Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Blencathra

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

They are advisory only.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I just say a few words in support of my noble friend Lord Strathcarron’s Amendments 8 and 17. Projects such as this are always liable to mission creep. This has already had quite a lot of mission creep attached to it, and I can see many reasons why there might be further mission creep in future. My noble friend has undertaken a valuable role in drawing attention to the areas where this might happen and, therefore, bringing in the agreements and undertakings so far given by the Government and the promoters of the Bill. That relates to Amendment 8, and my noble friend Lord Blencathra has also underlined many of the words and excuses that will be used for wishing to go wider than originally anticipated.

Amendment 17 would help guarantee that this does not become a way for creep in the future. We can stop mission creep as far as this project is concerned, but there may be subsequent creep thereafter. The amendment is therefore very valuable, because this is controversial and all sides are entitled to know exactly what is proposed. I honestly cannot see how the Government and promoters—if they are being honest—can refuse to accept an invitation that lays everything out clearly and precisely so that we know where we are from the beginning.

These two amendments therefore have my support.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Blencathra

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Eccles in his Amendment 5 and will speak to my Amendment 33. When I first saw the department’s plan to manage this, I was tempted to ask the Minister facetiously whether he would put the experts of HS2 in charge of the project since they seemed to have all the matching qualities outlined in the devastating “red for danger” Infrastructure and Projects Authority report. But then I had a panic—perhaps they might not realise that I was being facetious and actually put HS2 in charge.

The National Audit Office said in a devasting report of 2022 that the department had informed it that it hoped to get an NDPB up and running about a year before the centre opened. It would be in charge of running it but have no role in managing its construction. The key findings of that NAO report were that:

“The Department does not have a track record of managing programmes of this nature … The Department has recruited specialists from across the civil service and externally, but the team does not have staff with programme management expertise in senior positions”.


However, the devasting criticism of the project is not a comment by the NAO but is printed on page 11 of the report as an organisation chart showing the nine bodies under the Secretary of State that will have input into its management. The department calls this “the governance structure”. I have given a copy of this to the Minister, to Hansard and to the clerks. Of course, we cannot enter it into Hansard, so I will read out what it says.

At the bottom of the chart are three organisations credited with giving independent assurance. One is the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which has already condemned the management of the project. Another is the Cabinet Office, which must give approval on business cases and procurement. Then there is the Treasury. The NAO report says that the Treasury’s role is to be:

“Responsible for allocating funding for the programme. Treasury approval is required at different stages as per the Integrated Assurance and Approval Plan … As a condition of the funding, the Department must seek further Treasury approval if the programme is forecast to use more than half of the approved contingency”.


We all know what the Treasury is like: no one will be able to buy a nail to build this place without months and months of Treasury approval. That is another government department with management rights over this project.

Then there are three advisory boards: the foundation advisory board, the academic advisory board and the construction advisory board. The members of the foundation advisory board are extremely distinguished and will all have firm views on fulfilling their role of defining the overall vision for the programme, including content of the learning centre. But the academic advisory board,

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

So now we have two expert bodies advising on content and a paralysed programme board terrified to decide between them or reject their advice. This is a recipe for delay and completely contradictory decisions as the programme board attempts to please everyone.

Above those advisory bodies, we have the programme board itself. I hope that noble Lords are listening carefully, because this is what it will do:

“Meets monthly and is chaired by the senior responsible owner. It is the decision-making authority for the programme and collectively owns the programme’s objectives. It monitors the performance of individual projects and work packages, as well as the risks and issues affecting delivery and the mitigations in place to address them. Members include the programme director, programme manager and project leads. Representatives from other parts of the Department, such as Procurement, and external stakeholders, including specialist contractors, are also invited to meetings”.


What an extraordinarily huge bunch of people with no power except to monitor performance, assess risks and pass things on to the oversight board.

The oversight board is one level higher up. It will meet

“2-3 times a year with representatives from the Foundation Advisory Board and senior government. Sets the strategic direction of the programme and is the escalation point for the Programme Board; any changes to the strategic direction need Oversight Board approval”.

Next, we have the investment sub-committee, whose remit is:

“The ISC must approve new project or programme business cases. The programme must seek further ISC approval if it is forecast to use more than half of the approved cost contingency.”


Finally, at the top of this indecision tree is the Secretary of State as

“the ultimate escalation point and sits on the Oversight Board”.

In summary, we have three advisory committees, one organisation with responsibility for finance, two powerful government departments with the final say on finance and two other boards that monitor things and talk about them. There is one thing missing—a straightforward delivery board whose mission given to it by the Secretary of State should be simply this: “You will deliver this project X at a cost Y by day Z and you will suffer penalty P if you fail to deliver and you are a day late.” Get rid of all the other talking shops except the foundation advisory board, which can advise on content but with no say on design or construction. Once new plans are approved in detail, no changes should be made at all. We have all seen in the buildings around Parliament—from Portcullis House onwards—how architects and designers loved to have a committee of politicians in charge, who changed the design regularly, costing an absolute fortune.

