Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, we are having a civilised discussion about this matter, but it is quite clear how controversial it is. It is also quite clear that, once the building begins, and as it proceeds, the traffic is disrupted and the Victoria Tower Gardens become a building site, there will be a less civilised discussion outside this House.

My fear is—I expressed this at Second Reading and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has expressed the same fear—that this project will become a focus for antisemitism. People will blame it on the Jews, it will become a focus and the underlying message of the Holocaust memorial will be lost. It will be lost in controversy about the present day, not the past. It will become, I fear, a focus for demonstrations in the way that the American embassy was back in the 1960s over the Vietnam War.

All kinds of authorities are being quoted and all kinds of theories have been put forward, but as Members of this House we owe it to the House and to the public to express our views and fears. My warning is that proceeding along the lines that we are doing is going to do very great harm. It is going to promote antisemitism and it is going to be the reverse of everything that a Holocaust memorial should be.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to, in the nicest possible way, challenge the noble Lord, Lord Austin, again. I am not sure whether he was here when we had our discussion on how the project would be managed. He quotes the advice of historians. The historians are advisory only. They are utterly irrelevant in deciding the end output of the learning centre. We discussed it last week and I produced the chart from the National Audit Office showing the hierarchy and structure. We have a foundation advisory board and an academic advisory board, but they sit under the ultimate direction of the Secretary of State and the Minister, who make the decision, so the historians can have any view they like. I prefer to believe the view of the Minister. It was a Minister who said at Second Reading that subsequent generations of genocides will be commemorated as well. I think that is terribly important, and we take the Minister at his word. If the Minister cares to say afterwards that he was wrong or that that is not the case and no other genocides will be considered in this memorial centre, then, again, I will take the word of the Minister for that, but the Committee needs to know. Is it still the Government’s view, which they expressed at Second Reading, that these subsequent genocides will be commemorated?

I neglected to comment on Clause 2 stand part. I shall do so briefly. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that Clause 2 should not stand part of the Bill only for the underground learning centre. We are all happy to have a proper memorial that is relevant to the 6 million murdered Jews, but the underground learning centre fails to fulfil any of the Holocaust Commission’s requirements that it should be a large campus with a conference centre and facilities for debates and meetings, a place where Jewish organisations could have rooms and offices to continue Jewish education. The Holocaust Commission recommended three sites: Potter’s Field, a site further down Millbank that the Reuben brothers were willing to donate and, of course, the Imperial War Museum, which was gagging to build a huge new learning centre attached to its museum. We have not heard a single reason why those sites were rejected. I think my noble friend Lord Finkelstein or my noble friend Lord Pickles or the Minister said earlier in our debates that 50 other sites were considered. Okay, 50 other sites were considered, but we have not had a single reason why the three sites recommended by the Holocaust Commission were rejected. So I think that Clause 2 should not stand part of the Bill, particularly the part about the underground learning centre. We need to have a proper one that will do all the things that the Holocaust Commission recommended. Note that no one in the Government or the previous Government or my noble friends talk about the Holocaust Commission now, because we know that this project has completely ditched everything that it called for. Just as they never mention the name of the discredited architect Adjaye, they never mention the Holocaust Commission, which is now regarded as out of date and whose proposals are no longer relevant. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that Clause 2 should not stand part of the Bill.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is completely correct to make the point about Berlin, where the memorial and the learning centre are right next door to the parliament building, right at the centre of national life. It is really significant. If you go to Washington, you will see its memorial and museum right at the centre of national life. If you go to Paris, you would barely know that the Holocaust had taken place and, if you go to Vienna, it is a bizarre concrete box tucked away in a square in the middle of nowhere. The point he makes is exactly right. Next to Parliament, showing what happens when politics is poisoned by racism and extremism—that is why it should be built in Westminster.

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lord, it is quite clear from the exchanges that we have had this afternoon that the site of this learning centre is extremely controversial. It seems to me that a memorial to 6 million people is almost sacred. It should not be built in a place that arouses controversy of this sort. It is disrespectful to the dead that it should be a subject of controversy and, because it is a subject of controversy, it should be moved to somewhere else.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

I am sorry to comment yet again, but it seems to me deeply ironic that people who oppose it, and of course the controversy, then complain about the controversy and say it should be built somewhere else. It also seems ironic that people who have, as the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, said, campaigned against it and caused the delays now say that the delays are a reason for siting it somewhere else. I do not understand these points.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I stand amazed that this Bill should be brought before the House. By its very nature, a memorial to the dead, let alone to the millions of people who were killed in the Holocaust, should not be an object of controversy. As soon as it became clear that this project as it stands can be carried forward only in an atmosphere of discord and acrimony, it should have been withdrawn. To proceed with it in such circumstances is surely to disrespect the dead and to demean the very horror that the memorial and its accompanying learning centre are commemorating. By withdrawing, I do not mean cancelling; I mean that the memorial should be reconsidered in the light of the debate that has taken place, not just here, but elsewhere, about its location, design and context and its place amongst existing Holocaust memorials and museums and the work that they do.

As a number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Herbert and Lord Sandhurst, and many others on all sides of the House have said, we should come up with something better and something more appropriate to what is needed because one thing is clear: if this project is brought to fruition in its present form, this controversy surrounding its genesis will contaminate its purpose. The message it is seeking to convey will for ever be competing with the attention and controversy surrounding its birth.

Indeed, it could be much worse than that. I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, wrote recently in the Jewish Chronicle. She said that the memorial will become,

“a focus for anti-Israel and antisemitic protest”.

For as long as, and whenever, the Israeli Government pursue controversial policies towards the Palestinians and their neighbours, the memorial will attract those who oppose those policies just as the United States embassy in Grosvenor Square became the focal point of opposition to the United States at the time of the Vietnam War.

If that would not be bad enough, such demonstrations will conflate criticism of the Israeli Government, which is as legitimate as criticism of any other Government—the United States or anywhere else—with anti-Semitism, which absolutely is not. This conflation of hostility to and criticism of the Israeli Government and Mr Netanyahu on one hand with anti-Semitism on the other is already happening and is something that must be combated in the strongest possible manner, but if a memorial to those who were killed in the Holocaust should become the backdrop for expressions of anti-Semitism, that would surely be nothing short of sacrilege. We must not allow that to happen. I am amazed that the Government are pursuing this project in its present form, and I hope very much that we will be able to come up with something better, more suitable and more worthy of the terrible atrocity that it is commemorating.

Grenfell Tower: Demolition

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I know that the vast majority of people have found secure, settled and long-term accommodation. I will have to write to her about the absolute number of people still in temporary, but relatively stable, accommodation and the number of those who are outside the borough.

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on coming before the House at such an early stage and subjecting himself to questions on this important matter. That is a token of good faith. I hope that, when the final decision is taken, there will be a suitable memorial for what has happened. The point about lessons to be learned is something of which we all need to take note. There will need to be an appropriate memorial, not only to the lives that were lost but for the reasons those lives were lost.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, as someone who was made a Minister in March of last year and entered this House only the following month, this is certainly a new experience for me. Actually, it is slightly more enjoyable than what we have experienced, as we are able to see more faces on these Benches. I can assure the House that the work of the independent memorial commission is designed to do precisely that: to find a fitting and long-term memorial to mark the greatest loss of life in a fire since the Second World War. We want to make sure that we get that right and the commission needs to do its work in time.