UK Holocaust Memorial

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Hylton

Monday 20th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to substitute the proposed UK Holocaust Memorial with a national memorial commemorating all victims of extermination or genocide.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are firmly committed to establishing a new national Holocaust memorial. The memorial will be dedicated to the 6 million Jewish men, women and children and all victims of Nazi persecution, including Roma, gay and disabled people murdered in the Holocaust. This memorial, at the heart of our democratic institutions, will provide a striking reminder to Parliament and to the whole nation of the need to tackle persecution in all its forms.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

I thank the noble Viscount for his reply. I wonder whether we could all agree that all attempts to kill a whole group, whether ethnic, religious, national or other, are equally odious and ought to be prevented. Is it not therefore important that any British memorial to victims of genocide or extermination, certainly if it is to be sited next to Parliament, should commemorate all victims rather than one particular group?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I take note of what the noble Lord says, but there can be no more powerful symbol of our commitment to remembering the Holocaust than placing a memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens. As I said earlier, the Holocaust is one of the darkest chapters in human history, which saw the systematic state-sponsored killing of human beings. To pick up on what the noble Lord said, there will be a focus in the memorial centre on the Jewish population, obviously, but particularly on other atrocities, including in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia.