Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Sassoon and Lord Khan of Burnley

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

With respect, I strongly disagree with the noble Baroness. The application is live. Subject to the passing of this Bill, there will be a new planning process, when the designated Minister will decide what he will take forward.

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

I am now getting more and more confused. The Minister has just said that there will be a new planning inquiry, or a new planning process, but before he said that there might be only a round table or written representations. He just used the word “new”—I heard it very clearly. Can the Minister tell us on how many occasions when a planning application has been called in to a Minister has a further planning inquiry been held? I do not know what the precedents are, but it would be very interesting to hear if there are any precedents for a planning inquiry at this stage leading to a new inquiry.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly disagree with the characterisation of what I said. What I said was that the planning application was live, as it is, but that there will be a new planning process. The actual planning application has been quashed because of the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900. That is why we have brought forward Clause 2, so that we can disapply the powers of the county council Act 1906. I did say, as well, that the designated Minister will decide what process will be used to take the application forward; that could be a round table seeking consensus, a planning inquiry or written representations. That is a decision for the designated Minister; it is not in the remit of what we are discussing. At times, this has sounded very much like a planning committee, but that is not the remit of what the clauses of this Bill set out to do.

I will make progress. The Government have already given an assurance that they will notify the relevant authorities in both Houses as soon as practicable following the reactivation of the planning process for the current application. The restoration and renewal programme of the Palace of Westminster has also been considered. We will continue to work with the team responsible for the restoration and renewal programme to make sure we understand the interactions and potential impacts between the two schemes.

I will briefly clarify comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, on the red rating assigned to the programme in the annual reports by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority. That rating, as has been made clear in each report since 2022, reflects the need to obtain Parliament’s approval for this Bill and to recover planning consent. Before losing planning consent in 2022, the programme was rated amber.

It is therefore unnecessary to seek further steps adding a report and a resolution in both Houses when a planning process will have been completed in accordance with the statutory requirements. These amendments would simply add further delays. I therefore ask the noble Lords, Lord Lisvane, Lord Hodgson, Lord Inglewood and Lord Strathcarron, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Fookes and Lady Walmsley, not to press Amendments 6 and 7.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Sassoon and Lord Khan of Burnley

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, swiftly moving on, it is not realistic to suppose that a new design competition would produce a design that pleases everyone. Let me be absolutely clear: I have featured in a BBC housebuilding documentary programme and I was most suspicious of design but, by the end of the 14 months when I was running for the European Parliament, I realised the impact and the power of design. Everyone has different tastes and different suspicions of design; everyone has different views. Differences of view about the artistic merits of designs are nothing new. It is quite proper that there should be an open debate about the design of new memorials, indeed of all new public buildings.

The design that is proposed for the UK national Holocaust memorial and learning centre is the product of extensive consultation, a design competition that attracted many of the best architects in the world and a judging process that relied on the deep expertise of a talented and experienced panel. Are we simply to set all that aside and require the process to be repeated? It is right, of course, that a decision to proceed with construction of the memorial and learning centre should be taken only after all relevant voices have been heard.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, referred to the press reports in 2023 concerning Sir David Adjaye. Following allegations made in those reports, Adjaye Associates has said that Sir David will not be involved in the UK Holocaust memorial project until the matters raised have been addressed.

I am not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, was in her place when I made the following point. The learning centre will look at subsequent genocides through the lens of the Holocaust. The content of the learning centre is being developed by the leading international curator, Yehudit Shendar, formerly of Yad Vashem. The focus is to ensure that the content is robust and credible and reflects the current state of historical investigation into, and interpretation of, the Holocaust. The exhibition will confront the immense human calamity caused by the destruction of Jewish communities and other groups, and the exhibition will also examine the Holocaust through British perspectives.

The noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, said that he knows nothing wiser. I was very clear in an earlier group about the next steps of the process around planning options, subject to the passage of the Bill. I made it very clear last week—and I will say it again after the confirmation of the previous group—that the designated planning Minister, Minister McMahon, will take an approach of his choosing, whether that will be a consensus round- table meeting, written responses or a public inquiry. It is for the designated Minister to decide which approach to the planning process he will take. On his very important focus on world heritage sites, I would not do justice to the noble Lord’s passion in this area if I swiftly gave the answer now, but I will come back to him, and go through this in detail, in the next group.

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

I appreciate that the Minister does not want to repeat multiple times his definitive words on the world heritage site, and I fully accept that. On the planning, what he has just said—which I have heard him say before—seems to give absolutely no comfort about the future planning, because he says that it is entirely for the Minister. Does he accept that it would be technically possible for the Government to put amendments to the Bill that would guide the future planning process? At the moment, the Government are washing their hands of it. Would it be possible for the Government, or anybody else, to come forward with amendments to the Bill to direct in some way the shape of the future planning process, to give the Committee more comfort about what will happen, rather than just being told that it might be something or nothing?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, let me make it clear: it is for the designated Minister to decide the process and make the decision. If it means that, as normal planning decisions are made, there might be some conditions as part of the planning process, as is normal—for example, you cannot start building without consultation and cannot open the building without letting Westminster City Council know about security—then that is up to the Minister. I know other examples; I have just given one there. The process is totally detached from here and from me bringing the Bill forward as a supporter of it.

Moving towards concluding remarks, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, suggested that the memorial proposed for Victoria Tower Gardens is in some way a copy of a proposal that the architect submitted for a Holocaust memorial in Ottawa in 2014. I find this a rather strange criticism. When we consider the Buxton memorial, for example, are we to think less of its design because the architect used a similar Gothic revival style somewhere else? Should we be disappointed with “The Burghers of Calais” simply because it is one of 12 casts of the same sculpture? The topic was, of course, addressed at the planning inquiry, where the late Asa Bruno was able to point out that, while sharing a basic common architectural motif, the two proposals differ greatly in scale, material, form and proposed visitor experience, so that was clear from the public inquiry.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Sassoon and Lord Khan of Burnley

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

The noble Lord did not address my point about UNESCO. This has nothing to do with planning processes. Under the World Heritage Convention, state parties—in this case, the UK Government—

“are also expected to protect the World Heritage values of the properties inscribed”.

Will the Minister confirm that the undertakings to UNESCO are not part of any planning process and answer my question about how the Government regard their obligations in this case to UNESCO? Do they know better what is not appropriate in a world heritage site?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

We will discuss UNESCO on a later amendment. It will need a bit of explanation, and I would like to discuss it in depth. If he could wait for that group, I will discuss that point.