing

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is quite right to raise the topic of housing for older people and for those with particular needs. For example, we laid regulations to exempt all former members of the regular Armed Forces and victims of domestic abuse from any local connection tests. We are actively working on issues around older people’s housing; in fact, I met Anchor this morning to discuss that very topic. We will bring forward further policies in the spring to look at the need for older people’s housing and how to make better provision for it in the planning process.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, in my time as leader of the Welsh Liberal Party I had the advantage of a close relationship with and enormous support from the late Baroness Randerson. I was shocked to hear of her passing when I was told yesterday, and I personally, like many others, will miss her greatly. She was a great public servant.

On the Government’s commendable ambition to build a very large number of houses, I remind the Minister that this ambition will be matched by an extraordinary visual effect on our townscape and landscape in general for hundreds of years. Can the Government try to ensure that the design of these houses to be built is of a high quality which reflects well on our age? Well-designed houses cost no more than badly-designed houses.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I could not agree with the noble Lord more; this is an important issue. I am not apologising for the ambitious targets we have—we certainly need the housing. However, I am also passionate not only about delivering well-designed homes—we are currently working on the future homes standard and will publish that shortly—but about those homes being situated in communities that really work for people. That was part of what the revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework were about, but it is also incumbent on all local authorities, as they pass their local plans, to make sure that they enable that too.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, it is an enormous privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. Particularly as somebody with my background, I admire the motivation and ambition which he expressed when he announced the commission. The difference between us is about location. It may be partly because when I went to Auschwitz—as I have once, and frankly I do not have the courage to go there again—I went into the very room where my father’s first wife, my sister’s mother, was murdered after three years as a slave worker in that camp. After that visit, I came back thinking, “How really can we honour the people who died like Tosia?” That was her name.

My belief is that we can honour those people not by choosing a symbolic location about which not everybody agrees, but only by choosing a place which in itself declares honour for those people, where children and adults can go and learn about what happened to those people, where tyranny is laid out for what it is— tyrannical—where there is the academic potential for people to teach and learn in large numbers about what happened during the Holocaust, and where they are going to be secure.

The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and I agree about almost everything, but the location in my view is far too small. It is far too mechanical, and I use the word literally. The architecture is mechanical; that is why it is so repetitious, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, declared. In my view, it also creates a security issue, not only for the centre itself but for this Parliament. There have been terrorist murders in and around this Parliament. We know that; some of us were here when some of them took place. We cannot say for sure that the curtilage of Parliament will not have to be extended at some point for security reasons. There are arguments for extending the curtilage of Parliament from one bridge to the other. If that were advised and were to happen, it would cause great difficulty for people visiting and leaving a centre in Victoria Tower Gardens.

Then there is the point raised by my noble friend about the number and nature of security guards who would have to be there. The figures we have been given suggest that between 2,000 and 3,000 people every day would visit that memorial centre, wherever it was situated. I do not want to be the person who says later, “I told you so”, but this is the real world and some of those 2,000 or 3,000 people could be terrorists. Terrorists are often not stupid people—they know how to cause terror.

Everybody who goes near that centre or enters the garden would see police officers holding machine guns, as we have outside Peers’ Entrance. There would have to be detailed searches. It would take hours to get in and out of the premises. It would be open only by appointment to people who had booked on the internet the previous day; it would not be open to the general public simply to walk around the grounds and see memorials to the Holocaust which had been erected there.

I say to the noble Lord and anyone who thinks that this is the right site: please go to Warsaw. It took people a very long time to build the POLIN centre there, but it is the most magnificent, broad and diverse centre you can have for an understanding of the Holocaust and the wickedness of tyranny. What I say is not only for myself but for my parents, who are dead now. My mother, too, was an extremely brave Holocaust survivor. She saved the little girl who later became my half-sister; she and my sister’s father fell in love and, for good or ill, they had just me. I speak from a family like this.

I want to add one more thing, if I can be forgiven the brief time that it will take. The noble Baroness, Lady Golding, is sitting next to me. In the other place, she and I played a significant part in the War Crimes Act. It was very hard opposed at one stage, and we believe that we contributed to something very important in memory of those who died in the Holocaust. There have not been many cases, but its existence is important, and there has been at least one very major case. Equally, what I want for my deceased relatives and my still-living sister is an establishment which is not just symbolic but able to teach everything one can learn about what happened at that terrible time.

Housing: Conditions in Rented Sector

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I think it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No, I do not think it is a discourtesy to the House; it is part of the process and we will be discussing it further, I am sure, on Tuesday, when the Commons amendments come back to the House on the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

Does the noble Baroness agree that, in those cases where the only realistic way of having a house in appalling condition repaired is to sue the landlord, including social landlords, in the county courts, it is completely unconscionable that tenants should have to wait between a year and 18 months for those cases to be heard? What are the Government going to do to deal with the backlog in the county courts?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill that we were talking about earlier will deal with a lot of that problem, particularly with Awaab’s law that has entered that Bill in the Commons. There will be clear timescales, first, for housing providers to respond to tenants, and, secondly, for any serious safety defects in housing to also be dealt with in a good timescale.

Anti-Semitic Attacks

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Polak, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

The remarks by the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, about the speedy action by the police were extremely welcome. For the sake of Holocaust survivors, such as my beloved sister, and the whole of the community, can we ensure that once prosecutions are brought, they are brought quickly and not delayed? Will the Government call on the Director of Public Prosecutions to account to the Government for the speedy way in which these cases should be processed?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot talk about specific cases, but equally, justice delayed is justice denied. We need to see swift and sure justice in these matters.