Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Pickles and Baroness Deech

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a reasonable point. I very much support the Minister’s point. I think that, once the noble Baroness sees the model, many of her worries and concerns will disappear.

If there is one thing that has become clear to me in these interesting debates, it is that the fiction about the memorial does not last very long under public scrutiny and questioning. Noble Lords will be surprised but, again, we cannot create two planning systems, with one for the rest of the country and another for noble Lords, particularly—I say this in a very gentle way—when those noble Lords have a financial interest close to the site.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, since we have absolutely no guarantee that there will be a proper planning application, we have to set those remarks to one side.

I just want to add that this is not about nimbyism or selfishness. For those of us who have a real, deep family interest in this project, it is of a low quality. It will not do for my grandmothers and all the other members of my family whom I lost. Many others agree with me. Those who are not so affected may not completely understand our deep feelings about the quality and message of this project.

On the playground, I will just say that this is a social justice issue because of the mixed demographic area here, with children from ethnic-minority backgrounds who have low levels of activity apart from in this garden. The poverty, lack of access to safe spaces and poor local natural resources that are inevitable in this area contribute to this inequality. Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says:

“States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child … States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in”


those activities

“and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for … recreational … activity”.

We ratified that in 1991.

This Government are committed to upholding international law, as they say repeatedly. Every day we hear from Minister David Lammy and others about its importance. In damaging the playground, not just reducing its size but exposing its users to risk, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, so eloquently pointed out, we are in danger of breaching that United Nations convention. If I were a parent or carer of a child, I would not want to take them to a park where there were armed guards, strangers, coaches, protests and so on, and no longer a happy atmosphere.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for the measured way in which he introduced his amendment. Clearly, getting a security assessment is enormously important and should be done, but the question that faces this Committee is: should it be on the face of the Bill? I would suggest that it should not.

If the noble Lord will forgive me, I have a very distinguished lawyer. I hate to correct him by saying this, but there is only one planning system and this Bill does not seek to circumvent it. All it seeks to do is disapply the 1900 Act. A planning permission is something entirely separate. Matters of security and the like should be considered carefully by the Government in coming to their decision.

My noble friend Lord Blencathra gave the impression that this is just a simple binary choice. Should the Minister come to a decision, at that point, the various conditions that are part of a normal planning process will start to be brought into being and we will negotiate, whether that is on trees, the playground or security. Only when officials are happy with that will a decision be made.

I have worked, and happily so, as I suspect we all have, in the No. 1 terrorist target in the United Kingdom for 35 years. This is one of the top 10 terrorist targets in the world, but we come here because of democracy, because we want to be heard and because of the things we believe. I say gently and reasonably to colleagues in this Room, whom I like very much, that the arguments they are pursuing basically say: “This is a dangerous thing. Take it away from here so I can be safe”. I say this as gently as I can—I actually feel much more strongly about this. It is an argument for saying that Hamas and Hezbollah have said that we cannot put up any monument to the Holocaust or be supportive of dealing with antisemitism, because it makes us a target. That, my friends, is a recipe for surrender and defeat.

I apologise that I cannot stay for the end of this session because I too have a commitment. I am speaking to a conference of rabbis.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has misunderstood the meaning of risk assessment. We accept that it is a security risk. Of course you do not refrain from building because there is a risk, but you have to assess it and plan in detail what you will do to mitigate it. That is what this group of amendments is about. In particular, I support Amendment 35, on which the noble Lord, Lord Howard, spoke so persuasively. It is about planning to meet the risks that will undoubtedly occur. As I have said before, we have no assurance that there will be a proper planning application in which this can be aired. You would expect in general a thorough risk assessment to be available in relation to this controversial and security-imbued Bill and project.

We do not give in to threats, but there must be a thorough evaluation of the consequences. What evaluation has there been of the risks outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile? What traffic measures will be taken and what barriers erected? How will this affect everyone who lives in the area, Parliament Square and the Supreme Court? We need to know about security guards, whether armed or not, and the security measures that will be needed at night if the centre is open for commercial meetings. What are the risks to those who will build it, to visitors who will make use of the park during the construction period, to passersby, to boats passing by on the river and to schoolchildren going to the Parliament Education Centre? Are there risks to Victoria Tower and its refurbishment? What control is there over the escalating costs, which are going up exponentially year after year as building costs rise? What will be done about governance? What if sufficient funds are not forthcoming and the building takes longer than expected? Is there a risk to the parliamentary buildings on Millbank and the surrounding streets? I suspect that the Government do not have the answers to these questions. Amendment 35 will require them to come up with them, accepting of course that some security issues can be dealt with only confidentially.

These issues also apply to Amendment 36 from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which would restrict security checks to those entering the learning centre, leaving the rest of the gardens as a freely accessible open space, as it is now, where one can enter just for a few moments on a whim. This is welcome, but what effect would it have on the necessary security arrangements? The gate leading to the Pankhurst sculpture and “The Burghers of Calais” is but a few steps from the edge of the learning centre. How can the learning centre be protected from someone entering by another route, unchecked and carrying a weapon, red paint or worse? This will inevitably lead to the entire gardens being treated as protected property, with security checks at every gate no matter the reason for the visit. Even a harmless gathering of people for a Holocaust memorial event at the end of April is leading to the whole gardens being closed for at least one day.

Moreover, it is easy enough to propel something into the gardens from Lambeth Bridge or from the river in a passing boat. How will those dangers be met? I need hardly explain that the current atmosphere of unpleasant and sometimes violent protest marches in the area is likely to continue, sadly, for a long time. The TV studios of Millbank House overlook the gardens and thus provide a perfect platform for people who want more publicity for a cause. Has the Minister an answer to these questions? Amendment 35 is essential and should be accepted.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Pickles and Baroness Deech

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I am worried that Members are getting a little agitated. I do not think that they should be concerned, because there has not been a single Holocaust memorial built anywhere in the world where this kind of controversy did not occur. People, by and large, do not like them. They do not want them, but once they are built, they are very proud of them.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I have visited the Berlin memorial more than once. It is widely regarded as inappropriate and ineffective. People picnic on it, they bicycle around it, they dance on top of it. They do not know what it is and, of course, what good has it done in Germany? Where is Germany heading now? Look at the rise of anti-Semitism across Europe. There is no relationship at all between the position of a memorial and the effect that it has.

As for the contents of the learning centre, there will be an amendment later. However, Answers to the many parliamentary Questions I have asked have always said that the memorial will contain references to other genocides. This genocide or that genocide—the Government do not seem to know which ones but have always referred to others. It is only very recently that someone has said, “Oh, but the genocide of the Jews is more important than the others and shouldn’t be compared”.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Pickles and Baroness Deech

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

Can I just ask the noble Lord why he thinks that being a tourist attraction that attracts millions is compatible with commemoration, grief, prayer, remembrance and all the other things that the commission called for and that are normally associated with a Holocaust memorial? There is a little plaque to one of my grandmothers in Manchester; that brings me more solace than any number of millions of people tramping through the gardens then heading off to have an ice cream.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

It is important not to conflate the solemn nature of the memorial with the learning centre; they are two distinct but integrated matters. The Committee will always go to museums and Holocaust sites. What we want are the uncommitted: we want people who go to the learning centre and come away having learned something. They will use it as a doorway to wider knowledge. It will not be in isolation. We are going to work closely with our American friends, our friends at Auschwitz and our friends in Yad Vashem because the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and distortion do not recognise national boundaries. We have a common purpose, and part of that common purpose will be to spread it out in different languages.