Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Fookes]

21: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Planning application(1) Any applicant must submit a new full planning application to the relevant local authority relating to any Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre planned for Victoria Tower Gardens.(2) In determining the outcome of that application, special attention must be paid to increased security and environmental considerations arising since the first planning application to Westminster City Council in 2019.(3) If the planning permission is to be determined by a Minister there must be a public inquiry.(4) As soon as possible following a planning application the applicant must publicise this and the anticipated timetable by notifying—(a) Members of the House of Commons and members of the House of Lords by depositing a letter in the Libraries of both Houses;(b) the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, the Thomas Fowell Buxton Society and the Thorney Island Society;(c) Holocaust survivors, families of victims and refugees from Nazi Germany and their families;(d) organisations engaged in Holocaust remembrance, education and combating antisemitism;(e) local residents through the press and other media.(5) The applicant must take steps to ensure that the availability of updated information relating to the planning application and submitted by the applicant, including updated information relating to security, (as far as such information can safely be placed in the public domain) is notified to the parties referred to in subsection (4), once it has been published by the Secretary of State as part of any planning process.”

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name and those of several other noble Lords. As noble Lords will see, it calls for a new full planning application to be given to the relevant local authority, in this case Westminster City Council. In the event of the Minister calling in the application, it also calls for a new public inquiry with a different inspector. I am fully aware from the exchanges that have taken place in this Committee that the Minister is very unlikely to welcome the full new planning application and possibly even the more minor arrangement that I have put in as a second best. However, that will not deter me from putting the case as forcefully as I can.

I will deal first with the reasons why a new application is vitally necessary. We all know now about the relevant sections of the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900, which specifically set out that the Victoria gardens should be in perpetuity a public garden for the interests of those living there. It seems to me that the inspector at the time gave very little weight to that consideration and assumed that the Victoria gardens were easily there to be taken. I think this was a material consideration, because he felt that other sites might take longer to come to fruition. That was a bad miscalculation, but I will not dwell on it further now.

I also feel that the inspector greatly underestimated the damage to the park that would ensue to both the trees and the interests of the residents who rely on this little park in an area not terribly well served by green spaces. He did not have the benefit, shall we call it, of the later present Government’s consideration that everyone should be able to live within 15 minutes of a green space, as set out fairly recently. I feel, therefore, that the environmental considerations were not taken properly into account, but as I dealt with this in more detail in a previous amendment, I will not dwell on it now.

I will now look at a major source of concern where issues have changed for the worse: the security of the site in terms of possible acts of terrorism and any other source of grief, worry or danger to the public. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has powerfully set out this case. Coming as they do from a former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and a King’s Counsel with many years of experience, his views should be taken far more into consideration. I hope that this afternoon he may wish to elaborate on these matters. I am anxious that he does, because there will be very practical implications if one has to allow for the safety of the public in these circumstances, especially so close to the Palace of Westminster.

Furthermore, we have had powerful speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, setting out the risks of fire hazards. Again, I will not go into all the details, but she made the important point that there was only one escape route from the underground learning centre, which she felt needed to be dealt with. Indeed, since she spoke we have had the ghastly incident in Macedonia, where a number of lives were lost in a nightclub because there was only one exit. These things are to be taken very seriously. That does not mean to say that there will not be some mitigation, but I think it needs a new, thorough look.

Then there is the risk of flood, dealt with most cogently by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. It is in an area that has always been rather prone to flooding, and we have had an example of this at 1 Millbank, where the basement restaurant was flooded and out of action for months. So this is another issue that needs much greater consideration.

Interestingly, the R&R programme now wants experiments to be done on the floor of the River Thames along the east side of the Palace, because it may want to do some works on the Terrace and the neighbouring areas. That may not impinge directly on this, but it is an indication that a great many things will be happening with the restoration programme. The Victoria Tower repair is imminent. Are we to suppose that both of those major impacts will not have a very damaging effect on the park, especially if, at the same time, all the building works for the memorial and the underground learning centre are going on? It seems to me that an impossible practical situation is developing. How can one small park accommodate the overflow from two major restorations and repairs, and cope with the building of the memorial and underground learning centre at the same time?

I now turn to the all-important arrangements for dealing with any planning application once the Bill enters the statute book. Let us look for a moment at the guidance given by the Planning Inspectorate as to the procedure to be followed if an application quashed by a law court is revived or restarted. It says in section 20.8 that written representations will normally not even be considered if there have been material changes since the time the application was first submitted. Let us remember that in this case we are talking about a submission in January 2019, now over six years ago. The Planning Inspectorate guidance adds that a round table or hearing will normally be considered only if

“it can reasonably be expected that the parties will be able to present their own cases (supported by professional witnesses if required) without the need for an advocate to represent them”.

Finally, if the application was previously considered by a public inquiry, there would normally be a fresh inquiry and a new inspector would normally be appointed, because he or she would be reviewing matters previously overturned by a court.

That seems pretty straightforward guidance. I understand that it is guidance and not the application of the law, but it seems to me that the guidance here is akin to that for traffic arrangements, whereby when we have road accidents and so on, we can look to the body of work that guides people on matters of traffic.

