Holocaust Memorial Bill

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[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.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, I support what my noble friend has just said. I very much admire the commission’s report and I think that the way that it is being treated now shows a degree of disrespect that is little short of appalling. The debate that we have just heard from my noble friend Lord Pickles and the noble Lord, Lord Austin, is completely irrelevant to the actuality of what is being proposed and the difference between it and what the commission recommended.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

I am sorry that my noble friend sees this in such personal terms. I do not see people objecting to this at all in a personal way; they are expressing a perfectly reasonable right. I apologise if my intervention earlier rather excited one or two colleagues to some rather verbose interjections.

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[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I have visited memorials all over the world. The designers of this one said:

“When viewed from the northwest corner by the Palace of Westminster, the Memorial is first perceived as a gradual rising hill towards the south end of the VTG. Along the journey south, the path inscribes the rising landscape, and leads along the embankment”


past the Buxton memorial

“after which the full scale of the Memorial is revealed. The elevated land mass is both hill, and cliff-like landscape, and is held aloft by 23 tall, bronze-clad walls. The overall volume inscribed by the walls offers an interplay between robustness and frailty; cohesiveness and fragmentation; community and individualism”.

I have rarely read so much piffle and gibberish attempting to justify a meaningless third-hand design.

There are to be 23 bronze fins and the designer, Sir David Adjaye, tried to justify them, with 22 pathways, as a representative signifier of the number of countries from which Jewish victims of the genocide were taken. Again, this symbolic confusion, coupled with the unnecessary and misleading association with the Palace of Westminster, means that there can be no public benefit offered by the design to weigh in the balance that the inspector undertook at the inquiry.

Sir Richard Evans, our great historian of Germany, has debunked the figure of 22. He said that it was entirely arbitrary and depended on how you count states, and that many of the victims were refugees from other states. He called the design spectacularly ugly. As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, it has no overt references to religious symbolism or text, relying instead, to quote the architects again,

“on the twin primary motifs of the swelling landform and the cresting bronze portals with the descent into the chambers below. The graduated mound, rising out of the tabular lawn to the north, would convey a sense of the growing tide of orchestrated racial aggression and violence, finally breaking with the cataclysmic events of the Holocaust, symbolised by the bronze armature above the descending portals. These defining elements of the Memorial, fashioned from the brown alloy of sculpture, would have a power and grace distinctly of their own. Collectively these elements would make a bold and poetic visual statement of great power and beauty, and one that can be readily understood as such”.

How odd, then, that Sir David Adjaye should repeat almost the same design in Niger, in relation to terrorism, and in Barbados, in relation to slavery.

In fact, far from the design being done after any research into the park or London, or the UK’s association with the Holocaust, it is a hallmark Adjaye design. In another attempt to justify it, he said that it was deliberately aimed at disrupting the park. His work is instantly recognisable because it always involves stripes. I invite noble Lords to look up his designs on the web. He entered an almost identical design in the competition in Ottawa for a Holocaust memorial there, but that location was entirely different—a concrete island. The involvement of Canada with the Holocaust must have been entirely different, yet he found fit to enter that design into the competition in London. It was unwanted in Ottawa, which chose something else, so it was sitting on the shelf.

It is entirely meaningless, with no reference to Jews, the Holocaust or the UK. There are no names and numbers—nothing to evoke the awful events it was planned to stand for. If you saw it, you would say to yourself: “What on earth is that?”. You would not be moved to think of the Holocaust, commemoration, discrimination or persecution, or indeed people.

Abstract Holocaust memorials around the world tend to be vandalised much more than figurative designs, because they have no emotional value. The Boston memorial has been vandalised several times. It bears a passing resemblance to the Adjaye one, and was said to have been influential on the jury that chose the latter. Kindertransport memorials and human depictions such as the exceptional sculptures by Kormis in the Gladstone Park Holocaust memorial—I wonder whether any noble Lords have visited it—are less likely to be destroyed. There are many Holocaust memorials in the UK already, to be seen on the Association of Jewish Refugees map of those sites, and not one is as meaningless as this. Abroad there are some beautiful ones, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, mentioned. The silver tree in Budapest would be marvellous in Victoria Tower Gardens.

The jury that chose it seems not to have done its homework. Did it know about the Ottawa rejection, or that shortly thereafter almost the same design was presented by Adjaye Associates for Niger and Barbados? There can be no escaping the fact that this design is not bespoke and has nothing to do with what it is supposed to commemorate. At least there is a plaque to my grandmother in a Manchester memorial, because there will be nothing here to remind me or anyone else of her.

The design has attracted mockery from the outset: a dinosaur; a toast-rack; a whale’s ribcage; a set of false teeth. It will inevitably attract red paint and worse. To use the same design over and over smacks of contempt for what is being remembered. That it has no visible Jewish symbolism is very telling—no figures, no candelabra, no Star of David. That is because the promoters want to downplay the thousands of years of antisemitism that drove the Holocaust by combining its presentation in the learning centre with other genocides—as has been said in Written Answers to Parliamentary Questions—albeit they cannot decide which ones to include. This means in the end only a vague message about not killing people you do not like, and so the Adjaye design says nothing of interest. Like the Berlin concrete blocks memorial, it will not garner respect. The Berlin memorial has people picnicking, dancing and playing on it and riding bicycles between the blocks. The Adjaye design will be perfect for scooter races between the sticks.

