Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I am a member of Conservative Friends of Israel and a supporter of its current fight against the new attempts to destroy the Jewish homeland from the river to the sea. I say that because I do not want my opposition to this Bill to be misconstrued.

So why am I opposed to the Bill? It is because it fails in every way to implement the recommendations of the Holocaust Commission. The commission recommended a campus with large amounts of space:

“The Learning Centre should include facilities to host lectures and seminars and to run educational courses and workshops, as well as the opportunity for Holocaust organisations to locate their offices, or set up satellite offices, within the wider physical campus”.


This Adjaye design fails that requirement. The commission recommended a unique British design; Adjaye has given us a cast-off rejected by Canada. The commission said in its first recommendation that

“it is also clear that a memorial on its own is not enough and that there must be somewhere close at hand where people can go to learn more”.

about the Holocaust. “Close at hand” does not necessarily mean shoehorned into the wrong space, which is too small to do justice to the commission’s recommendations but far too large for this little garden.

The commission recommended three possible solutions: the Imperial War Museum site, Potters Field and a site further along Millbank. Indeed, it waxed lyrical about the Imperial War Museum and a plan to build a whole new wing to house the campus on the extensive land around the museum in Lambeth. Victoria Tower Gardens never entered its contemplation because the experts on the commission knew it was entirely inappropriate. Ed Balls claimed that Victoria Tower Gardens was his suggestion, but we have never heard why the Imperial War Museum offer was turned down. Nothing has been produced regarding any comparison of the sites, why they were rejected and why Victoria Tower Gardens was picked on a political whim. I think I know why: politicians in my party took the arrogant view that Victoria Tower Gardens was an easy win, right next to Parliament and run by the Royal Parks, which would buckle to political domination.

In summary, I am opposed to this project because it fails to implement the recommendations of the Holocaust Commission, is grotesquely ugly and is designed by a discredited architect whose previous iterations of this were rejected by Ottawa. It does nothing to properly commemorate the evils of the Holocaust nor the ongoing threat of a new one.

I turn specifically to the cost issue, as in my Amendments 1 and 27. I shall use more temperate language and say this: successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery that at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable.

“The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed”—


that is not a Lord Blencathra observation but the words from the national Infrastructure and Projects Authority in its latest report of 16 January 2025. That is the third year in a row where the authority has given it its most damning “Red” categorisation.

I cannot blame the present Government for pushing on with this out-of-control shambles. The Government whom I supported were more guilty, because they were told two years ago that the project was unachievable. Did the department do anything to sort out the project definition, the schedule or the budget, which the authority said was not manageable nor resolvable? No, of course not, because it was a big sacred cow—or, to mix metaphors, no one dared to suggest that this emperor had no clothes. Just as Jewish organisations were told, “You’d better back this proposal or there’ll be no Holocaust memorial”, so no one dared to admit that this project in Victoria Tower Gardens was out of control, for fear of being accused of not supporting Holocaust commemoration.

The project was originally costed at under £100 million, and the Government proposed to finance it with at least £25 million in philanthropic funding. There has been no suggestion that the Government would not fund the rest of the project and its operating costs as well. The latest capital cost estimate for HMLC—the Holocaust memorial and learning centre—is £138.8 million without any contingency, which shows a substantial rise in the estimate before contingency of 36% between 2022 and 2023. This estimate was based on the expectation of starting construction before 2025.

The only comments about costs which it has since been possible to extract from MHCLG has been a figure for the total spend to date of £18 million, given by the then Minister, Simon Hoare, to the Commons in May 2024 and a recent estimate of a further £2.1 million spent in the last six months. That would bring the total to £20.1 million. If the figures are correct and comparable, that would represent an acceleration on 2020 to 2024, when only £2.8 million was spent over 22 months.

