Towns Fund

Debate between Nigel Evans and Luke Hall

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for his constituency and I know he will champion any bids that come in, as he is absolutely right to do. I am of course always happy to speak to him about his representations.

The levelling-up fund will be open to all local areas and allocated competitively. We will prioritise bids that drive growth and regeneration in the places that need it most—those places that face particular local challenges in upgrading their infrastructure and those that have received less Government investment in recent years. We are also developing the UK shared prosperity fund, which will succeed EU structural funds and provide vital investment in local economies, free of the bureaucracy that thwarted European funding. The new fund will allow us to target funding better and support those who are most in need. The towns fund, the levelling-up fund and the UKSPF will be vital tools for levelling up in our country.

I thank all Members for their contributions to this debate. The Government are levelling up: we want everybody, wherever they live, to benefit from increased growth and prosperity, and the towns fund is helping us to achieve that. We are investing in the places that need it most and putting local communities in charge of the decisions that affect them. The towns fund marks just the start of that. There is, of course, much more investment to come and much more to do through the levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund. We want to see more towns such as Barrow, Torquay, Blackpool and Mansfield benefit so that everybody, wherever they live in our great country, can be part of a brighter and more prosperous future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Towns Fund.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

As the Adjournment debate is entirely physical, I thank the technicians and broadcasting unit for all their help in facilitating the work of Parliament this week. In order for Members to leave safely and to allow the sanitisation of the Dispatch Boxes, we will suspend for a brief moment before the Adjournment debate.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Debate between Nigel Evans and Luke Hall

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point and agree with him about the importance of that visit.

During the debate, Members have raised concerns about how antisemitism has taken hold in British institutions including universities, local government and our political parties. The UK’s Government was the first in the world to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which provides a guide on how antisemitism manifests itself in the 21st century. It is important that public bodies understand the kinds of behaviour that constitute anti- semitism today, and that is why we are calling on all local authorities and public bodies to adopt that definition.

But our institutions need to do more. We plan to bring forward legislation to ban universities and local councils from organising boycotts, sanctions and disinvestment against other countries—a measure that is often used to target Israel and can, in some instances, lead to antisemitic acts. We all have a role to play in rooting out antisemitism where we see it, and the Jewish community can be assured that this Government will stand shoulder to shoulder with them. I know that that message goes out from everybody in the Chamber today.

I would like to echo the many tributes that have been paid today, including to Karen Pollock, the CEO of the Holocaust Educational Trust, who has been a huge support to our Department and to me. Along with her team, she is an inspiration to us all. I would also like to pay tribute to the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and its chief executive, Olivia Marks-Woldman. The trust delivered the most successful Holocaust Memorial Day to date last year, with 10,000 local events across the country.

I would like to mention some of the other holocaust remembrance, education and survivor organisations that enrich the work we do, such as the Holocaust Survivors’ Centre in Hendon; the Wiener Holocaust Library; the Association of Jewish Refugees; the National Holocaust Centre in Newark, which we heard about this afternoon; the Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre at Huddersfield University; and University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education. I would like to pay tribute to the 21 survivors of the holocaust and subsequent genocides who were honoured in the Queen’s new year’s honours list. I also pay tribute to those survivors who shared their testimony but are no longer with us for the work they have done over many decades and wish their families long, fulfilling lives.

This has been a sobering debate. We have heard many troubling, disturbing and upsetting accounts. We have remembered some of the darkest moments of human history and heard about some of the darkest aspects of human nature. I wish to end by focusing not on the dark side of human nature but the light. At the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem is a garden called the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations. It was designed to commemorate non-Jews who risked their lives to rescue Jews during the holocaust.

At first, a tree was to be planted for every person identified as deserving of recognition, but as time went on, that became impossible for lack of space, and a plaque was put up in the garden instead. As of 1 January 2019, 27,362 people have been commemorated, and new names continue to be added. Some of the names were famous, and some were wealthy, but some were ordinary people living otherwise ordinary lives who demonstrated tremendous courage when the time for moral action came. Let us draw strength from their example and remember that, if the time comes when we are confronted by racism or discrimination, every one of us has the power to stand up against it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We remember.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day.