Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, in supporting my noble friend Lady Deech’s amendment, I of course recognise the very considerable and determined efforts of my noble friend Lord Verdirame, who sought to persuade the Government to accept the amendment made by your Lordships’ House when the Bill was before us previously.

I have some questions for the Minister, but before I ask them, I want to thank him for his very heartfelt and obviously extremely genuine and clear statement of what he sees as the purpose of the learning centre. I totally accept what he said as being his view. My questions relate to the use of the word “inappropriate”. I take it that the use of that word reveals that the words that my noble friend Lady Deech seeks to insert in the Bill—or, indeed, the words originally inserted by your Lordships’ House—are not in any way out of scope of the Bill. It is a matter of choice, of taste even; it is not a matter of law or legislative practice.

Secondly, I invite the Minister to answer the question: does what he has said in any way bind a future Government or even bind the trustees? I suspect that it might be possible to bind the trustees, but not a future Government, but only by expensive litigation, which would be extremely distasteful on this subject, if in the future they chose to change the approach of which the Minister has spoken.

Of course the Bill is about changing planning arrangements for Victoria Tower Gardens—that is necessarily part of it—but it is slightly absurd to suggest that the Bill is just about property, given the basic purpose of having a memorial learning centre in the gardens. The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that there is a memorial and a learning centre, which has the one aim that people will go there—in my view, it is too small and in the wrong place, but I cannot debate that now—to learn about the Holocaust, the Shoah, what happened to Jews in the Second World War, what built up to that Holocaust and to learn the lesson. That is the only purpose of spending many millions on this project.

What is wrong with stating in the Bill the purpose of the project? Those of us who have a personal, a family, background which makes us very close to this proposal, as I have, do not want to see that limited desire for the purpose to be stated in the Bill to be rejected by the use of a vague adjective like “inappropriate”.

I have huge misgivings about why this is being put in Victoria Tower Gardens, what is being put there and whether it will be secure. I absolutely reject the notion that one should be concerned about the current Middle East situation in deciding the words that should be put in the Bill. That, in my view, is unprincipled and should not be allowed to endure.

I earnestly say to the Minister, who is much admired in this House—and I share in that admiration—that he should listen very carefully to this debate before pitching into something that is unacceptable to a very large number of people who have close contact and concerns about this proposal.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I commend the very wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and support the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, in this important amendment.

I should say first that I respect 150% the honesty and integrity of the Minister; I trust him 100%, but I do not entirely trust the Government to deliver on this. I thank not just the two Labour Peers who were on the Committee but all those Peers from all sides—the other Labour Members, Cross-Benchers, Lib Dems and Conservatives—who raised many concerns about all aspects of this memorial.

The one thing we were united on was that it had to commemorate the Holocaust—the Shoah—and antisemitism. What concerned us during the Committee was that on many occasions when we pushed the question, “Will this be purely about the Shoah?”, we did not get a categorical answer that it would be. We had many reports from other organisations suggesting that it could include Rwanda, Pol Pot, Darfur and others. Those were horrible genocides, I know that, and we have seen some horrible genocides around the world since the end of the Second World War, but they are not the Shoah, and the memorial should be purely about that.

The noble Lord was right: it would be perfectly in scope of the Bill to insert the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. To reject that on the grounds that it would be inappropriate is rather flimsy. When I was chair of the Delegated Powers Committee and we saw the Government taking extraordinary powers to pass regulations, the Government always said, “Ah yes, but we don’t intend to use them”. The intention is irrelevant; it is what is in statute law that counts. Putting this into statute law would guarantee that it was enforced.

The Minister said, if I remember correctly, “Oh, people could challenge any requirement in a statute”. If people can challenge, with difficulty and judicial review, words in a primary Act of Parliament, then how much easier would it be to challenge a letter from the Government to the administrators or the trustees? That seems ripe for judicial review, whereas a statutory requirement would not be.

That is all I wanted to say. As I say, I entirely trust the Minister and his noble intentions, but I do not trust the Government to be able to deliver on this, either through negligence or a deliberate act on their part. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, is absolutely right in seeking to put this in the Bill.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to the fact that I am, along with Mr Ed Balls, the joint chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation.

I do not want to make the Minister blush, but I add my tribute to the way he has conducted the negotiations—I think we have arrived at a situation where we can see some progress—but I also associate myself with his words about the noble Lord, Lord Khan, who took this through its various stages with charm and considerable good temper, and we arrived at a better Bill because he was there. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lady Scott on my Front Bench for the way this has come about.

I have always been of the view that this memorial should also celebrate Jewish life and Jewish people, because—and I say this as a non-Jew—Jewish culture is a fundamental part of British identity. Without Jews, this country would be a lesser place. You only have visit a place like Poland to see that the very heart of that country has been ripped out by the removal of the Jews.

I supported the original amendment because this is not an academic exercise or a discussion over particular words. There is a real war going on—I do not think it is wrong to say that—which seeks to undermine and subvert the Holocaust and turn it on its head. We have seen two attempts in recent years to do this. First, there was an attempt within the academic board to extend the museum to cover slavery, which the board fought against solidly, leading to one member resigning. Secondly, we saw last year an attempt to equate the Holocaust with the false accusation of a genocide in Gaza. That awful attempt to invert the Holocaust is one of the reasons why fewer schools are commemorating the Holocaust this year than before. The reason for that is that the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust was not prepared to do “Holocaust-lite”. We are not prepared to dilute it.

But this continues. There is some criticism of Holocaust education. We see from Canada that the former attorney-general, Irwin Cotler, someone known to many Members of the House, regarded Holocaust education in this country as the gold standard. But it is only the gold standard if people attend the courses. Some evaluations from UCL and Visions Schools Scotland show that if people go through the course, things change for the good. But if you are a child of a parent who refuses to allow you to go, if you are on a school governing body that refuses co-operation, if teachers pressurise other teachers to prevent it, then those pupils lose out. That is why we see such bad scores on understanding of the Holocaust.

This is not just about the simple teaching of the past; it is about operating some support for our own liberal democracy. I am delighted to report that we are in advanced negotiations with the Shoah Foundation of the United States, which would like us to be one of the main centres for its database of Holocaust testimony. We already have its testimony for British survivors, but this means that we will be a main player on the scene. There is enthusiasm for this because we will get people to that learning centre—I am about to finish—who would normally not go to any other museum.

I welcome the unity. We should put the past behind us and now put our hands out firmly to opponents and those who are in favour, and work together to ensure that we build something we can be proud of.