In July 2022, the National Audit Office delivered a report with a whole battery of criticisms of MHCLG’s performance in preparing, planning and managing the project to date, at a point when £15.1 million had been spent with absolutely no result. In particular, the NAO criticised the management of the project and the provision of data on cost escalation to justify the project costs between 2020 and 2022. The NAO report described at paragraph 23, among the “emerging risks” causing potential cost increases, the promoters’ failure to consider any alternative site or the possible effects of legislative delay, or

“to quantify, or account for … the risks”

that that has created, but there has been little subsequent evidence that this NAO criticism has been heeded by MHCLG.

The NAO was critical of the fact that MHCLG had made no provision for defining the governance of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. It commented that the MHCLG accepted the need for a non-departmental public body but insisted that it would set up a new, dedicated NDPB which, the NAO commented, would mean a minimum of 12 months to pass the requisite legislation—and it wants to set that up 12 months before the thing is due to open.

MHCLG made an insubstantial reply in 2022 to the NAO’s criticisms but its statements since then show that it believes it has responded to those criticisms, even though no change is visible to the world outside the ministry. For instance, MHCLG has never provided any estimate of the inflation that would apply to construction costs based on starting construction in, say, 2026 and starting operations in, say, 2028. The Government have never made any provision for operating costs and have made the likely costs higher by agreeing in 2022 to make all entry to the learning centre free, although visitors will still have to register online.

The operating costs will be high and have so far escalated from £6 million to £8 million per annum, but absolutely no detail has been provided about what the costs will cover. This is particularly important because it is not clear what provision the department has made for the costs of policing and other security measures required for the project if it is built. I also believe that MHCLG is not charging significant or even realistic amounts of civil servant management time to the project, which is either poor accounting or evidence that the project has insufficient governance, or both of those things. It is therefore no surprise that the Infrastructure and Projects Authority has three times now—in 2023, 2024 and 2025—classified the memorial project as undeliverable.

In 2024, the MHCLG created the post of senior responsible officer for the project and gave that officer the power to act within cost overruns with a contingency of £53 million—£53 million as a contingency for a £138 million project, well above the normal 10% to 15%. There has been no explanation for why this contingency was pitched at that figure. The MHCLG budgeting process within the published management and other accounts remains completely untransparent about what the HMLC costs will be, what they are for and who is accountable for them.

Finally, I note that, despite the MHCLG having stated in 2024 that it had suspended work on the project, thus partially justifying the suspension of Sir David Adjaye, it recently—this year—told the Lords Select Committee that its design team is already working on adjustments to the design in relation to the assurances provided to the Select Committee, so that shows that some design cost has continued to be spent.

Here we are today, debating a Bill for a project which the Government’s own top infrastructure authority says, and has said for the last three years in a row, is undeliverable. I say that pushing on with a failed project with no proper cost control is treating Parliament with contempt. We need to know the best estimates for the operating costs and exactly who will be in charge. We will debate the possibility of a new NDPB to run this in Amendment 5, but it is legitimate to ask about the financial sustainability of the entity or entities which will execute and operate the project. A report on that should be laid before Parliament. If we pass the Bill, Parliament is entitled to see the legitimacy of what we have sanctioned.

When the Minister replies, I do not want him to answer my points, I want him to answer the points raised by the Government’s own infrastructure authority. Let him tell us what the Government will do about

“the major issues with project definition, the schedule, the budget, the quality and/or benefits delivery, which do not appear to be manageable or resolvable”.

Will he do as it has asked and rescope the whole project and reassess its overall viability?

Finally, I apologise to colleagues for speaking at length, as I probably will on some other amendments also. This is partly a reaction to the various gagging attempts we faced when giving evidence to the Commons and Lords Select Committees, where every other week we seemed to be copied in to a letter from those lawyers, Pinsent Masons, telling the committees that they could not ask this or that question and that they had to limit their inquiries. I thought it was appallingly arrogant to attempt to tie Select Committee hands in that way. Well, our hands will not be tied and we will not be gagged in these debates, except by our own rules of order and procedure. I beg to move.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall not mimic my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who has spoken extremely well and raised a great many issues. I did not petition the Government, although I think I signed a couple of petitions, but I happen to know the area very well, not least because my four month-old puppy, who noble Lords would all adore, goes there for exercise every morning, but that is not a particularly good reason for stopping the progress. I am opposed to the Bill, not opposed to a memorial. I am opposed to putting a learning centre in such a small area. It would destroy the park—there is no question of that.