Do not let the promoters tell you that Adjaye was not the designer. He heads a big team, but it is his name all over the publicity, the evidence, the competition and the maps used to this day. He gave evidence to the public inquiry and the Government trumpeted his choice at the outset. The fact remains that it is Sir David who has withdrawn or been withdrawn from most of his projects, for reasons that I am coming to.

Following a year-long investigation by the Financial Times, Sir David Adjaye was accused two years ago of sexual assault and misconduct. He has apologised for entering relationships that blurred the boundaries between his professional and personal life, while not admitting criminal wrongdoing. He said they were consensual. There are graphic descriptions online of assault, his giving money to the women involved and a toxic atmosphere in his office. He has stepped back from projects in Liverpool, Sharjah, the Serpentine, Harlem, Oregon and elsewhere.

Sexual violence against Jewish women was widespread and well documented in the Holocaust. Rape was a feature of the pogroms of eastern Europe a century ago and it featured in the massacres of 7 October. I have no words to express the horror and disgust that I and others will experience if this Government are so uncaring as to allow to go forward a project whose lead designer is associated with sexual assault. This cannot be allowed to stand. There could quite quickly be a commission for a new figurative memorial that means something, as quickly as the project to honour the late Queen is going ahead. That would satisfy the need to reflect on the events of the war and would fit in with VTG and its other sculptures.

I cannot urge noble Lords too strongly to accept this amendment and not continue with a design that is an affront to the victims and their relatives. If that design remains, we will get the message that the Government do not care about the feelings of those who will see it and are stubbornly determined to go ahead with a design by someone whom, I fear, will be associated in future only with his sexually inappropriate misbehaviour.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, I have always supported having a national memorial, and I am very keen to see it. I was 14 when we went into Belsen, and I have lived with the memory of the reports and photographs that came back ever since. As it happens, I live in a flat in Smith Square, but I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Austin, that I will not see the memorial that is being proposed at the present time, because I have been told that it will take three and half years to build. Before it even starts being built, and whatever problems may occur while it is being built, it is extremely unlikely that I would ever see it. I therefore do not have a personal interest.

I strongly support my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s Amendment 16. It seems to me deeply irresponsible not to regroup, to have, as he said, a design of a stand-alone memorial compatible with the other memorials in the park, and to have it finished—as indeed the Holocaust Commission suggested—within a period of two years. That is somewhat less than three and a half, five or six years, or whatever the present proposal implies. It would also be completed at less cost than is expected now, probably within the £138 million, plus a contingency.

I finish by saying that there is nothing in the Holocaust Commission’s report that says or implies that the memorial and the learning centre should be in the same building. It has always been a complete mistake that that was somehow agreed, subsequent to the report. Memorials are a matter for private remembrance and for, as it says in the Holocaust Commission’s report, paying respect, contemplating and praying. They are not buildings through which many people should tramp. If, indeed, we want another gallery to talk about what the British did or did not do between the Treaty of Versailles and 1942, let us have it in the Imperial War Museum, which would be the right place for it.

Will the Government therefore please reconsider their position and take the obvious way forward, which is to have a memorial in the park, self-standing, with no visitors going into it, just visitors coming to see it to pay their respects, contemplate and pray?

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, if I heard her correctly, I think the noble Baroness was asking about my conscience. This is in the national consciousness, and that is why we want to build this Holocaust memorial learning centre to reflect and learn the lessons of the past but also to be an education for future generations to ensure, as the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, said, that this can never happen again.

Regarding Sir David, I do not want to say anything further about the allegation; I have said what I have said. I repeat that Adjaye Associates said that Sir David will not be involved in the UK Holocaust memorial project until the matters raised have been addressed. There is nothing that more I can add.

Let me make an important point to noble Lords across the Committee. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit Ron Arad Studio. As I have said previously, when it comes to design, I am not the easiest to please person. Everyone has different views, as we see in the debates here, and I respect that. In addition to these proceedings, it would be very helpful to all noble Lords if I gave them the opportunity to see the proposed project in 3D form and to look at it from a design point of view. However, I repeat that it is not for this Committee to consider that; it is for planning. We are here to do two things: first, as per Clause 1, to allow the Secretary of State to spend on the project; and secondly, as per Clause 2, to disapply the 1900 Act so that we can build the project.

The planning system provides exactly the forum for a debate on this topic. That forum allows views to be heard and balanced judgments to be formed. There is no good reason for Parliament to seek to put aside the planning system in the single case of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. Noble Lords will have plenty of opportunities, subject to the passage of the Bill, to be part of the planning process. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

There is a point that has not been dealt with. In January 2015, there was cross-party support for the conclusions and recommendations of the Holocaust Commission. I do not think that the Minister has addressed the argument that the Adjaye design does not conform to those recommendations. I feel that he has avoided any discussion of the differences between the design and what was recommended at that time and won cross-party acceptance, which I think is still in existence. That point needs dealing with in these deliberations.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the utmost respect for the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and I appreciate his strong concerns and the very interesting points he has raised throughout the passage of this Bill. Let me clear: there were 92 entrants in what was an international competition, and the design of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre was chosen by a broad-based panel. The chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation said that the 10 teams shortlisted were,

“some of the best teams in architecture, art and design today”.

