Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Pickles and Lord Blencathra

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

That was a perfectly proper and normal process, as established in the planning rules. Of course the Government can do that, through the proper process, and have a public inquiry; that is a normal thing. What the council cannot do is meet as a group to decide on planning permissions. The reason why the law was changed was because of a number of dodgy decisions taken in the 1960s for political and personal financial reasons. That is why it is not possible to discuss planning applications.

These things are taken completely independently. There have been some ingenious arguments put forward, which I have enjoyed, but, essentially, it is the same thing: “We want a different planning system. We don’t want one that applies to the rest of the country. We want a planning application that applies to where we live, and we want to decide it because we’re in the House of Lords”. That is an untenable position and one that is difficult to justify outside. This Bill does not seek to grant planning permission; it does not take it into the planning permission. Nothing in this process relates to town and country planning. It just opens the possibility for town and country planning to be applied to this process.

The Imperial War Museum is a key partner in this. It supports the memorial in the Victoria Tower Gardens. Regarding UNESCO, we should remember that this is not in its area; it is outside it. We are perhaps entitled to get the opinion of Historic England. I am sure that it was just because of a question of time—she was coming to the end of her time—that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, did not give Historic England’s view; of course, it looked at this matter specifically. It said that

“the proposals would not significantly harm the Outstanding Universal Value of the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey including Saint Margaret’s Church World Heritage Site”.

We are grateful for that but, ultimately, something such as this has to be determined by the Minister. The Government, who are responsible for our security, have to make that decision in conjunction with the security forces.

I am going to sit down now, but I do hope that we can conduct this in a slightly more comradely fashion. In 1992, during my first appearance on a committee, I accused George Mudie, who was then a Member of Parliament—and quite a good friend of mine, actually—of issuing weasel words. I was hauled over the coals for that, and I had to make a full and frank apology. But, apparently, your Lordships’ House, which is supposed to be the dignified end of the constitution, can serve words such as these without it even raising an eyebrow.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 21. I have a few straightforward questions for the Minister on the so-called planning process. First, I say to my noble friend Lord Pickles, in the most comradely and indeed cuddly way, that I think he misunderstood what my noble friend Lord Robathan was saying. I do not take my noble friend Lord Robathan’s comments to mean that the Labour and Tory groups met in some secret cabal or caucus to sabotage the planning application. I took them to mean that, when they met in the council properly to determine it, all the Tories and Labour people voted against it, perfectly legitimately—not in some secret caucus.

The questions I have for the Minister are straightforward. First, will he confirm that the designated Minister to decide on the three options that he mentioned last week will be from his own department? Will it be Matthew Pennycook MP, Jim McMahon OBE MP, Rushanara Ali MP, Alex Norris MP or the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage? Secondly, will he state how their independence will be judged?

I must tell the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, that in my opinion there is not the slightest snowflake’s chance in Hades that the Government will again send this to Westminster City Council for a planning application. They will go for the other two internal options. In that regard, will the Minister set out exactly how the round-table proposal will work? Who will be invited, how many round tables will there be and what written evidence will they accept?

Finally, there is a suggestion for written representations as another option. Will he or the designated Minister accept and give full consideration to all written representations received, just like the planning application to Westminster City Council? If the designated Minister rejects them, will his or her justification be set out in full?

For the benefit of any present who may wish to give the Minister any advisory notes from the Box, I repeat: who will be the designated Minister? How will the department determine his or her independence? How will the round tables work? Will written representations permit all the representations that Westminster City Council receives? How will they be assessed? Will the designated Minister set out in full the reasons for rejecting written arguments, if the decision to go ahead is taken?

There you go, my Lords: two and a half minutes, which is a record for me in this Committee.

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[Lord Pickles (Con)]

I can do this in 20 seconds. All I am saying is that the Arrow Cross was murdering Jews in Hungary while Hitler was attempting the Munich putsch. The antisemitic laws were first introduced not at Nuremberg but in Hungary.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I will happily take that guidance from my noble friend; he may be absolutely right. I say to the Government Whip that we are not reliving the debate; I am trying to wind up the most important debate we have had in this Session over the last few days, and it is important to deal with the very important points raised by my noble friend Lord Pickles.

Okay, I am quite happy to remove the word “Nazi” and to say “Nazi-inspired”. We all agree that if we did not say “Nazi”, the amendment would be perfectly in order, because no one in this Room who supports the amendment is suggesting that we included the word “Nazi” to somehow exonerate Poland or the other countries that did it and are trying to concentrate just on a few hundred misguided people who wore the SS uniform. Of course that is not the case. We want this memorial and learning centre to be about everyone who exterminated Jews, whichever country they were in and whatever nationality they were.

That is the point made, in conclusion, by my noble friend Lord Robathan. He said that the whole point of the memorial is the genocide of the Jews by whoever did it. It has to be the Holocaust only, and none of the other four genocides suggested here has any relevance to the Holocaust. They should be ignored: the Holocaust and antisemitism only. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Pickles and Lord Blencathra

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I did not sign these amendments because I was leaving it to others with kiddies and grandchildren to speak with much more authority, but I am prompted to speak by the Minister saying last week that the main path used by mums, nannies and children will be closed. Also, I have a question for my noble friend Lady Fookes, which we may want to reflect on, on the effect on the water table if a big hole is dug. I am not sure whether a hydrological engineer has commented on this, but my experience with Natural England was that if you want to destroy peatland, you just dig a trench and all the water drains from the rest of the soil and the peat into the trench. There is probably a level water plain in this park. If one digs a ruddy great big hole, does it not act as a sump, so that water from the surrounding area moves into it?

