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

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Statement by Baroness Scott of Bybrook on 28 June forecasting the cost for completion of the proposed Holocaust Memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens as £138.8 million (HLWS875), what estimate they have made of the cost at the likely date of completion, whether they will require the charitable contribution to rise to meet the original one-third of the cost, what undertakings they have received so far about charitable contributions, and what plans they have for continuing to fund Holocaust education.

Our estimate of costs at the likely date of completion and our current estimate of charitable donations are set out in the Written Ministerial Statement.

The Government is committed to continuing to support and fund Holocaust education. The Department for Education (DfE) has provided over £5.9 million since 2021 to support the Holocaust Educational Trust with their Lessons from Auschwitz programme, with additional funding of £500,000 from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to extend the programme to students in Higher Education; in the same period DfE has provided £1.5 million to the UCL Institute of Education’s Centre for Holocaust Education.

In addition DLUHC has supported a broad range of activities across the country aimed at increasing understanding of the Holocaust and its impact on different communities. Recent projects include:

• Memorial Gestures – temporary and travelling exhibitions arranged by the Holocaust Centre in Huddersfield, including a programme for schools (£52,500)
• Kitchener Transport – a short film made by Learning from the Righteous used as an educational resource (£40,000)
• Roots of antisemitism in England – exhibition organised by National Holocaust Centre, Nottinghamshire (£138,000)
• Romani arts­ – creating educational materials about the destruction of Roma and Sinti communities (£50,000)
• Vision Schools – work with University of the West of Scotland to engage students in exploring the contemporary relevance of the Holocaust (£50,000).