To turn to the amendment, we can all hear from what my noble friend Lord Blencathra said that nobody really knows how much this will cost. I have seen the scope of the archaeologist who has looked at the diggings by the Thames, and it is almost certain that this area will flood. I am not an archaeologist, so I have not got a clue. I have never dug a big pit next to the Thames, but it is almost certain that this will flood. It is a bonkers thing to do—absolutely mad—and that is why I absolutely support my noble friend Lord Blencathra in this. It is the wrong place to put a large building such as this. It will, furthermore, cost a great deal more than £138.8 million, as I think we all know, even including a 15% contingency, so I support this amendment.

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[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lord, I am most grateful to noble Lords. Again, I would appreciate a degree of latitude. First, coming to the point that was made with regard to the advisory nature, it was always an advisory committee. When Bazalgette resigned to go on to other artistic projects, I was appointed, along with Ed Balls, as a co-chair to demonstrate the political unity of putting this together.

I was disturbed by what my noble friend Lord Blencathra —my dear friend—said. He seemed to be almost on the defensive to suggest that if you are opposed to this, somehow you are opposed to Jewish people or opposed to Israel. Nobody thinks that and no one has a greater, more distinguished record in their support of Jewish people than my noble friend Lord Blencathra. I want to make that absolutely clear.

I admire my noble friend Lord Blencathra. He was an amazing Chief Whip when we were in opposition, as indeed my noble friend opposite was an amazing Whip. He taught me many things, one of which was the kind of amendment to put down to embarrass the Government, to hold them down and to get them to say various things. He did it with great style.

But there is something that we need to be clear about. We saw a newspaper article yesterday. I do not blame the reporter—they are as good as the information they are given. I should be grateful if, when the Minister comes to reply, he can confirm that in all the briefings that he received, none suggested that this memorial would be about the glorification of the British Empire or the trivialisation of the Holocaust, or that the Holocaust would be diluted by references to other genocides.

A lot of the amendments before us might best be described as about planning. There is always a balance in planning. There is no absolute, and that is why we have such an elaborate system of planning to test the damages and balances. We are almost trying to set ourselves up as a planning authority to second-guess. This Committee, distinguished as it is, is not in a good position to do that because supporters and objectors do not have the same rights as they would have in a planning application, committee or appeal.

There is also an element in this of marking our own homework. If this went through a planning committee now—there is no criticism of anybody here—the fact that people who are expressing views live close by would be taken into account. If they were on a planning committee, they would have to recuse themselves. They would not be able to speak or vote. We cannot have a situation in this country where it is one rule for their Lordships and another rule for the rest of the country.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

Can I just finish this point? I am not criticising. It is within the rules. Nobody is doing anything wrong. But it does not look terribly good from the outside.

We do not like the design. We have become almost like Queen Anne. We kick over a stool and say, “Build it like that”. This design won an international competition among top international architects. Frankly, saying it looked like something that somebody in Canada objected to is wrong. That is the style of the architect, Ron Arad. It would be a bit like saying to Picasso, when he was going through his blue period, “That’s enough, Pablo. Too much blue.” That is the nature of Ron Arad’s work.

The trust that had been put together to raise the sums of money cannot start until we have proper planning permission. We cannot gather lots of money, although Sir Gerald Ronson is confident that we can do it. The state of the park is a disgrace. We have allowed it to get into such a situation.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

Just give me one moment and then I will bring you in. This will improve the park. It will improve the park’s access for the disabled, for young people and for four month-old puppies.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

If we are talking about planning permission, the whole point about this design was it was turned down flat by Westminster City Council—by both Labour and Conservative councillors.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

That is why we have a planning system. When I was a Planning Minister, we often had situations where gaming was played.

