Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab) [V]]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) on his very good contribution. It seems incomprehensible that so many people were complicit by their action or inaction in the uniquely horrific extermination of 6 million Jews, yet the holocaust is not an isolated genocide. Today, Uyghurs and Rohingyas are living through the nightmare of persecution, segregation, imprisonment and murder. Only by acting together, confronting prejudice and hate and being the light in the darkness can we conquer this evil.

I recently read my grandfather’s diaries, written when he escaped to Britain from Austria. Old and ill, he was interned in Huyton because he was deemed an enemy alien. His diaries reveal the trauma, the constant worry about relatives and the challenges faced by refugees. An eternal optimist, his diaries also describe the talent imprisoned with him—musicians, artists and academics—and that made me realise how many brilliant philosophers, musicians and scientists were lost because they were murdered by the Nazis.

As holocaust survivors inevitably die, it falls to us to keep the knowledge of what happened alive. My grandmother’s letter, written nine days before she was killed, in which she says twice, “Don’t forget me completely”, sealed my determination to fight racism and antisemitism wherever and whenever I meet it.

When I was first an MP, I was a Labour MP who happened to be Jewish, but when antisemitism moved to the mainstream of my party, I became a Jewish Labour MP—my identity interwoven with my work. The last five years have been difficult, long and lonely. I did enjoy support from the brave activists in the Jewish Labour Movement and from those colleagues who did call out antisemitism, and I will never forget the friendship and support between the four Jewish Labour women: Louise Ellman, Ruth Smeeth, Luciana Berger and myself. It was the women who stood together, worked together and simply would not give up. The tragedy is that they are no longer MPs. I salute their brave contribution, and I miss them.

A year has made a huge difference. By his actions, our party’s new leader is demonstrating zero tolerance of Jew hate, not just suspending and expelling individuals but transforming our culture and re-establishing trust with the Jewish community, who were hurt and genuinely frightened. As a party, we are finally focused on eliminating antisemitism, responding to the shameful findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission report and restoring our core values.

The history of the Jews and our knowledge of present day genocides tells us that if we ignore prejudice and hate, it can deepen and destroy. I came into politics to fight racism, so I will always do all I can to nurture the light and conquer the darkness.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and I hope that it is one of the points that is explored during the debate, but if he will forgive me, I would like to get on with my speech.

As Primo Levi said, monsters do exist in our world, but they are too few to be truly dangerous; more dangerous are those who are willing to follow their evil without asking questions. It is our job in this place to ensure that those questions are asked, and clearly we need to do more.

Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust has suggested that the recent rises in antisemitism are not just about attitudes to Jewish people but are the results of our society weakening as a whole. Extremist movements in the UK and abroad have given confidence to those that previously hid in the shadows. Antisemitism always flourishes when extremism takes hold, and our current times are no different. This is a problem that all British society must confront, and it demands leadership that is prepared to turn its back on inequality and division. Prejudice and hatred of Jewish people has no place whatsoever in society, and every one of us has a responsibility to ensure that it is never allowed to fester again.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I want to raise an issue around social media and the way that it has been exploited by, I am afraid, the hard left in what I would call almost holocaust weaponisation. The hard left are trying to close down any constructive debate that we can have on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are trying to fuel modern antisemitism and trying to silence many Jews in public life. I regularly receive images which, for example, have piles of dead bodies from Nazi death camps, and swastikas alongside Israeli flags. I am likened to SS guards, and I have seen online remarks calling for a final solution to my sort of politics. Does my hon. Friend agree that the internet remains an under-regulated and unchecked medium in which these attitudes can grow? Does she agree that we should be taking action both to regulate better and check better what is allowed on social media?

[Cat Smith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that incredibly valid and painful point with regard to social media companies. I pay tribute to her work on always challenging antisemitism wherever it raises its head, even when it can be very uncomfortable to do so. She raises topics around the way in which social media companies seem to be given a free rein and how it is so hard to remove these pieces of hate from many platforms. That is worthy of a debate in this House in its own right as a single issue.

Members of the Jewish community are on the receiving end of this hate, but today’s debate is a chance for us to acknowledge that they cannot be left to tackle this problem alone. We need to be vigilant, because the events that led to the holocaust appeared, not as a single grotesque event, but through the normalisation and mainstreaming of hatred, inequality and intolerance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady—I would say my hon. Friend—who has been incredibly brave in calling out antisemitism herself, as well as the subject of antisemitism. I pay tribute to her work as vice-chair of our APPG and entirely agree with her. There might be an opportunity to address some of this through the online harms Bill, but it is time that we updated our electoral law to ensure that tougher measures are in place. It has been a very long time since there was a full root-and-branch review of this country’s electoral law, and we should absolutely carry that out.

