Monuments: Woolwich

(asked on 20th February 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what discussions his Department has had with the Royal Borough of Greenwich on a memorial to Drummer Lee Rigby.


Answered by
 Portrait
Stephen Williams
This question was answered on 5th March 2015

Her Majesty’s Government recognises that calls for a memorial have attracted broad support from the public. We would welcome a public memorial with the name of Drummer Lee Rigby to commemorate his death, and we see no reason why a memorial should not be put in place in Greenwich.

My rt. hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Eric Pickles), wrote a letter to the Royal Borough of Greenwich in June 2014 to urge the Council to work with the family of Lee Rigby to come up with a fitting memorial to him.

Such memorials are usually funded through public subscription; such a scheme would be likely to be eligible for government funding through the DCMS Memorial Grant Scheme which refunds the cost of VAT incurred for the construction, renovation and maintenance of memorials.

Britain has a long tradition of memorials to pay respect to the fallen, including memorials to mark acts of IRA terrorism on the British mainland. Our response to this murderous terrorist act in Greenwich should be no different.

We believe that such a memorial would not only commemorate the life of Drummer Rigby, but also pay tribute to the bravery of the Armed Forces, and send a strong signal about our ongoing commitment to British liberties and British values.

Reticulating Splines