The competition attracted the highest quality designers from across the world. The decision was made through a process in which the panel chose a team consisting of Adjaye Associates, Ron Arad Architects and Gustafson Porter + Bowman as the winner.

I just say to the noble Lord that numerous Prime Ministers, with elected mandates, have supported the Holocaust memorial and learning centre—the whole project. We too will continue to support it wholeheartedly. I invite the noble Lord and others to look at the model when we bring it to the House. I found it very impressive, but that is my view.

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[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

I will have one more try. It seems to me that, whatever the Minister has said, it does not deal with the problem the Government have: that there was and still is cross-party support for the conclusions and recommendations of Britain’s Promise to Remember. The Adjaye design does not meet them. If the noble Lord thinks that it does, then we need a proper explanation of the way in which it does. There never was a single reference to what is now being proposed, with both the memorial and the learning centre in a single building—you cannot rely on the word “co-locate”.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, very briefly, we think that it does. I note that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has an amendment in group 7, when we will discuss this in depth.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Viscount Eccles]

5: Clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end insert—
“(1A) The management responsibilities in subsection (1)(a) to (c) must be discharged by a Non-Departmental Public Body.”

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, when I put down this amendment it seemed to me that we had arrived at a time when we needed clarification about who was going to manage this project. It is approaching construction and has been under consideration for a long time. We have known that there was going to be a Parliament-approved executive management, but we have not got one yet, and so that was my purpose.

If I may go back briefly into the history, the chair of the commission, Mr Davis, said this on pages 6 and 7 of the foreword to Britain’s Promise to Remember:

“To take these recommendations forward the Commission proposes the immediate creation of a permanent independent body. This body will implement the recommendations to commemorate the Holocaust and ensure a world-leading educational initiative”.


I emphasise the phrase, “world-leading educational initiative”.

It is true to say that, if you read Britain’s Promise to Remember, you find that the main emphasis is on education. That was confirmed on page 16, which said:

“The Commission’s final recommendation is the immediate creation of a permanent independent body. This organisation would oversee the establishment of the new National Memorial and Learning Centre, run that Centre and administer the endowment fund”.


The point I would like to emphasise is that it says both times, “independent body”. I take that to mean that, when the public body is formed, the people who comprise it would be entitled to make up their own minds, and, at least, to make their own presentation.

In January 2015, this was confirmed in the House of Commons by David Cameron, now my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, when he said:

“The Commission proposes a new independent body to deliver all these recommendations and wants to see … the creation of the National Memorial in 2016-17, and the Learning Centre within the next Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/1/15; col. 20WS.]

The thing I want to emphasise there is that, right from the start, there was an acceptance that the memorial was one thing and the world-class education initiative was another, and that it would take a very considerable time to achieve. There was no intention that they should be contemporaneous. They would be going along at the same time, but at a very different speed.

Subsequent to that, there was an appointment made by the Prime Minister, again in January, when David Cameron announced that Sir Peter Bazalgette would serve as the chairman of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, with, it goes on—although this is not a quote—the expectation that the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation would be executive. I do not want to get into an argument about “advisory” versus “executive”. I simply say that what happened while Sir Peter was the chairman included what I would regard as some executive actions: he set out to the 50 different sites to see whether he could find the best one; he was there when the Victoria Tower Gardens were agreed on; and he mounted the competition for the most suitable building.

In April 2018, as we know, Sir Peter resigned and the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation became, as I would say, advisory. I just add that I do not think that you would name a body in the way in which that body was named if you intended it to be advisory—it does not sound right to me.

The matter of how this institution was to be managed went on for a long time, with discussions and thoughts, but it rose to the surface again only when the National Audit Office did its investigation in 2022. That report says in terms that the department had studied what sort of a permanent, independent body there should be and had come to the conclusion that its recommendation was that it should be a new non-departmental public body. That recommendation stands, and no doubt we shall be told during these proceedings what has happened to it subsequently, but it seems to me to be high time that some action is taken. After all, Parliament must come into the process, and that always takes time. We are only about a year away from lots of action on the ground. Surely if a chair and a chief executive were to be appointed following the creation of an NDPB, there would be plenty for them to do. They are not going to be bad value for money. When construction starts, there will be many things to do: they will have to study the building and see what they think about how they will run it and how it will deliver the best value for money.

On the subject of the building, I want to make one point. People may ask the question that I would ask, because in my amendment I am talking about the management under Clause 1(1)(a) to (c). Clause 1(1)(a) refers to “a centre for learning”. In the headline, of course, it is called a learning centre. If I understand it correctly, I do not think that what is proposed to go into the building at present can possibly be described as a learning centre.