I want to move on from the party political problems by just saying that I agree entirely with the Jewish Labour Movement that it is wholly inappropriate that somebody has been nominated by the Labour party—it was, at least, reported this weekend that they had been nominated—to serve in the House of Lords when they are at the centre of allegations of covering up antisemitism and intervening in antisemitism inquiries within that party. I know that many Labour Members share that view, principally because the Labour party has a proud history of fighting all forms of racism.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his newly acquired position as chair of the APPG and look forward to working with him on it. I share his feelings about the nomination to the House of Lords. Does he agree that we will totally abolish antisemitism from the mainstream of all political parties only if the collective leadership of those parties really shows a zero-tolerance approach in not just their words but their actions?

[Andrew Percy]

I cannot disagree with a word that the right hon. Lady says. As she has powerfully outlined in previous debates, she has been on the receiving end of vile antisemitic abuse. This does come from the leadership down. Leadership is needed from all of us, but there should be no doubt about the position of our political leaders.

That is why I agree with the Minister’s comments and urge colleagues to sign up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition. The APPG sat in Portcullis House for a very long time yesterday to encourage colleagues to sign up. Many still have not done so, but I ask them please to sign up to the IHRA definition, because that is one way in which all of us can demonstrate leadership and show our commitment to zero tolerance of antisemitism.

Of course, antisemitism and antisemitic tropes were the beating heart of Nazism, yet in the past few years there has been a resurgence of holocaust denial, and the holocaust has been distorted and denigrated. Sadly, the context is worsening, particularly online. An American study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that fake news is 70% more likely to be shared on social media than a true story. The Antisemitism Policy Trust and the Community Security Trust have found that the number of searches for “holocaust hoax” on Holocaust Memorial Day is 30% above the average for the rest of the year. If someone types the words “Jew joke” into Google, they will find some of the most shocking and disgusting antisemitic, holocaust-minimising and racist bile they can find. This all occurs in an online space that impacts on our real world, and a particular concern at the moment is seen in the use of gaming, with gamers targeted as a route into antisemitism. That surprised me, but perhaps it does make sense, and we have to do a lot about that.

As the Institute for Jewish Policy Research has shown, the chances are that while only 2.5% of the public may be what we would understand as antisemites, one antisemitic opinion is likely to be held by some 30% of the public. Therefore, the chances of encountering antisemitism in this country are relatively high. That is not to say that 30% of people in this country are antisemitic—of course not—but it is certainly the case that we hear casual things such as, “But of course the Jews do seem to be very wealthy.” The people who say such things would not consider themselves antisemitic, but they will use such a trope. They casually throw it in without, as I say, considering themselves to be antisemitic.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I start by picking up where the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) left off: like her, I have been to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, many times over the past few years. It has been a very moving experience, which I shall never forget, no matter how many times I go back. Two things stand out in my memory. The first is the objectivity of the displays—they do not try to dress up the holocaust; they explain it as it is. The second is the timeline there—it illustrates not just what happened when the second world war started, but the timeline before that and the sort of words and feelings that started the whole process that led to the holocaust. The purpose of Yad Vashem is a noble one: to keep alive the memory of what happened and to remember the individuals who died and were murdered in the holocaust. In other words, it links history and memory.

We have also mentioned that this is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I have been to Auschwitz on a number of occasions, too, and its grim state provides a very good reminder of the terrible atrocities that took place there. For me, however, the most important concentration camp that I have been to is outside Lublin, in eastern Poland. Why was it so memorable? Because when I went there on a glorious spring day, there were lots of flowers around in the concentration camp. Those flowers were growing because they were built on the bodies of people who had been cremated and murdered in that concentration camp. It was an irony that we still had the glory and beauty of those flowers against such a terrible atrocity.

I am a trustee of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, which is responsible for running the event, and we have heard that this year, it has a theme—“stand together”. The trust asked us to identify an individual that we could mention during the debate, but I am not going to do that. Instead, I am going to put on this yarmulke in order to remember the 6 million Jews who were killed during the second world war. It is important that we do that, but it is important, too, that we recognise that other genocides have occurred, apart from the holocaust. There have been genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful statement and I congratulate him on it. Today is the day when the issue of the Rohingya Muslims and whether there is a genocide is being considered by the International Court of Justice. It is sobering thought that that judgment is happening on the day that we are debating the holocaust. Does he agree that lessons are not always learnt? I hope that the ICJ comes to a sensible judgment and that that influences what happens in Myanmar and the treatment of the Rohingya Muslims.

[John Howell]

I completely agree. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust uses the definition that genocides are those that have been declared by the United Nations, so the quicker that that moves on—so we can see what happened there—and the judgment is made, the sooner we can include Burma in the list of places where genocides have occurred.

