Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, although I am speaking in a personal capacity, I declare an interest as a trustee of the Imperial War Museum Foundation and a former trustee of the IWM from 2007 to 2015.

As the Bill centres on the Holocaust—the most appalling series of events in mankind’s long and brutal history—it touches on so many issues of massive importance to our history, our society and to our humanity itself. The building of a memorial to those who perished and those who survived—and an education centre to stand as a warning to those who would seek refuge in the ideology of the far right in future—is something we should all unite around. This Bill, regrettably, simply sows division. My feelings towards it can be summed up in four words that have characterised much of this remarkable debate: “Great idea, wrong place”.

As regards the proposed location of the memorial, a botched decision-making process and a lack of consultation got us here. There will be the terrible consequences for the environment, the real security threat not just for Parliament but for the media who work around here, the lack of space for a proper education centre, the dreadful design without meaning or feeling and the funding black hole—a very popular thing at the moment—of perhaps £100 million. From all those points of view, virtually everything in this proposal is wrong.

The right answer is for a memorial and education centre to be housed just a stone’s throw from Parliament at the Imperial War Museum, which has held the national collection for the Holocaust for a quarter of a century. The IWM, established by Act of Parliament following the horrors of the First World War, has always had at its heart, in the words of its first director-general, Sir Martin Conway,

“the action, the experiences, the valour and the endurance of individuals”—

the very values that surely are central to our remembrance of the Holocaust. The IWM has all the qualities needed to make a truly international success of a memorial and education centre: space, expertise, history, and, above all, as a potent and visible imposing national symbol of remembrance, authority. The IWM is already the place to which people from across the UK and internationally who want to remember the Holocaust, and those who want to learn from the atrocity, gravitate.

The IWM has held the national collection of the Holocaust since 2000, and in November 2021 opened exceptional new Holocaust galleries which are breathtaking in their scope, power and impact. Developed using the most up-to-date research and evaluation, including archive material available only since the end of the Cold War, the horror of the Holocaust is told through individual stories based on over 2,000 photos, books, letters and personal objects—real objects, which would not be available here. It is a stunning experience that makes history come alive. These galleries rightly take their place alongside new, equally impressive Second World War galleries, costing £31 million and powered by generous philanthropists and foundations, with, vitally, two suites of learning centres using the most up-to-date digital technology to tell stories and encourage discussion and reflection. They are global success stories in which the UK should take great pride. The success of these galleries itself tells a tale which is key to this debate.

As my noble friend Lord Sandhurst said, since the end of 2021, less than three years ago, 1.2 million visitors have gone through these galleries and over 20,000 students have taken part in learning programs. The facts speak for themselves. The IWM is already the central location to which people, young and old, instinctively go for remembrance and learning. Why on earth would we want to build another memorial and learning centre, which would inevitably be inferior to that offered by the IWM, when we already have the resources there and, in the beautiful Harmsworth gardens, space to build a fitting, dignified memorial without the terrible disruption and the risk of shoehorning it into Victoria Tower Gardens? That site has everything that Victoria Tower Gardens does not: it is accessible, it is safe, it has history, it has potential, and it works with the environment rather than against it.

We have squandered too much time—over a decade—trying to get this done. If we are to stand any chance of getting a fitting Holocaust memorial and associated learning centre built while the sadly dwindling number of Holocaust survivors are still with us, we must find a compromise. The Imperial War Museum is the answer. We just have to be brave. History, at the very centre of this debate, will not look kindly on us if we fail to do so.