Learning centres came from America. They are institutions that are normally attached to other institutions, in particular to schools and universities, and—this is a definition—they provide

“a dedicated facility where people can come to learn at a time that suits them in a comfortable and supportive environment”.

If noble Lords want an example, the British Library—the ex-chair of which, the noble Baroness, is not here —does entirely what that definition says. It seems to me that the parliamentary draftsmen must have had some reason for putting “Learning Centre” in the heading but “a centre for learning” in the text. I will be very interested to know why that difference is there, as will, I guess, anybody appointed to manage the institution.

There are many other things. The Treasury will, I think, be quite difficult on occasions during the progress of this project. It will be influenced by how much money is coming from private sources, in particular the charitable trust. The relationship between the chair and chief executive of the new institution and the charitable trust will be of great importance, as will the relationship with the management of the gardens and the Royal Parks. Of course, we have a different ministry above the Royal Parks: DCMS. Anyone who has experience of public bodies—I have been chief executive of one, CDC, and chairman of another, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew—knows that all these things take a lot of time and careful negotiation, so there is plenty of work to do. If there was a worry about the cost of having them on the books, the ministry would probably be ready to disband part of its special team that it has put together so far. It is urgent that we move to form this management. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for opening this group. I will speak to my Amendment 22, which seeks to limit the amount of time that Victoria Tower Gardens can be closed to the public as a result of events linked to the proposed Holocaust memorial and learning centre to three days a year.

The protection conferred on Victoria Tower Gardens by the original Act of 1900 was put in place to ensure access to the park as a park in perpetuity. This is particularly important to residents in the locality, many of whom live in flats and would not otherwise have access to green spaces. We cannot discuss this Bill without giving due consideration to them and what protections will be in place for them. I note that, in responding to these concerns, the Select Committee report states that limiting the closure dates of Victoria Tower Gardens is a “reasonable request”, as it particularly affects residents who use it on a weekly basis.

There are a number of reasons why the Select Committee’s recommendation 2 and the promotor’s assurance 10 are inadequate to address this and why I suggest that protections need to be enshrined in the Bill, which is what my amendment is designed to do. First, the recommendation by the Select Committee is that this be taken forward in by-laws by the Royal Parks, as the body responsible for maintaining the parts of Victoria Tower Gardens that fall outside the perimeter of the proposed memorial and learning centre.

Parks owned by local authorities usually rely on by-laws. However, for the Royal Parks there is a succession of Acts of Parliament substituting for these by-laws. Usually, decisions on how to apply these regulations are delegated by the Secretary of State for DCMS to TRP management. However, the Secretary of State has the power to overrule the Royal Parks, as happened in May 2024 when the gardens were closed for three days to the public over a bank holiday weekend for an event. It is worth noting, too, that the Royal Parks remain reliant for 60% of their annual income on DCMS. As a result, it is extremely unlikely that the promoter or the authority subsequently created to run the HMLC would be refused permission to close the parks by DCMS or the Royal Parks if it requested it. That is why there must be protections in the Bill.

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[Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)]

I remind noble Lords that interventions should be brief and for points of clarification. Can we now proceed with the debate? Thank you.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

I wonder if I could just make a very small point of clarification. As a personal view, I entirely agree that the memorial should be in Victoria Tower Gardens. What I worry about is the attempt to shoehorn in the learning centre as well. If we were able to have a standalone, well-designed, come-and-see memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens, it would get my vote immediately, because I also have in mind a world-class educational initiative, and I cannot see that the building proposed, or any of the preparations that have been made, go anywhere near creating a world educational initiative. In the world educational initiative, it is not only the understanding of what happened but what we think about it now and where we are going in these very difficult days where we have similar problems to face.

[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.

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

Before we round up the debate, these generic arguments are not relevant to the Bill. Let me remind the Committee, in the kindest way, that the Bill has two main functions. One is in Clause 1, which allows the Secretary of State to spend on the project; the other is in Clause 2, to disapply the 1900 London Act for the project to be built. I appreciate the noble Lord’s reflections but we are speaking to amendments here. However, there is an opportunity for discussion during the planning process.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, that was a very interesting but not particularly easy debate to sum up and comment on. If I may, I will stay rather tightly focused on the management of the project and I need to ask the Minister some questions. I think he is saying that there will be a public body to manage the project, but now is not the time to set it up. I disagree with that, of course, because it seems that there is a whole raft of things on which it would be better to give the new management body the time to work it out and to do some important things.

The Minister has also said that if anything needs to be done and it is not at all clear who is to do it, the Secretary of State would be responsible for doing it. My experience, which is considerable, is that that is completely impractical. It amounts to a non-answer, because the Secretary of State is so far away from the front line of the battle that it is just impractical to maintain that she can sort it out. I insist that it would be better, and much more workmanlike, to have a body properly authorised by Parliament, accountable and up for being asked all the detailed questions.

Let me give a few examples. When the construction starts, is the Minister saying that only 7.5% of the park will be involved? It would be very interesting to have, in the middle of the letting of a contract for the basement box, an answer to the question about what percentage of the park will be involved and what rules will be needed.

