Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Pickles Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, while the tributes are flowing, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, who gave one of the best speeches the first time this amendment was discussed, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.

It is truly important to have this discussion and debate, and not just to say that it does not matter. I also do not doubt the sincerity of the noble Lords, Lord Collins of Highbury and Lord Khan of Burnley, who have both been absolutely reassuring. My problem is that I am not reassured by reassurances. I still cannot understand why it is only reassurances, and not firmly fixed. It is not reassuring that this cannot be written down, so that we all know it is not going to be sold out. No disrespect, but a lot of sell-outs happen in politics; however, I do not doubt the integrity of the noble Lords I have mentioned.

I just wanted quickly to just note why this matters. The noble Lord, Lord Pickles, made the point when he referred to the fight. I had written down, “The context of this is a fight”. I do a range of education work, although not this issue, but when I go to universities and schools I get into arguments—obviously enough—about all sorts of things. In a debate about whether there is a genocide in Gaza, because I said there is not, and tried to explain it rationally, I was accused of being a Holocaust denier. When I then tried to untangle why that was not the case and why you would use that term, one of the students said, “The problem is that Jews jealously guard the Holocaust. It is part of their colonial entitlement attitude”. That was quite a normal thing to say. I was shocked; nobody else was.

This is a learning centre. Look at the revelations that have come forth in relation to the MP from Labour Friends of Israel who was stopped from going into a school to teach, as well as the subsequent revelations—exposed by Nicole Lampert—about the goings-on in the National Education Union, a teaching union that is almost institutionally hostile to Israel and that has very strong and openly antisemitic elements to it. People who are worried about the Shoah being relativised or diffused are not being paranoid; this is happening.