Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Sassoon Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

Hold on. Let me be really clear about this. Of course I am not suggesting that—not for one moment. What I said, very specifically—the noble Lord should concede this—was about the historian responsible for the content of the memorial. I was speaking about that specifically and not about anybody else’s knowledge of the history of the Holocaust. I would never do that. I would not presume to do that—certainly not to the noble Lord; I really would not.

I offer this right now: let us ask that historian to come back to Parliament before our next session. I hope that everybody here who is concerned about this matter will attend. They can sit down with him, listen to his assurances, and look at the plans and the content in detail.

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Austin, says that he wants to move things on in this Committee; I completely agree with him. So why does not he let the Minister answer the direct question about the assurances—or non-assurances—he gave about the content, rather than wasting our time with talk about historians, very interesting though it is? I attended an online seminar, and it is nonsense to say that no other noble Lords listened to what the historian had to propose. Instead of the noble Lord speaking for the Government, it would be interesting if, in due course, we moved on and let the Minister answer the charge that has been made by my noble friend Lord Blencathra and others.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord seems to have no objection to people making lengthy speeches on all sorts of points and tabling a million amendments that support his argument, but he objects now. This is a debate: people make points and others are allowed to respond to them. That is how it works. I offer the noble Lord this: if he can get everybody else not to make lengthy, repetitive speeches on spurious points, I will be very happy not to respond to them.

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[Baroness Fleet (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 16 in the name of my noble friend Lord Strathcarron. I, too, am greatly in favour of a new Holocaust memorial in London—we all are—but the proposed memorial, designed by the discredited architect David Adjaye, is totally inappropriate. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, delivered, in her inimitable way, a brilliant analysis of the once-fashionable David Adjaye. As the former chairman of Arts Council England, London, I would like to make a few observations.

Since 2015, I have taken an interest in the process to select a design and location for the Holocaust memorial. It was clear early on that this proposal would run into trouble, as indeed it has. A long process involving an international competition with 92 entries from all over the world by no means guarantees a good outcome. The then new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced in October 2017 that the memorial’s location next to the Houses of Parliament was,

“designed to ask questions about the role of society and its institutions in preventing hatred”.

A noble aim, I am sure, but it was also clear that we were heading for trouble because of the highly contentious issue of including other genocides, which has been hotly debated today. Surely the purposes of the project are to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to provide an educational learning centre about the Nazi’s genocide of the Jews. Can the Minister clarify once again why and when other genocides were added to the memorial’s purpose?

Then we come to the design of the memorial. Call it what you will—a giant toast-rack or a ribcage—but it is the wrong design. It is a recycled, previously rejected design in the wrong place. Members of the design jury, a number of whom I know quite well, might normally be considered sensible and sensitive. However, there is nothing sensible and sensitive about the Adjaye design with its disproportionate scale. UNESCO has declared that it will compromise a world heritage site.

In the design, I am influenced by the dignity of memorials that I have seen across Europe and America while travelling with my husband, whose grandfather died in Auschwitz. The design of the memorial in Berlin, for example, is inspired and inspiring. It is very sombre; the slabs of grey concrete tell a powerful story. It is a place of understanding and contemplation. I remember that, on the day that I visited, drops of rain fell, like tears, on the grey slabs. It was a memorable and deeply moving experience.

The memorial proposed for London, however, is overbearing, with its showy 23 looming bronze fins. Why 23? The explanation will be puzzling to almost everyone who sees it, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra said. Did the design jury actually visit the site? They would surely have seen how the chosen design would dwarf the other memorials in Victoria Tower Gardens, in particular the important memorial to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton in recognition of his work to abolish slavery. The design by the Victorian architect Samuel Sanders Teulon and Buxton’s own son, Charles, is quite delicate and modest, as Buxton himself was.

My ancestor Sir John Bowring, MP for Bolton, was a colleague and contemporary of Sir Thomas. Bowring was a strong opponent of slavery, being an early member of the Anti-Slavery Society founded in 1823. An economist, Unitarian and polyglot, I can only imagine what Sir John’s view would have been of the giant toast-rack. My half-brother is a Buxton, and I share his family’s disappointment that those remembered for campaigning against slavery will be minimised by this thoroughly inappropriate Holocaust memorial.