As my noble friend Lord Blencathra says, at the moment there does not seem to be a decision-making process that can deal with, for example, the relationship between the project and its promoter and the park. If we had a non-departmental public body, what its chairman would say, if he took my advice, is that we need the best possible relationship we can foster with the park. We need an agreement. We need a pretty detailed memorandum of understanding. We cannot work without having some rules, whereby we know what you are doing and what I am doing, because we are being made jointly responsible for the future of this great park.

When it comes to improvements, on what authority is the Minister saying that his department will be responsible for improvements? Has he got an agreement with the DCMS, which is responsible for the park, or are we going to have a parliamentary turf war about it?

Quite honestly, all the comments that have been made relate to the need for clarity and certainty, and the need for us to be able to see who is in charge, who is accountable and, if something happens, to whom we go with a prospect of getting an enforceable answer. We have not been comforted—and I have not been comforted in the least.

I am grateful to everyone who has spoken. Given the time and the importance that I attach to the need to have a clear management structure, I will leave it there, but we will come back to this matter on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 5 withdrawn.

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[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, in the nicest possible way, I will not challenge my noble friend Lord Finkelstein but merely comment that he must have better eyesight than I do. When I look at the representations of the fins, they do not seem to be entirely modest. They are absolutely massive. He said that they are appropriate. I ask those with strong Jewish heritage whether they have ever heard the figure of 23 or 22—the gaps—mentioned before. All my life, the only figure which mattered for the Holocaust was 6 million Jews slaughtered, massacred, killed. The idea is that these giant fins are somehow appropriate because the gaps between them represent 22 countries. Has any noble Lord in this Committee ever heard of that before, apart from in this planning application? To my knowledge, neither 23 fins nor 22 gaps have anything to do with Jewish history. If we want something appropriate, it must represent 6 million Jews slaughtered.

We will come in a later amendment to what would be an appropriate design, but I am also prompted to ask a question on the refreshment kiosk. I use the park regularly, and in summertime or when there is a coach party to the Commons, the kiddies come into the park. They have their sandwich wrappers and a huge amount of Pret A Manger bags, and they all religiously try to put them into the litter bins. At times, those bins have been stuffed absolutely full and litter is spread all around. If there is a refreshment kiosk for thousands of people, that is likely to happen as well, and we will see a huge amount of litter.

Some may argue that we should have more litter bins and fill them up. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, with his expertise here, may comment on this. The first thing that the Metropolitan Police would do when there is a terrorist threat is remove all the bins. You cannot get a litter bin at Euston station or anywhere else because they are a terrorist threat. We could have a kiosk selling sandwiches, crisps and so on and all the people having their picnics, but end up with no litter bins to put the rubbish in. If there are litter bins, they ought to be policed and patrolled.

This is not a trivial point; I am not trying to diminish the whole argument by talking about litter. It is a legitimate point about other people’s enjoyment of the gardens. They may also want to have their picnic and sandwiches but find that there is no place to put the garbage afterwards.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, on that last point, that is exactly what the management of a non-departmental public body would discuss with the management of the gardens—how they will cope with litter and what facilities there are. They would need to work together, but we have not got anybody whatever to work with on the garden management at the moment. Until we have a public body, there will not be anybody.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I shall just say a few words in support of my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s Amendment 11. If, along the way, I gently chide my noble friend Lord Finkelstein, who I greatly admire, I hope he will forgive me. He made a speech last week in Committee, which he used in his article in the Times on Wednesday, and very important and powerful it is. He concluded by saying, “Let’s get building”, and that is where I part company with him because we are not arguing about a memorial. I think we are all saying, universally, that we want to have a memorial. The question is: what are we going to build? To say at the end of his article “Let’s get building” sort of implies that the Committee was somehow opposing the idea that there should be a memorial at all.

From my point of view, the design we presently have is outsized, out of sync and out of style. For my noble friend to say that this is like objecting to the Brent Cross shopping centre is really not fair to those of us who have a serious concern about what it will look like and how it will work. I think that the words, “reasonably modest”, which have been used a lot this afternoon, are really shown up when along with my noble friend’s article was a picture of what is proposed. How that can be described as “reasonably modest”, when you see a picture of it is quite hard to understand. Also—this was probably not my noble friend but his picture editor—the fact that it says underneath this extraordinarily ugly memorial

“The memorial embodies what Britain fought for and her Parliament stands for”


seems doubly disappointing. I hope that we can find a way, following my noble friend Lord Sassoon’s suggestion, to stick to the principle that we want a memorial and find a way that is more in sync with its surroundings, as my noble friend suggests in his Amendment 11.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Robathan, in their attempt to bring some fiscal discipline to this project. Not only has the cost escalated beyond the original estimates without even a spade in the ground; the figures that are available are old. No allowance for inflation has been made. The contingency is far higher than usual. Private funds have not been identified publicly and there is no management control, as pointed out by the National Audit Office.