I was not aware of yet a further complication: the National Planning Casework Unit, set up by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, with a remit that includes managing major planning applications referred to it by the Secretary of State and requests from the Secretary of State to call in planning applications. It has become involved in a pre-consultation process to ensure that there are no undue delays once the Bill is enacted. To my knowledge—and probably that of others—it has consulted the London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust and, most importantly, the promoter, which, of course, comes from within that very same department. Through its solicitor, Pinsent Masons, it has set out what it believes to be the issues before it. It has made a written representation, from which I will quote—not the whole lot but the most relevant parts. It wrote:

“The Applicant considers that the Minister should consider representations on any and all matters required for the redetermination of the Application … such that the redetermination can then take place as soon as reasonably possible following any Royal Assent”—


as I have pointed out. It continued:

“Such matters can be fully and appropriately dealt with through written representations. To re-open the public inquiry would clearly be disproportionate to the matters relevant to the redetermination”.


Finally, it added that

“all the principal … and planning matters relevant to the determination of the Application … remain either entirely or largely unchanged from the time they were originally considered”.

As I have said previously, I regard that as totally wrong and not to be considered at all.

We have this curious spectacle, as I see it, of a planning application from an applicant, somebody who has to make the decision, and another organisation, the planning unit, all within the same department of state. Looking at it from the outside, as most people will, I consider that to be an unhealthily close relationship—at best unhealthy, and at worst positively incestuous. I am not at all happy if the way out to be chosen once the Bill becomes law is anything other than a full public inquiry or, at the very least, a new public inquiry. That is the burden of my theme this afternoon. I beg to move.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 34 in my name, which I tabled before your Lordships started to look at the Bill in Committee. Having listened so far, I am more than ever convinced that an impact assessment is needed. It would cover many things we have already debated but, as I suggested previously, with regard to risk, there would be great benefit in pulling together the many points that have been and are still to be discussed. Some suggestions will impact on others, so an overall view of the impact of the proposed memorial and learning centre would be of great benefit, not to say essential.

I find it most peculiar that there should not already have been an impact assessment for this project. I expect that a number of issues are more strictly for planning, whereas this Bill is to overcome the limitations of the 1900 covenant. When considering legislation to dispense with a covenant, there are planning issues that will impact on the decision. For example, if the proposal were for a manufacturing unit of some sort, I imagine that your Lordships might well feel that the covenant should stand. So it is not inappropriate to seek answers that are, strictly speaking, planning matters. As the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, has said, we are entitled to know in detail what is proposed before we are asked to remove the covenant of which we are custodians.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I can give noble Lords absolute confidence that the many Holocaust survivors I have spoken to are looking forward to seeing this Holocaust memorial built. It might not be so for everybody, but I speak in the context of my numerous heartfelt conversations with Holocaust survivors.

My point stands: few Holocaust survivors, perhaps none at all, would live to see the project completed. In those lost years, how many more opportunities to spread and deepen understanding of the Holocaust will be missed? How many millions of visitors will pass through Westminster who might otherwise have been prompted to reflect on the murder of 6 million Jews? How many visitors, young and old, will be denied the opportunity to learn objective facts on a topic of such profound importance? We should not be creating new hurdles, setting new tests or extending legitimate processes. Our aim should be to build a Holocaust memorial and learning centre of which the nation can be proud, and to do it soon. I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, I am not surprised by the line that the Minister has taken. I may be allowed to express disappointment, but certainly not surprise, because it seems to me that, despite previous discussions in this Committee—particularly this afternoon—we have heard many and varied reasons as to why the situation has changed markedly from what it was six years ago or more, and that these should have been taken into account.

I am particularly concerned that we are overriding an Act of Parliament set up by somebody—originally as a gesture of good will and philanthropy, which was then endorsed by the 1900 Act—whose objectives, far from being over, are if anything more important now than they were before because it is a valuable green space in an area served by many people, often those without great assets or gardens of their own. We are now far more aware of the importance of the environment than we probably were in 1900. So, far from being old hat, this remains extremely important. That is where I start from.

However, I also look to the fact that the commission set up—it gave its verdict in 2015, I think—outlined the kind of memorial and learning centre that it wished to see. Clearly, that cannot be carried out fully in this very small space, so there is a great gap between what the commission said it wanted and what is now possible on a very restricted site. That is where I take my stand.

Sadly, I feel that the Minister has not been listening to the many and varied arguments put with considerable force, knowledge and eloquence by people serving on this Committee. I am sorry indeed about that, and I am particularly sorry that we seem to be getting nowhere fast. In those circumstances, I cannot see that any lengthy speech by me— or anybody else come to that—will change the Minister’s mind and, because we cannot have votes in this Committee by reason of the way it is set up, I can do nothing but seek leave to withdraw my amendment, but I do so believing that I am right about this. I am disappointed that we are not getting anywhere, so I seek leave to withdraw my amendment, but with a very heavy heart.

Amendment 21 withdrawn.