It is not just residents, disparagingly described in the past as self-interested, who are opposed to this memorial. Jewish people are not universally at one with the Chief Rabbi who supports it. I am not Jewish, but I know that a great many members of the Jewish community, including the remarkable Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch—mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech—are opposed to it. This memorial really is the wrong design in the wrong place.

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

My Lords, I also support Amendment 16, or something like it. This is a very important amendment: it takes us right back to the core of the Bill, which is really about the nature of an appropriate memorial in this specially protected location for this unique purpose. I took a break during the afternoon to go out into the gardens, and it was interesting to observe that some things will remain unchanged, whatever is built there: the extraordinary smell and the scent of the hyacinths at the north end of the gardens will remain unchanged—and might be enhanced, as we have heard.

There are some things that will not remain unchanged, but where compromise is appropriate and will certainly be necessary. I saw young children from a local nursery in the playground this afternoon. The Minister is looking weary, but I am afraid I am going to detain him, as this is important—he looks at his officials as if to say: “What do I say? What do I think?” In my view, this goes to the heart of the matter—where do we need to be concerned and what should the Bill address? We have to recognise that, whatever happens, the playground will be a noisier place, with people all around it. For the nursery assistants who were wheeling these children in this afternoon, it will be different, but that is the sort of thing which I believe is an appropriate and necessary compromise.

There are other things that, with good will—which seems to be a bit lacking today and over the past couple of weeks—and good sense, are clearly capable of being sorted out, including security, safety and other issues. I have had the privilege of standing where the Minister is today. For a lot of these debates or issues, people say, “This needs to be on the face of the Bill”, and the Government often, perfectly reasonably, say, “Oh, we’re going to do it, so we don’t need it on the face of the Bill”. There has been a certain amount of that, but these are important areas.

We are discussing something that will be irrevocably changed: the nature of the world heritage site if this proposal goes ahead. I know that the Minister, in response, will say that we will talk about UNESCO next week, as he said to me last week. However, my point is that UNESCO, a convention to which the UK is a signatory, places obligations—albeit not legal ones—on the UK. It is difficult to talk about this amendment without referencing the concerns of UNESCO. If the Minister wants to respond on UNESCO today—he does not look as though he is likely to—it would be welcome. I note that there are other UN conventions to which the UK is a signatory, which do not themselves impose legal obligations, for which this Government seem to be bending over backwards to follow UN rulings, decisions and advice.

It is also worth putting on the record—because people do read these proceedings—that what I have heard today is not about nimbyism; some extremely unfair accusations have been made. Yes, the proceedings may be going on a bit long, but a lot of what we have heard today, and in previous sessions in Committee, are examples of your Lordships at their best: bringing relevant expertise to a thorny, difficult problem. Like many, I live under the flight path to Heathrow. I am a proponent—I always have been in, both in government as an official and since I left government—of more runway capacity at Heathrow. The accusation that a lot of us are coming at this as nimbys is very unfair.

It is also worth restating—because earlier, one Member of the Committee completely mischaracterised the nature of hybrid Bills—that, for hybrid Bills, the House of Lords is obliged to allow for private interests to be stated. That was dealt with admirably by the Committee looking at the Bill. I note that the House of Lords, between 1909 and 1969, considered and passed four Dudley Corporation Bills; they were hybrid Bills. I suspect those Members of the House of Lords, if they were here when the Dudley Corporation Bills were going through, would have been outraged if the interests of Members with an interest in Dudley had not been given a hearing. That is important to recognise. Now that we are speaking in the normal way, as Members of the House of Lords, it seems to me hardly surprising, given the proximity of the subject matter of this Bill and the nature of what is being proposed, that a significant number of Members of the House have important things to say about it, just as we would on any other topic where we thought we had something to bring to the party.

