Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Friday 2nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, I very much appreciate being able to speak in the gap. I am of the second generation born in this country, due to the pogroms that took place in Russia in the 1880s. My grandmother managed to get to this country—that was very important—and we have lived in this country ever since. As far as I am concerned, it was an absolute honour that we were allowed to live here in freedom, which we were never allowed before. I happen to be one of those people who have no interest at all in living in Israel. This is my home. I will help Israel as much as I can all my life, but this is my home.

My national service was in Egypt in 1953. I went out via Cyprus and got to Israel for the very first time. It was an extraordinary time to be in Israel. I then got heavily involved, for 35 years, in every single negotiation on how to bring peace in Israel. I have always believed in the two-state approach—but as it was in the earlier days before everything was occupied in different areas.

Something I remember and will never forget is when I went to an exhibition in Israel. Some blind children were being taken round to hear what had happened in the genocide of the Holocaust, and they held out their hands in order to touch the lightshades that were made of human skin. That brought the reality back.

Let us come to what happened on 7 October, which more and more people seem to want to try to forget. I happen to be a human being, I like to think, and I do not want any innocent human beings, woman or child, killed—I will not use the word “unnecessarily”. It just is not right, if it ever can be. Sadly, what is happening is Israel has caused a huge dilemma as to how to proceed. However, we must remember that 7 October was planned. In war—it was an active war where I was, in the Canal Zone, to a degree—atrocities sometimes happen. But cold-bloodedly planning four years ahead exactly how you will do it is something totally different from anything else I have ever come across. If I may say so, social media has played a shocking role in this, and so has the wider media, as we all know.

I will make two further points, if I may. First, In our own Moses Room, you can see Moses holding the tablets, so we have in our own House what this stands for. The only mistake Moses made when he moved off was turning right instead of left; otherwise, we would have got the oil, but we did not. Secondly, on Victoria Gardens, I disagree, as I have for many years, as noble Lords know. We do not need monuments of any kind. I do not mind something small if you want but, in practice, it is about ideas.

Finally, I want to ask the Minister a question. It is all about education. Jesus was a rabbi, and “Rabbi” means “teacher”. Several people have referred in the debate to education. I checked this several years ago, and most state schools, as well as others, do not carry out the law when in fact, they must talk about and teach the Holocaust. I beg the Minister to get the Department for Education and others involved, in order to do what is right and proper. That is our only chance going forward.

Housing: Modular Construction

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, I totally support the view of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. One of my previous companies, Bovis, can erect a modular home in six weeks flat. They are wonderful places to live and hugely energy efficient; planning is the major problem.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. These homes can go up quickly but the long period of time is often in the planning system. That is why the levelling-up Bill is going through, through which we hope to make the planning system simpler and quicker for developers.

Building Regulations: Sanitary Provision

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, to respond to that very sensible question, it is not in the gift of central government to control the number of toilets, but what we can do is provide funds to encourage further provision, as we have done with the changing places fund, and provide tax relief, as we did with the Act that was mentioned. Indeed, a lot of other legislation—I could go through a list—places a duty on workplaces to provide accessible toilets. I am happy to write to the noble Baroness if we have those statistics to hand, because it would be useful to see whether this has had an impact.

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

I have brought up this subject in the past. By the summer we are going to have very large numbers of people coming to this country from abroad, including those with young children, and elderly people coming in their thousands to celebrate the Queen’s upcoming Jubilee, among other things. In practice, and as we have seen in the past, there is a huge shortage of toilets in this country. People will be tired, it will be hot and they will not be allowed to go into restaurants—no restaurant is going to let 50 people through. The provision of toilets is absolutely lacking. The number of people who will be travelling here, we hope, during the next year or so will be huge, and we need vastly more decent toilet facilities in this country.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, there is no doubt that the pandemic has reduced the number of visitors in the last couple of years, as we know from the contraction of our airline industry, but we are looking forward to a deluge of people coming to his great country. Of course, we want them to have a wonderful experience and access to toilets—both accessible and ordinary toilets—and I am sure we will work hard to meet that.