Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Inglewood and Lord Sterling of Plaistow

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise in support of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, not because I have any involvement—I have no Jewish blood in me—but because we are looking at the project through rose-tinted spectacles, as the noble Lord, Lord King, has just said. I have in the last two or three years been personally involved in two significant big construction projects. The rate of inflation in the building industry has been going through the roof. The thing that he touched on will undoubtedly make this even more difficult to budget and then to carry through on budget.

On top of that, whatever it will ultimately cost depends upon the detailed design. It is clearly a difficult site, as the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, said. That is why the contingencies are on the high side, and what are we faced with from the Government? We do not have any realistic figures giving any worthwhile indication of the order of magnitude of the bill that we are likely to be paying at the end of this process. It is not a matter of arguing about the detail of the morality, ethics or desirability of the project. Anyone embarking on a big project of this kind, which will incur very substantial expenditure, particularly public expenditure, ought to have a proper budget in front of them so that they can then take an informed decision on where they want to go. We do not have it. It is as simple as that. It is irresponsible to talk in grandiose terms about all kinds of things when the boring, prosaic aspects of cost and delivery have not properly been considered.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not an accountant.

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, I want to add to what has been said because it is all about education. If your Lordships look back, in every educational course at state schools, as they were, there had to be education on what happened with the Holocaust and other holocausts. It was there to be done. I can tell your Lordships from my own grandchildren that over the last few years it has not come up at all. I have checked with teachers, headmasters and headmistresses in some of my other roles, and they say that one of the biggest problems is that now they are advised that it is not necessary, other than on a wider front. That is the key point in education—for it to get back into state schools. It does come up in non-state schools but not in state schools in the form that it should.