Having said that, it is important to go straight back to the planning question. I will not make artistic judgments, as some of my noble friends have, and I will not talk about architects. I happen to think that the Vienna memorial by a British sculptor, which was referenced earlier, is very moving; it is right in the centre of the city in Judenplatz. However, that just demonstrates that there are all sorts of views on artistic matters, and I do not believe that the Committee should spend time thinking about artistic matters. What we should be thinking about is what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, said. He reminded us that this is a planning Bill. Clause 2 is all about sweeping away particular planning restrictions, so it is no good the Minister keeping on saying, “Well, it is all to be dealt with in the planning process”.

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[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, swiftly moving on, it is not realistic to suppose that a new design competition would produce a design that pleases everyone. Let me be absolutely clear: I have featured in a BBC housebuilding documentary programme and I was most suspicious of design but, by the end of the 14 months when I was running for the European Parliament, I realised the impact and the power of design. Everyone has different tastes and different suspicions of design; everyone has different views. Differences of view about the artistic merits of designs are nothing new. It is quite proper that there should be an open debate about the design of new memorials, indeed of all new public buildings.

The design that is proposed for the UK national Holocaust memorial and learning centre is the product of extensive consultation, a design competition that attracted many of the best architects in the world and a judging process that relied on the deep expertise of a talented and experienced panel. Are we simply to set all that aside and require the process to be repeated? It is right, of course, that a decision to proceed with construction of the memorial and learning centre should be taken only after all relevant voices have been heard.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, referred to the press reports in 2023 concerning Sir David Adjaye. Following allegations made in those reports, Adjaye Associates has said that Sir David will not be involved in the UK Holocaust memorial project until the matters raised have been addressed.

I am not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, was in her place when I made the following point. The learning centre will look at subsequent genocides through the lens of the Holocaust. The content of the learning centre is being developed by the leading international curator, Yehudit Shendar, formerly of Yad Vashem. The focus is to ensure that the content is robust and credible and reflects the current state of historical investigation into, and interpretation of, the Holocaust. The exhibition will confront the immense human calamity caused by the destruction of Jewish communities and other groups, and the exhibition will also examine the Holocaust through British perspectives.

The noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, said that he knows nothing wiser. I was very clear in an earlier group about the next steps of the process around planning options, subject to the passage of the Bill. I made it very clear last week—and I will say it again after the confirmation of the previous group—that the designated planning Minister, Minister McMahon, will take an approach of his choosing, whether that will be a consensus round- table meeting, written responses or a public inquiry. It is for the designated Minister to decide which approach to the planning process he will take. On his very important focus on world heritage sites, I would not do justice to the noble Lord’s passion in this area if I swiftly gave the answer now, but I will come back to him, and go through this in detail, in the next group.

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

I appreciate that the Minister does not want to repeat multiple times his definitive words on the world heritage site, and I fully accept that. On the planning, what he has just said—which I have heard him say before—seems to give absolutely no comfort about the future planning, because he says that it is entirely for the Minister. Does he accept that it would be technically possible for the Government to put amendments to the Bill that would guide the future planning process? At the moment, the Government are washing their hands of it. Would it be possible for the Government, or anybody else, to come forward with amendments to the Bill to direct in some way the shape of the future planning process, to give the Committee more comfort about what will happen, rather than just being told that it might be something or nothing?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, let me make it clear: it is for the designated Minister to decide the process and make the decision. If it means that, as normal planning decisions are made, there might be some conditions as part of the planning process, as is normal—for example, you cannot start building without consultation and cannot open the building without letting Westminster City Council know about security—then that is up to the Minister. I know other examples; I have just given one there. The process is totally detached from here and from me bringing the Bill forward as a supporter of it.

Moving towards concluding remarks, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, suggested that the memorial proposed for Victoria Tower Gardens is in some way a copy of a proposal that the architect submitted for a Holocaust memorial in Ottawa in 2014. I find this a rather strange criticism. When we consider the Buxton memorial, for example, are we to think less of its design because the architect used a similar Gothic revival style somewhere else? Should we be disappointed with “The Burghers of Calais” simply because it is one of 12 casts of the same sculpture? The topic was, of course, addressed at the planning inquiry, where the late Asa Bruno was able to point out that, while sharing a basic common architectural motif, the two proposals differ greatly in scale, material, form and proposed visitor experience, so that was clear from the public inquiry.