Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, there is a certain kind of person who thinks that any piece of open land, regardless of any other consideration, should be developed—be it brownfield, greenfield, green belt or even a UNESCO world heritage site. Of course, that is not so. Ever since the earliest days of theorising about architecture, and what the French call urbanisme, it has been recognised that architecture is as much about the space between buildings as it is about the buildings themselves.

Given its location—these things are site specific— I believe that Victoria Tower Gardens is one such place. Quite simply, I reject the suggestion that a memorial and learning centre be put there, where it would interfere with the context of the west front of the Palace, which to British people, and to Britain, is so important, and where it would gobble up open public space.

As was said earlier, the trustees of Victoria Tower Gardens are trustees for the past, present and future. The state should not, without very good reason, usurp their authority, get in their way and deploy its statutory powers to promote such a site-specific project which, whatever its good intentions and merits—there are plenty of them, as numerous speakers have said this evening—cannot be said to be of overriding national importance. Frankly, it is simply spurious to suggest that it is. On top of this, let us remember that we are not talking about a planning application, where there is still these days a slightly nebulous presumption of granting consent. This is different; it is about restrictive covenants for the protection of the Palace of Westminster and open space for the public.

In somewhat similar circumstances, in the case of Lake Ullswater, which is in Cumbria, in 1962 this House threw out at Second Reading a government-supported Bill proposing that the Manchester Corporation convert that lake into a municipal reservoir. Opposition was led by that greatest of lawyers, Norman Birkett, Lord Birkett of Ulverston. His very celebrated words in this Chamber at Second Reading, found in House of Lords Hansard for 8 February 1962 at col. 229 and following, are more powerful than mine and he elaborated his arguments at greater length than I would expect your Lordships to be prepared to listen to me, either on any occasion or this late in the evening. In short, he argued that the scheme under consideration was entirely unacceptable, even though the underlying project in its widest sense had real merit. The same is true in this case. Like a number of people, I support a Holocaust memorial and learning centre, but not here. It is very simple. It is a powerful, relevant, and indeed overriding perspective.

Finally, it seems a bit ironic when we are considering something site-specific of universal relevance but of especial significance to the Jewish community that a very celebrated episode in Jewish history is very much to the point. That is 1 Kings, chapter 21: the story of Naboth’s vineyard. Your Lordships will remember that King Ahab, or more precisely his wife Jezebel, wanted Naboth’s vineyard for purely personal reasons and was punished seriously by God for improperly achieving that. I hasten to add that I would not wish any such biblical affliction imposed on anyone involved with this scheme, but in this instance the Government covet this site for reasons which, as has been mentioned by a number of speakers, cannot fairly be described as of overriding national importance. Rather, they would like to have the site because they think it important, but nothing more than that. It is a nice-to-have, not something for which there is an overriding requirement from their perspective. This point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley: that is not a good enough reason to promote legislation to bring the scheme about through statutory powers.

As many speakers have said, the Holocaust memorial and learning centre should not go ahead in Victoria Tower Gardens, although I have absolutely no objection at all to a suitable small-scale monument there, comparable in scale, character and quality to Rodin’s “Burghers of Calais”, to go with those there at present. For my part, I will support any proposal to remove the powers to enable the learning centre to be sited in Victoria Tower Gardens and support any to promote the project elsewhere for all the reasons other people have already made this evening, which require no more repetition from me.