I am struck by the contrast with the planned expenditure on a fitting memorial to our late Queen, together with a space for pause and reflection, which is reportedly to be sited in St James’s Park. The construction cost is £46 million excluding VAT—including a replacement of the Blue Bridge in the park—and it is going to be ready in 2026. If such fiscal restraint is good enough for our late Queen, surely something has gone adrift in the financial plans for the memorial.

Before the Select Committee on the memorial a few weeks ago, the petitioners asked that the Government should present, for the approval of Parliament, a report on the capital and operating costs of the project, as well as the financial sustainability of the entity that will execute the project and operate it before presenting any new or amended proposal for planning permission. This has not been taken up but it should be.

Originally, the government grant towards this project was £50 million. That was soon raised to £75 million, with £25 million to be raised privately when the cost was estimated some years ago at £100 million. Now, that has nearly doubled. We can assume only that the Government will pick up the entire bill. The latest estimate, made a couple of years ago, is £138 million without contingency and £191 million with contingency. There is no information about who will do the building—indeed, whether there are any builders willing to do it, given the security risks.

There are gaps in our financial knowledge. The Commons Select Committee commented on this, saying:

“We are particularly concerned about the costs around security of a Memorial and Learning Centre, which would need to be taken into account. Security is likely to be required around the clock, and this is, as yet, an unknown cost. Security is likely to become an expensive additional cost, which we urge the Government not to overlook”.


Construction costs are bound to rise because this is an historical site very close to the river. It oozes underfoot when you walk through it in the rain and it squelches. It is a fair bet that obstacles relating to water and archaeological finds will emerge if digging ever starts.

About £20 million has been spent so far, I believe, with nothing to show for it; nor has inflation been accounted for. A specific charity is fundraising for the private element but we have heard nothing about its success. Can the Minister tell us how the funding has now been settled, including how much has been raised privately and from where?

In 2022, as we heard, the NAO delivered a report that was highly critical of the department’s performance. It was particularly anxious about management. It noted the failure to consider an alternative site. All this got a complacent response from the department that all was well, with no changes in management and no transparency. Operating costs are also a mystery. The Government have pledged free entry to the learning centre—provided, of course, that visitors book in advance online. Operating costs so far are estimated to have risen to £8 million a year and the cost of security is a big unknown. The Government had hoped to make some money from the learning centre by opening it for conferences, even in the evening, but it would be a most unattractive site: open to the elements; open to risks of various sorts; and calling for expenditure to run it out of hours, not to mention disturbance to the neighbours.

Can the Minister tell us about the operating costs and what plans there are to commercialise the space? The Infrastructure and Projects Authority has three times rated the project as “red” and “undeliverable”—most recently, just a few weeks ago—in the same bracket as HS2. The Minister believes that this is because planning permission has not been granted, but that is mistaken because the authority has reported three times in three years on this and, during one year of that, there was planning permission before it was quashed. Anyway, if not having planning permission was the important factor, why is HS2 regarded as “red” and “undeliverable”? This is a quasi-HS2 project.

An important recommendation in the Prime Minister’s report in 2015 on remembering the Holocaust was that there should be an endowment fund. This was to be used to

“support Holocaust education around the country for generations to come”,

to support

“local projects and travelling exhibitions”,

and to ensure that the learning centre would be

“at the heart of a truly national network of activity”.

The report said:

“In administering the endowment fund, the Learning Centre’s trustees would be expected to ensure maximum value for money. This would include requiring organisations to work together more collaboratively across the network, removing duplication and enhancing the impact of the whole sector”.


Have the Government made an allowance for this in their cost calculation, and if not, why not?

The Commons Select Committee on the Bill commented:

“It seems to us that the true cost of this project has not been established. We note that it is not unusual for the costs of major projects to increase with time, due to unforeseen building issues, the ambition of the project, and increases in inflation. The longer that building works go on, the more expensive this project will become. On this basis, we urge the Government to consider how ongoing costs are likely to be paid for and whether it offers appropriate use of public money”,


which it clearly does not. This amendment seeks to cap the costs to force proper management of the project and bring it into a reasonable financial framework. It also proposes a normal contingency fee rather than an extraordinary one.

This Government pride themselves on financial management, and now is their chance to demonstrate that. If the Government will not accept this amendment, will they meet the signatories to the amendment and show transparency about the cost calculations and where they are going?

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, I have a clause stand part Motion in this group. I am a neighbour of Victoria Tower Gardens, I live with my wife in Smith Square and I was a petitioner to the House of Lords Committee.

After what my noble friend Lord Blencathra told us, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I will try to be short. My purpose is, and always has been, just to set out the contrast between what was put on the tin in January 2015 and what is on the table now. As my noble friend Lord Blencathra said, they are very different, and I think it will help the Committee if they can be clear about what the differences are.

In January 2015, my noble friend Lord Cameron said:

“Today—with the full support of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition—I am accepting the recommendations of the … Commission”.


You could not be clearer than that, and later, in his Statement in the House of Commons, he reiterated that. I suppose—because I do not think we have ever been told—that after 10 years, nine and a half of which, of course, were under the previous Administration, that undertaking is still in existence, so we are going to carry out the recommendations of the commission.