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I must make progress but, very quickly, we will follow the normal public expenditure rules, as I have illustrated. I remind noble Lords that Clause 1 refers to allowing us to spend the money to build the project. I understand that it does not say how much money, but whatever the Government do will follow the normal Treasury rules, as indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

The Minister is under a bit of flak here. This is a very unusual Bill, as he will understand. It is not like voting for huge amounts to go to defence, or whatever it might be. We in Parliament surely exist to control what public money—not our money—is spent on. We are talking here about some astronomical amount that we do not know. That is why people are asking these questions.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I understand the point that the noble Lord is making, but this Bill allows expenditure. Funding will be allocated through the normal public expenditure arrangements. The House of Commons passes annual appropriation Acts.

The project is also subject to review by the National Audit Office. In July 2022, the National Audit Office conducted a review and produced a report noting, among other points:

“The programme has controls to try to safeguard against substantial cost increases”.


Three recommendations made by the National Audit Office have been implemented. On the points that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, raised about the management of the project, we welcome the National Audit Office’s July 2022 report on the project and have addressed all its recommendations. The National Audit Office also recognises that governance arrangements are in place. The strategic benefits of the programme have been clearly identified and specialists with the necessary skills have been recruited to the programme.

It is also important to make the point that the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which the noble Lord referred to, currently rates the project as undeliverable because the Bill needs to be passed and planning consent granted in order for it to proceed. That is why there is a red flag rating on this. The project needs planning consent. That was quashed, and it was given a red rating as this Bill needs to be passed.

The £138 million estimate is based on professional advice from cost consultants and allows for inflation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Saint Albans has had to go to another meeting and asked me, with noble Lords’ permission, to speak to his Amendment 23. It is about an endowment fund to help counter anti-Semitism. An Ofcom report of July 2022 showed that for teenagers, Instagram gave them 29% of the news, TikTok 28% and YouTube 28%. These are the main sources of news with ITV and the BBC way down in fourth and fifth places. The Ofcom report also states:

“Users of TikTok for news claim to get more of their news on the platform from ‘other people they follow’ (44%) than ‘news organisations’ (24%).”


The report continues:

“Teenagers today are increasingly unlikely to pick up a newspaper or tune into TV News, instead preferring to keep up-to-date by scrolling through their social feeds”.


If those social media outlets were accurate, we would have little concern, but also in July 2023 we had a United Nations report History Under Attack. It was a co-operation with an Oxford organisation and found that up to half of Holocaust-related content on Telegram denied or distorted the facts. It said that distortion and Holocaust denial was present on all social media but that moderation and education can significantly reduce this. It went on to say that UNESCO and the United Nations sought to measure the extent of this phenomenon on social networks and commissioned researchers to identify and analyse about 4,000 posts related to the Holocaust on the five major platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok and Twitter. These were the findings: on Telegram, there was 50% distortion and denial of the Holocaust in English language messages; on Twitter, which is now X, there was 19% distortion; on TikTok, 17%; on Facebook, 8%; and on Instagram, 3%. Many of those comments were anti-Semitic as well.

Another key finding of the United Nations report is that the researchers identified that perpetrators have learned to evade content moderation through the use of humorous and parodic memes as a strategy intended to normalise anti-Semitic ideas and make them appear mainstream. I had no idea what anti-Semitic memes were, or any memes, but I found hundreds on the internet, some suggesting that the Jews had attacked USS “Liberty” in 1967, others that the Jews had brought down the Twin Towers in New York. Some said that if America was to save itself then it had to declare war on Israel. Thousands of these memes are absolutely scurrilous, despicable lies and hate-filled, but millions of our young people are lapping them up.

Up to even three years ago, I thought that education on the Holocaust of 80 years ago was all that we needed to do, but now we see hundreds of thousands of people on our streets calling for a new Holocaust, the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Jews. Indeed, in 2019 the BBC published a poll of more than 2,000 people that was carried out by Opinion Matters for the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. It found, and this is quite frightening, that 5% of UK adults—that is, out of 45 million—do not believe that the Holocaust took place, and one in 12 believes that its scale has been exaggerated. Some 45% of those polled said they did not know how many people were killed in the Holocaust, while 19% believed that fewer than 2 million Jews were murdered and 5% believed that there was no Holocaust at all; that is 2.2 million people. That is frightening—all those British people denying the Holocaust or completely ignorant about it.