In addition to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it is also the 25th anniversary of the genocide in Bosnia, and we should remember that as we go through Holocaust Memorial Day. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust sets out to bring together thousands of people across the UK, who participate in different programmes, many of which are originated by communities and schools. They all participate in remembering, and tens of thousands of activities take place during the day. It also organises the UK ceremony that takes place next week, to which I hope a number of Members here have been invited, because it is a great thing to do. Sadly, I will be away at the Council of Europe, where I expect we will have our memorial to those who were killed in the concentration camp near Strasbourg, which we went to see last year.

Finally, the words of Sir Nicholas Winton, who rescued almost 700 children from Nazi-occupied Europe, should be taken to heart when we think back to the holocaust:

“Don’t be content in your life just to do no wrong, be prepared every day to try and do some good.”

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 1 Report.

It is now over two and a half years since the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, and I believe I speak for all Members of this House when I say that we once again offer the 72 victims, the bereaved, the survivors and everyone affected our profound condolences. They remain in our thoughts and prayers. They seek answers, accountability, justice and action to ensure that this terrible tragedy is never repeated. That is why yesterday I set out our immediate plans to improve building safety in this country. Getting this right is a priority for this new Government and the Prime Minister, and it is something that I will personally be taking forward at pace.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so early in his speech. He refers to the statement he made yesterday. I welcome the decision in that statement to consult on ensuring that building regulations are relevant to buildings of a lower height, but he talked about that being relevant to new buildings and not to existing buildings. He will know from the fire at Samuel Garside House in my constituency that that was an existing building, and that it went up in just six minutes. If the fire had happened in the middle of night, it could have led to huge loss of life. Fortunately it did not, but I ask him to consider whether the regulations should not also be relevant to existing buildings, as well as to new buildings of a lower height.

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come to that issue in a moment. The right hon. Lady and I have worked together on this and she has been a strong advocate for her constituents after the fire in Barking.

The announcement we made yesterday goes further. It says that we will be working with experts to develop a far more sophisticated measure of safety in buildings than simply the crude one of height alone that has existed for decades in this country. Once we have arrived at that, it will inform all the actions that building owners will have to take. It is the responsibility of building owners to take a view of building safety through an independent assessment of risk in that building that bears in mind all the characteristics of the building, whether it be the height, the residents in the building, the fire safety system or—as with the fire in Barking—balconies and other materials that are used on the building.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady makes several important points. Much of the work of the social housing White Paper will apply to private leaseholders, and of course we have a separate stream of work on reforming leasehold. We have already said we will shortly publish a draft Bill on leasehold reform, and we await the further reports from the Law Commission and then in time from the Competition and Markets Authority on leasehold, which will inform our work and I hope lead to significant legislation to reform the leasehold market later in this Parliament.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again. As he will remember, one of the issues that arose from the fire in Barking was the fact that none of the leaseholders had household insurance, so when they lost all the contents of their homes or the contents were damaged they had no recourse to insurance to replace them. Is he giving any consideration, in any of these reforms, to introducing a system whereby not only is building insurance imposed on leaseholders—presumably in social housing that would be covered by the local authorities—but victims of fires do not end up losing all their belongings and having no money with which to replace them? These are people on the edge who really are finding it hard to manage.

[Robert Jenrick]

I did look into that issue when the right hon. Lady raised it after the fire in Barking. I am acutely aware of the number of individuals who do not have household insurance—that was brought home to me after the floods in Doncaster last year, when we encountered many households that did not have it. I do not think that it is for the state to intervene—I am not sure how practical it would be for household insurance to be provided centrally, regardless of the value of the contents of individuals’ homes—but I am happy to think again, and to speak to the right hon. Lady if that would be helpful.

My Department continues to hold regular meetings with the crucial stakeholders, including Grenfell United, to discuss our emerging proposals, and to ensure that the reform we are introducing is what is needed to deliver meaningful change. I am grateful for their engagement and commitment. It was at their request that we did not rush to publish the social housing White Paper, but are continuing to work with them to ensure that they will—I hope—be able to support it in due course. I will report back to the House shortly with our conclusions.

We know that for the families, the relatives and the survivors, change cannot come quickly enough, and we know that there is still a huge amount to do. We have heard that already, in the opening of this debate. The recent fire in Barking and the fire in Bolton at the end of last year only serve to remind us of the urgency with which we must act, and will continue to guide our work.

Phase 1 of the inquiry was just the first part of a complex process to uncover the truth of what happened. Next week, phase 2 hearings will begin as the work of the inquiry continues. Those hearings will help us to understand how the building was so dangerously exposed to the risk of fire. I have no doubt that Sir Martin will leave no stone unturned in his work. There will be tough questions for those involved in the refurbishment of the tower, and for the manufacturers of the materials used; but there will also be questions for central and local government to respond to, and I will support the work of the inquiry in any way I can.

We also continue to work alongside others to bring about changes that will protect the public, and I will ensure that further updates on the steps taken to implement the chairman’s recommendations are shared with the House at the earliest opportunity.