There were five recommendations from the commission, and the first was that there should be a “striking memorial”. Its very first qualification of that was that it should be

“a place where people can pay their respects, contemplate … and offer prayers”.

I rather doubt that what is on the table now—which I gather as best I can from Clause 1 and the Explanatory Memorandum—is a suitable place for paying respect, contemplating and praying. As I understand it, the people visiting will be expected to move through in something like half an hour.

You can make an argument, which I will later, that this is not a suitable memorial. Remembering people is a private affair. The Holocaust was 6 million Jewish tragedies. It is not to say that this is, as we would expect, a London-based conventional memorial. It is something different. In its report, the commission in no way indicated that the memorial would be manned or that there would be interactivity at the memorial. It is clearly set out as a conventional memorial, in a long paragraph.

The second recommendation, about the learning centre, is much longer. It has a huge text. It is clear that the commission did not expect that to be done in five minutes. It did not see this as part of the memorial. There was mention of a campus. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, it is not the same thing but a completely different activity. Yes, the commission said that it should be close to the memorial, but that closeness depends on where you choose to put the memorial. As the noble Baroness said, the commission proposed three big sites and on all of them it would not have been difficult to put the learning centre and build it up over the years as a campus. It also said that the money for that should be raised immediately.

The third recommendation was for an endowment fund. We all know that endowment funds are not easy. They are very difficult things. It is clear that the commission saw the fund as being for, as the noble Baroness said, the development of the learning centre. The fourth recommendation was that records should be brought up to date. Out of the £20 million that has been spent, a certain proportion has been spent on records of “survivors and liberators”, to use the commission’s words. However, we do not know what has been collected and I cannot see why we have not been able to see some of that work. It is not dependent on the construction of David Adjaye’s building in Victoria Tower Gardens.

Finally, in two places—in Mr Davis’s summary and in the commission’s summary—it is said that an immediate executive independent body should be formed. There was an effort to start one by the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister—who, we must remember, was there for only some 18 months after his January statements before he resigned. Clearly, when Sir Peter Bazalgette was appointed to the foundation, it was in mind that it would be executive. He secured the Victoria Tower Gardens position and held an exhibition—and showed us the result. However, in April 2018, quite a long time after the Prime Minister, my noble friend Lord Cameron, had made way for my noble friend Lady May, he resigned. We do not know why he resigned, or why the body then formed under my noble friend Lord Pickles was made advisory. One can speculate but it has never been explained why there was a change from the proposal of an executive body to one for an advisory body. The fact is that nobody is accountable for managing this project.

There is such a serious difference between what was on the tin in 2015 and what is in front of us now that it needs to be thought about again. It seems to me that the new Government, who have been looking at this whole issue as accountable only for the past seven months, are in a very good place to review it and, if it requires change, to make those changes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Committee can understand that I do not agree with that point. That is a matter of opinion for Sir Richard Evans. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, as we have seen in the passionate debate today.

I was making the point that several noble Lords may have had the opportunity to see a short presentation from Martin Winstone, the historical adviser to the programme, in which he provides a small insight to the work under way. For those noble Lords who have not seen it, we can arrange for Martin Winstone to come in and give them that presentation. I had a drop-in session yesterday; unfortunately it was just me and officials, but I enjoyed it.

The overall focus of the learning centre must of course remain clearly on the Holocaust, and it must be wholly integrated with the national memorial to the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. We want to be sure that visitors are left in no doubt about the nature of the Holocaust. Having seen the memorial, they should clearly understand what it represents. For those reasons, it simply does not make sense to envisage a learning centre located elsewhere and carrying a much broader set of messages.

The history of the Jewish people is rich and deep. Jewish communities have a long history in Britain that needs to be understood, including of course the history of anti-Semitism, extending for many centuries. Telling such a story requires expertise, creativity and space. The Jewish Museum London told this story well, making excellent use of the tens of thousands of artefacts in its collection. I wish the museum well in its search for a new home. I believe also that there will be important opportunities in future for joint work between the learning centre and the Jewish Museum. We aim to work in partnership with institutions across the UK and overseas as we develop education programmes, and as we encourage greater awareness of the Holocaust and its deep roots. But I am sure that we should recognise the differences between the purpose of a Jewish museum in London and the aims of a learning centre located with a Holocaust museum. Each has a distinct and hugely important aim. Placing the Holocaust learning centre wholly within the Jewish Museum could easily mean a loss of focus and would certainly require breaking the essential link between the learning centre and the memorial.

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

Who is the “we” who will work with these other institutions? Because, as noble Lords will know, as we come on to the next group, if we do, there is no management. Therefore, I do not understand who is going to work with these other institutions.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I mean “we” as in the Government. Can I continue my final point? The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, made the very important point about rising anti-Semitism. Let me be clear. Anti-Semitism is completely abhorrent and has no place in our society, which is why we are taking a strong lead in tackling it in all its forms. The Government are particularly concerned about the sharp rise in anti-Semitism and will not tolerate this. We have allocated £54 million for the Community Security Trust to continue its vital work until 2028, providing security to schools, synagogues and other Jewish community buildings. We have been actively exploring a more integrated and cohesive approach to tackling all forms of racial and religious hatred. We continue to work closely with the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, in his important work of IHRA. Also, the noble Lord, Lord Mann, continues his work as an anti-Semitism adviser to the Government. On that note, I respectfully ask my noble friend Lady Blackstone to withdraw her amendment and not move her other amendments in this group.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate and a particular pleasure to speak in a debate where we have heard three varied, enjoyable, interesting and informative maiden speeches.

