Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I rise with a certain reticence to speak, partly because of my own lack of experience of family members or others being involved in the Holocaust. I am aware that many Members of this House will have personal reasons why this is so raw and important. I underline that I am not trying to speak on behalf of the Church of England or the Lords spiritual. We hold a number of differing views on the Bill.

It hardly needs repeating, but I personally know of nobody who opposes the Bill because they are against the concept of having a prominent Holocaust memorial in this nation’s capital. As someone who has visited a significant number of Holocaust memorials in other parts of the world and other capital cities, I am well aware of their importance and how moving they can be.

I agree with much of what the Minister said in his assessment of remembering the horrors of what happened and the need to do everything we can to make sure that a holocaust can never happen again, not least because so few Holocaust survivors are still with us and because of the strategic importance of learning about the Holocaust—especially now, given the ongoing scourge of anti-Semitism. It has been deeply saddening and distressing to read of the increase in anti-Semitic incidents this year, and of some of the hate-filled violence in riots across the country this summer. So it is even more urgent for us to find a way to address the division and prejudices that are damaging our communities, and we need to do all we can to highlight the great evil of these things when they happen.

It is of course deeply regrettable that the establishment of a new Holocaust memorial in London has been so long delayed, but I do not believe that rushing things through without proper public consultation is the right answer. Having said that, I do not support the proposed site of the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens and the removal of the protections conferred by the 1900 Act that the Bill seeks to enact. Surely it is unnecessary to disrupt and decimate one of the few peaceful public green spaces in Westminster, particularly for residents for whom this is their main neighbourhood park and who have a right to access green space. I have been contacted by more than one member of the Buxton family—a very old Hertfordshire family whose forebear is commemorated in the Buxton memorial—who is deeply concerned about this.

I underline what the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, said about the need for His Majesty’s Government to be absolutely clear about how much of this space will be taken up by the new memorial. We are told it is 7.5%, but this has been contested by the London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust, which claims that it is 20.7% of the total area of the gardens. I cannot see how this cannot be resolved, and we ought to be clear about what it involves.

There are further concerns, which I am sure my noble colleagues will outline in more detail and more persuasively than I could possibly hope to. There are security issues and increased costs, as well as the abandonment of many of the original recommendations for an educational centre, which came from the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission in 2015, simply due to space constraints. I note that 18 petitions have been submitted to the Lords Select Committee for the Bill, and I will follow the consideration of these closely after today’s debate. It is for the reason I have outlined here that I am minded to support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

It seems to me that the values guiding both sides of this debate are in fact rather closely aligned—an interest in the public good; public education and access for all; and a belief in the value of preservation of, on the one hand, our collective memory and, on the other, a vital shared green space at the heart of this city.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Grand Committee

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

Without all the measures I have outlined, it is against public safety to allow this underground development to go ahead in the proposed location. The measures needed to protect users from the flooding risk are extensive, will cost an unknown amount of money to protect against and would change the design completely, requiring a new planning application. Will the Minister ensure that the issues I have mentioned will be raised with the Planning Inspectorate? I assure him that these matters are relevant to Clauses 1 and 2. I hope your Lordships will approve Amendments 25 and 40.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 26. First, I add that, living in Hertfordshire, I am in touch with the distinguished Buxton family of today, one of whom is about to become our high sheriff sometime soon. They have expressed to me in correspondence something of their great concern.

Amendment 26 seeks to prevent the establishment of refreshment kiosks or static outbuildings in Victoria Tower Gardens. The first thing I want to mention relates to the preservation of the atmosphere of the park, which provides a valuable place of rest and relaxation to so many. Hot dog stands, souvenir stalls, litter and crowding would significantly change the character and experience of the park. If this project is as successful as it is planned to be, it will attract large numbers of people and potentially long queues. I believe that it would be proportionate and necessary to protect the park from this in the Bill. It has already been questioned whether it would be appropriate to have snacks, crisps and drinks for sale at the site of a memorial that is reflecting on the extraordinary suffering of so many people.

Further, the plans proposed for the centre show a new kiosk at the southern end of the garden, near the children’s playground. The Select Committee reported significant concerns regarding large crowds of visitors to the proposed centre at a kiosk immediately adjacent to the playground, raising child safety issues. Its recommendation 1 is that the kiosk be removed from present plans. Significantly, in response to this recommendation, the promoter stated only that they would look carefully at the design and location of the kiosk, not that they would remove it. The promoter has given the Select Committee an assurance that a review will be carried out with the design team of the arrangements proposed for the southern end of the gardens, with a view to ensuring an appropriate separation of the playground from other visitors to the gardens, including visitors to the proposed centre.

My concerns around the enforceability or account-ability of the assurances given by the promoter, which I mentioned earlier with reference to Amendment 22, also apply here, and give rationale for my seeking to enshrine these restrictions in the Bill.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, I will say a few words in support of the excellent presentation made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, of her Amendments 25 and 40.

I would never accuse the Minister of being predictable—I would not offend him in that way—but I think I hear a little echo in my ear of him making a speech in response to the noble Baroness, saying that all these things could be dealt with at the planning proceedings. If he is going to say that, I just remind the Committee about the reality of planning proceedings.

First, they are very large and expensive on an issue such as this. Every aspect of the planning is considered at those planning proceedings. I hope, in a few minutes, to move my Amendment 15, which relates to security, and a similar point arises here. If we can discover at an early stage, through the mechanism that the noble Baroness suggests in Amendment 25, that this site is too dangerous, for flooding reasons, for planning consent to be given, let us discover that now and not during planning proceedings on the 47th day of the 78-day hearing—if we are lucky that it is that short. All that the noble Baroness is suggesting is that there should be a report, but that report would define whether this site was fit for the purposes expressed in Clauses 1 and 2.

I suggest that some aspects of this issue are, for obvious reasons, of genuine interest to Parliament, not least its proximity to Parliament and the fact that, for example, flooding in Victoria Tower Gardens because of the construction of this underground edifice—if that is not a contradiction in terms—could affect our enjoyment, as people working here, and the enjoyment of those who work for us, of what goes on in this Parliament.

I just remind the Minister of what happened last Saturday. A quite small incident occurred in which somebody managed to get through security and climb up the Elizabeth Tower. I promise that I will say nothing that is sub judice—nothing to do with the perpetrator or the case. If that had happened on a Monday when we were here, Parliament would probably have had to be adjourned for two days for that issue to be dealt with, on grounds of safety and security. One of the ways that we can deal with such issues, before a lengthy planning appeal, is to allow the sort of measure proposed here.