Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Inglewood and Lord Austin of Dudley

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, I feel slightly in the position of that well-known 16th-century Spanish jurist at the University of Salamanca who was arrested by the Inquisition when giving a lecture. Fourteen years later, after he was released, he came back and said: “As I was saying before I was interrupted”. My simple proposition is that we should be entitled to know in detail what is proposed before we are asked to remove the covenants of which we are custodian. I shall leave it at that.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, there is a reason why we do not know the detail. It is because it is for the planning system, and this Bill allows the planning system to deal with the memorial. As I understand it, that is the whole point. It is not for us to grant, debate or decide on planning grounds that will be dealt with by the planning system when it eventually gets there, after Parliament has completed its deliberations.

I was not going to comment on this group, but I want very gently to respond to something that I think the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said earlier. She suggested that the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, had paraded his victimhood, which, frankly—