This Heath Robinson so-called management structure devised by the department is a recipe for argument, delay and cost overruns. However, it has one magnificent feature cleverly built in by civil servants: with this structure, not a single person can be held accountable for failure. If the cost goes from £138 million to £200 million, which of these bodies gets the blame, or if it is three years late, or if the Jewish community condemns it at the end as not being appropriate? That is why we need a new non-departmental public body set up now and given a simple set of objectives to deliver a set project at a set date at a set cost. That is the only way this can ever work.

I turn now to my Amendment 33 and the future management of Victoria Tower Gardens. In April 1946, the Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, told Conservative MPs in a Commons debate:

“We are the masters at the moment, and … for a very long time to come”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/4/1946; col. 1213.]


I now hear Cabinet Ministers saying that the new Attorney-General is telling them, “I am the master now”. Be that as it may, the relevance of this comment is that I fear that any new NDPB set up to run the completed project will feel that it is the all-powerful master of Victoria Tower Gardens, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out.

The NDPB will be under the overall control of a Secretary of State, partly funded by the Government, and possibly eventually fully funded if the costs grow out of control. It will have, no doubt, a senior civil servant or two from the department, and some others of the great and the good. With the clout it will have from government, it will feel that it can dictate all aspects of the governance of the gardens.

We can guess what will happen: if it finds long queues, it will create roped-off chicanes, like those zigzag lines you get in airports, and do so with no consultation with the garden authorities. What will it do to stop visitors spreading out over the rest of the garden to have picnics, as in Berlin, and taking up the space of other garden users?

We simply have no idea what pressures may arise to infringe on the rest of Victoria Tower Gardens. Therefore, as Amendment 33 makes clear, the NDPB must not have any authority over any other parts of the garden and must consult local residents in advance through the relevant local amenity societies with regard to any matters which may affect the free use of Victoria Tower Gardens as a garden open to the rest of the public. Anything else would be inappropriate.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I want to say a word or two in support of my noble friend Lord Eccles and his amendment and my noble friend Lord Blencathra. Much of what I was going to say has been well forked over already, but I think it underlines the importance of moving towards a clear structure and organisation as quickly as possible.

The spider’s web of committees and advisory boards referred to by my noble friend on page 11 of the National Audit Office’s report must be a recipe for disaster. As he pointed out very forcefully, it is a way to ensure that nobody will ever be blamed for anything. It does not matter whether it is too much money, design faults, cost overruns, failure to meet timescales or failure to meet commitments, as page 13 of the National Audit Office’s report puts it—they can only have been designed and drafted by Sir Humphrey—it is, in effect, an organisational blank cheque. We need to make sure that it is very much better controlled, in the interests of performance delivery, the taxpayer and Parliament as a scrutinising body.

I hope that the Minister, who has so far put his foot to the metal, will take some time to think about these organisational problems, which are very real and have been brought forward by the National Audit Office on other pages of its report. If we do not do that, we are setting ourselves up for a very unhappy period during which this project gets going.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Blencathra

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My noble friend mentioned the Jewish Museum in Camden, which has closed down. Is he aware that it says that it has 28,000 items and artefacts—including Jewish art, and examples showing the Jewish way of life going back centuries—in storage? Can he understand why, on the one hand, we have plans for this learning centre in Victoria gardens that will have no artefacts while, on the other, we have a closed-down museum with 28,000 artefacts looking for a home? Can the Government explain why on earth they are unable to marry them up and put the two together in a big, proper museum and learning centre, as the Holocaust Commission recommended?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

Well, my Lords, that just shows that you should never speak after my noble friend Lord Blencathra, because of course he is right. I hope I made it clear that I thought the consideration of alternative sites should include the idea that we should have a national Jewish museum, which would pick up the 28,000 items, the number of which I was not aware.

Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Blencathra

Monday 27th October 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

If my noble friend looks at his BT bill more closely, he will see on the right-hand side of the page in small print, “If you wish to avoid this charge you can do so by getting a direct debit or by calling this number”. It is a direct push to try to stop people getting paper bills and paying by cheque.

[Lord Blencathra]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. To be fair to my noble friend Lord Stoneham of Droxford, that is going further than providing an incentive. There is a threat involved there, and that is not right and not fair.

I am not careless with money, but I then checked other bills, which I had not bothered to do properly before to find other mistakes. When I get a paper bill, I see the level of my gas bill and I go around switching off the heating for a while. If it is being taken directly from your bank account and you have no bill, just some annual statement, you do not see what gas, electricity and utilities are costing. There is a saving to consumers if they can see their bill in paper format.

A further point: I believed when I was a boy and growing up that the decent thing to do was to pay one’s bills within 30 days. Now it seems to be down to about 21 days. However, the demands that one should pay everything by direct debit or only get 10 days to pay a telephone bill are obscene. It is wrong and we should have legislation that forces the utility companies not to charge extra for cheques and not to give an unfair disadvantage to cheque-payers. Finally, not that it concerns this House, there are votes for whichever party defends consumer interests on this issue. There are votes to be lost unless we let the dying minority of consumers pay by cheque.