I was 14 at the end of the war. I was at boarding school in Winchester, and my memory tells me that we did not know about Auschwitz. However, we were told about Belsen, and noble Lords will all know, I am sure, why Belsen came into the knowledge of the general public in this country, as the first of the camps that we really knew about. We learned about the camps in stages, and we learned about what had been happening in stages: arbitrary imprisonment, forced labour, cruelty, neglect, disease, starvation and industrialised murder.

This was so far beyond our 14 year-old experience, knowledge and imagination. It was a shattering blow to our experience of the war. After all, we had been through a period when it seemed that we were going to lose the war—and then we looked at this and what we were supposed to understand. At evening prayers, who ever took them faced a very troubled congregation.

Then, we thought to ourselves, “How could people be found to run such a system—who would be the guards, bookkeepers, managers and commandants?” We found it very difficult to cope with that. Then there were the misfortunes, the betrayals and the widespread collaboration—all these aspects came out, stage by stage. Then we got to hear about the text of the final solution. Again, that was quite beyond our comprehension. All we could conclude was that it was unattainable and massively evil.

Time goes by and our nature is such that we have to learn to cope. At that time, we did not have the 6 million label. We came to cope by somehow thinking that it was individuals to whom these things had happened. We thought of it as a whole series of individual tragedies and the effect they had had upon their close families and relations. This is probably still the way I think about the Holocaust—as a massive list of individual stories.

Eighty years later, there are two other ways in which we might usefully accept the challenge of thinking about the Holocaust. How did Europe come to create the conditions where the Holocaust was mounted, from the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires through Bismarck and competitive rearmament to the First World War, Versailles and the Weimar Republic, the rise of Hitler, the Second World War and the final solution? I believe that, although we have looked in some detail at that story—that long journey—it merits being looked at in ever more detail to try to come to some resolution about how this could have happened. Whatever one thinks about the Holocaust, it was one outcome of that long journey.

There is a second journey about which we need to think very carefully, and that is what has happened since 1945. During my national service, some of my colleagues had come recently from Palestine, which was still briefly in its mandate condition before the creation of Israel. They told pretty wild, difficult and dangerous stories of the Stern Gang and the PLA. It behoves us to consider what part the Holocaust has played in geopolitical outcomes since 1945 and, indeed, up to today. What part does that appalling event play in the way in which we think about where we are now and where we are going? Again, I feel that the study of and research about this are extremely important.

To sum up, we do our best in our efforts to cope with what is happening to us and around us. In coping, we have more than enough to think about, to study, to research and to remember.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Eccles (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure we all agree that the Holocaust should be marked, remembered and studied, and I do not believe that anybody in this House would dissent from that. But in thinking about where we are, I am very conscious that we have a new Government. I want to go back to the commission’s excellent report and ask the Minister and his department to study carefully how we have got from that report’s conclusions to today’s position.

Let me give an example. The report firmly said that an executive body should immediately be formed to implement the commission’s recommendations. At the very beginning, it was thought that that would happen, but it did not; instead, we have an advisory body, which of course is much less expensive—and much less committed. An explanation of why that recommendation was not accepted and carried out is due. It has been a feature of this long story that, when one has asked questions about the commission’s conclusions, it has been very difficult if not impossible to get answers.

The other thing that should be carefully thought through is the complexity, thoroughness and ambition of the commission’s conclusions. It went all over the world, and it definitely wanted to see this country come up alongside the leading exponents of Holocaust memorial and study. It is not easy for us to argue that we have succeeded in doing that. For example, the bar set by the commission for the characteristics of the memorial and of the world-class learning centre was pretty high, and I do not think we can in any way argue that we have reached it. We have accepted some sort of compromise.

I would very much like the Minister to look into the effect of the £50 million, which was the only funding promise given when the commission reported. If you think about the report’s implications and implementation, and take account of the fact that the commission did not consider or, at least, report on the expected costs of its proposal, you will conclude that matching the commission’s recommendation of £50 million—or, indeed, £75 million, or £75 million plus the promise of another £25 million from philanthropic sources—was very difficult. It was an enormous stretch. Throughout the period, we have been facing compromise.

I shall give two examples. First, it was freely said when Victoria Tower Gardens was chosen that one reason was that it would come free. It was also said—and it is there for us to see—that there was no hope of having a separate memorial and learning centre in association with a campus. If you read what the commission said it wanted to see, you will see that it was way beyond anything we are being offered now. So I urge the Minister to think through the situation with some care, because I truly fear that, if the present proposals are carried through, in the longer term they are likely to fail.