Of course, the bunker will have to be completely waterproof so that there is no water ingress, but it will still act as a sump and there may have to be pumps to pump out the water surrounding the bunker in order to maintain its water integrity. It is a question that I am not sure my noble friend will have the answer to, but there could be a more serious effect on the trees she is concerned about, in that they will suffer a huge moisture lack, more than London often does in summer, if the bunker acts as a sump.

As for the children’s playground, I believe that there are only two ways into it. The level access one is the southern gate, which we all use and which gives access to the Buxton memorial, the playground and the kiosk. The other access, I think, is down the steep set of steps off Lambeth Bridge, which is no good whatever for mums with baby buggies and so on. The playground now assumes a much greater importance because the Government confirmed last week that the main path used by everyone, adjacent to Millbank, will be closed or partially closed. That is where, every morning when I go through the park, I see the nannies with the little kiddies.

Yesterday was a reasonably warm day in London. The park was not full, and I took some wonderful photographs—of the bins overflowing and garbage everywhere. That was just on a nice day in London. Obviously, I would not take photographs of little kiddies with their nannies and so on—one does not want to be arrested on the spot—but I can assure the Committee that I see lot of them going through there every day. They are tiny little things: I do not know what ages they are, but none of them are higher than 18 inches. Sometimes they are on a pole or in a croc, and they are all walking along with their nannies, using that main path. If they have no access to the park, the playground becomes even more important. How will they access it?

From the plans, I assume that the main entrance for the builders and contractors will be the southern gate, and that will block access to the children’s playground and to the main footpath that lots of little kiddies, nannies and mums, as well as other users of the park, use every day. I say to the Government that if they are determined to go ahead with this, they should leave the southern gate alone for mums and dads and everyone else to use, and create some other construction access between the southern gate and Lambeth Bridge where they can get their trucks in. If they are going to remove the kiosk and the children’s playground, and move it elsewhere, that would allow the construction of a new gate. I leave that point for the Minister and his planning process to consider.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on a very ingenious argument. I am always distressed to be on the opposite side from him on these matters, because he is such a persuasive speaker. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, made an enormous amount of sense and said nothing that I disagree with. It occurs to me that if I had followed his advice and attended more playgrounds and eaten fewer buns, I would be in a better state today than I am.

The noble Lord said that the planning system is not fit for purpose. That is generally said by people who think that we are not passing enough: it is not fit for purpose because we need to build more houses. One thing that I think is fit for purpose is that, as is pretty well established, we are able to look at the regulations, apply those to playgrounds and do some negotiating to get the right alternative through the planning system. That also applies to trees. If there is anything well established, tree preservation orders are at the very centre of the planning system. We know that, should there be a grant of planning permission, each tree will be considered and negotiated between the council and the department, and an enormous amount of work will go into this. If we are to pass this, are we saying that Parliament should decide on the conditions of every playground next to a new development, or every tree preservation order?

With a cursory look at the planning inquiry and the independent inspector’s finding, noble Lords will see that an enormous amount of thought has gone into the preservation of the trees. The current situation is not helpful. As I said a couple of Committee days ago, those paths are, in essence, strangling the roots of the trees because they are not permeable to water. We will put in new paths that ensure that water goes to the roots of the trees.

I recognise and sympathise with the noble Baroness’s dilemma and great passion with regard to abduction, but one of the reasons why that is not likely to happen—in, as she described, a situation where there will be lots of queuing—is that there will not be any queuing. It will be ticket only. People will have to obtain the tickets in advance; they will not be able to obtain a ticket at the memorial site. Only people with tickets will be able to come in, and only within a particular time frame. That was designed specifically—

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Pickles and Lord Blencathra

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

I think I was with my noble friend on his last visit to Yad Vashem. Like him, I have been there many times, and I am always moved by the process. However, we need to make it absolutely clear that there is only one Holocaust. A number of genocides have occurred before and after, but there is only one Holocaust: that was the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My noble friend Lord Robathan has made a very good point, and my noble friend Lord Pickles is right that there is only one Holocaust. But the briefing for this centre says that other genocides will also be commemorated there. So there will be things about Holodomor, and possibly Rwanda, and Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao or whoever they may be. Though there is only one really evil Holocaust, the Shoah, other genocides will also be commemorated. In my opinion, that dilutes the purpose of a Holocaust memorial.

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[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, I want to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Carlile. I am a lawyer; I am also a chartered surveyor in the planning and development division of the RICS. I worked professionally in this area, a long time ago, for a number of years.

The point is that there is a fundamental difference between the covenant and the planning consent. We are not being asked to form any view about the merits of a planning application or anything like that, because were that to be the case, the draft legislation in front of us would make it explicitly clear that we were taking by statute the power to grant planning permission. The two consents run in parallel, and we should view them like that. The criteria that apply in determining each of the two are not the same.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I too wish to support what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, though I may say it less elegantly. The reason we are talking about planning in this Committee is that we simply do not trust the Government—the previous Government or this Government—not to overrule Westminster City Council. If the Government will give a cast-iron commitment that they will abide by whatever Westminster City Council decides—that they will not call it in or get an inspector to reverse it, and that the Minister will not reverse it either—then all my concerns about planning would be removed. If the Government will trust the decision of Westminster City Council, I think no noble Lords in this Committee would be talking about the planning application.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, that would be a predetermination.