It is therefore essential that we create an endowment fund to undertake 24/7 Holocaust education and rebuttal of all the new anti-Semitic attacks. That is why we need a proper campus, as recommended in the Holocaust Commission report, staffed by experts who can work online 24/7 countermanding lies about the Holocaust and the new Holocaust demand to push the Jews out of Israel, their homeland, from the river to the sea. Anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, and it seems to be even worse in the UK, so a monument to the unique Holocaust of 80 years ago is essential. Equally essential is annual funding to tackle the new lies about Jews and the calls for their extermination.

I turn to my Amendments 29 and 30, and I believe my noble friend Lord Hodgson will speak to Amendment 31 in my place. I also support Amendments 2, 3, 4 and 6 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. As I said in my speech on Amendment 1, I concluded that Conservative politicians opted for the completely unsuitable Victoria Tower Gardens and ignored the recommendations of the Holocaust Commission because they thought the gardens would be an easier bet. However, the site fails to deliver a central theme of the commission—indeed, its key recommendation 2. Recommendation 1 concluded with the words:

“But it is also clear that a memorial on its own is not enough and that there must be somewhere close at hand where people can go to learn”


about the Holocaust. This is what the commission said about the ideal site for the memorial and learning centre. In its “Delivery and Next Steps” section, it said, and it is worth while quoting it:

“The Commission has identified three possible locations that should be considered as part of a consultation taken forwards by the permanent independent body … The Holocaust Exhibition at IWM London is very highly regarded, as was demonstrated throughout the evidence received. There is therefore an obvious advantage in locating the Learning Centre alongside IWM London in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park near Lambeth. The site is within easy reach of Westminster and accessible via several routes by public transport. It offers existing high footfall with approximately 1.5 million visits to IWM in 2014. IWM has proposed the building of a new wing to house a memorial and a learning centre and to link to newly expanded and upgraded Holocaust galleries in the main building. This would also benefit from being able to use the existing visitor facilities and essential infrastructure of the IWM building”.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

As a matter of interest, I do not know how many people in this Room have been to the Holocaust memorial galleries in the Imperial War Museum. They are incredibly instructive and similar to the ones outside Tel Aviv, whereas somewhere here would be about one-eighth of the size.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My noble friend makes a good point. I visited them almost two years ago, and they are extraordinary. The good thing about the museum is that it has physical artefacts, although not many—it has more Nazi uniforms than Jewish uniforms —but it has physical things to look at, whereas the Adjaye bunker will merely have videos showing on a screen that kids can look at on their mobile phones and iPads much more easily. Why build a museum if you have nothing physical to put in it?

The Holocaust Commission concluded on the Imperial War Museum by saying:

“It is the view of the Commission that this is a viable option, provided a way can be found to meet the Commission’s vision for a prominent and striking memorial”.


Then there was Potters Fields as an option—it is between Tower Bridge and City Hall—but I believe that it has been sold and is no longer available. On Millbank, this is what the commission said:

“David and Simon Reuben have been inspirational supporters of the Commission’s vision and have proposed a redevelopment of a large area of their Millbank complex. The location offers great potential for a prominent riverfront memorial, a short walk along the river from the Houses of Parliament. The campus could include a hidden garden, reflective pond, wall of remembrance and a learning centre, incorporating the existing cinema, doubling as a lecture theatre. The complex sits alongside Tate Britain which attracts 1.4 million visits a year. It also benefits from its own pier with river boat connections to Westminster. There may be the opportunity to work alongside Tate Britain to further develop the area to increase its appeal, helping to create a new cultural and educational quarter”.


That is what the official Holocaust Commission recommended on the location of a memorial and a learning centre nearby.