Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, for the information of the Committee, I mention that I will not be speaking in every group on behalf of these Benches. Indeed, I do not speak on behalf of my Benches because if any vote were to come up, it would be a free vote. Any comments that I make will be my own views.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord King, that we need a national Holocaust memorial, a fitting one, a respectful one, somewhere we can remember the suffering and death of 6 million people in the last century. We also need a learning centre. We must never forget, and we must ensure that future generations never forget either. However, like others, I think that they should not necessarily be in the same place and that they should not necessarily be where they are currently proposed to be.

I want to speak about Amendment 27, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, requiring a detailed cost estimate to go before both Houses of Parliament before any planning permission is determined, because my particular concern about the location of a learning centre underground in Victoria Tower Gardens is flooding. As noble Lords will see, I have tabled Amendment 25 about this, so the Committee will hear a lot more from me and, I am sure, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who supported it, when we get to that amendment.

In my researches in tabling that amendment, it became very clear to me that even to reduce the chances of flooding—and you certainly cannot completely remove the chances of flooding—would require measures the cost of which cannot be known at this time. When it comes to the point of planning permission, at least some sort of estimate will have to be given of the cost of them, and I do not think that the risks of flooding can be accepted under any circumstances. When we get to that point, there will be some idea of the cost, but currently there is not, and that is why I support Amendment 27 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

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

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

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

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

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

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

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[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

It is a memorial for everybody.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

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

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

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for intervening, but I really cannot leave that comment on its own. The noble Lord cannot stand up here and say, “The Jews want the Holocaust memorial, and they ought to pay for it”. The Holocaust is not something that is just about the Jews. I am sure that others on the noble Lord’s side of the Room do not associate themselves with that comment. It illustrates the variety of arguments being put together, each one of which is an argument against it but many of which clash with each other. It is probably a pretty eloquent contribution as to why we need this memorial—and near Parliament.

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[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.