The Building Safety Regulator: Building a Better Regulator (Industry and Regulators Committee Report)

Baroness Harding of Winscombe Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow our erstwhile chair of the Industry and Regulators Committee. I begin by declaring my interest as a member of that committee.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, for her excellent chairing of both the committee as a whole and this inquiry; I have to be careful about how much I say we miss her because her successor, who is also doing an excellent job, is sitting just beside her. I shall try very hard not to repeat the noble Baroness’s excellent, clear and comprehensive introduction, which really set out the content of the committee’s report, with which I wholeheartedly agree. I also thank the clerk and the staff who worked so hard on producing this report and who continue to support the committee so well.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, just said, the Building Safety Regulator was created as a direct result of the tragedy of Grenfell Tower nine years ago. It was a clearly necessary and welcome step, and it demonstrated a clear regulatory gap that had absolutely tragic consequences. However, this time last year, when we as a committee started to investigate the performance of the Building Safety Regulator, it was also clear that the recommendations from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry had not been implemented very well at all.

That was causing material harm in and of itself. Remediation was nowhere near on track. Unsafe buildings remained unsafe—and, sadly, still remain so today. Tenants are stuck, unable to move on with their lives, and unable to do basic DIY. Frankly, they are still scared, too. So it is a thoroughly unsatisfactory situation in terms of remediation, as well as a real handbrake on development in a country that desperately needs new housing. That is something with which all of us on all sides agree, as does everyone else in the country—except, sadly, when it actually involves each of our local areas, but that is a different issue.

We had a regulator that was set up with the best possible intent and with genuine cross-party support but was simply failing in its job. In our political process, when we debate Select Committee reports, even though it takes quite a long time to get here, as the noble Baroness said, my experience is that, often, nothing much has changed. Even though it might be a year since it came out, we can pick up the report and carry on the debate as we have done. This is an unusual instance where that is not the case and where I need to congratulate the Government on acting. I wait, as I suspect others do, to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Roe, for a proper, up-to-the-minute update on the performance of the regulator, but, based on a basic measure of the number of emails I have received from organisations lobbying in this space, as compared to the number of emails I received this time last year when we initiated the inquiry, I have to conclude that an awful lot of the noise has died down, which suggests that there is real movement and improvement. That is something we should mark.

I will try hard in the rest of my speech not to go back over what the noble Baroness has just set out but to look forward. First, it is clear that a beginning has been made. It is hugely tempting—just as when the regulator was first set up—to assume that, once you have said it, it exists. An awful lot of good things have started, but they need to finish. I echo the noble Baroness’s question on when the Building Safety Regulator will meet its operational KPIs. It is definitely improving, but when it meet them? When will the Government bring forward the necessary changes in legislation to enable some of the high-volume, low-risk work to be moved out of the scope of the BSR so that it can focus on where it will really make a difference? When will we know what the path to create a single construction regulator will look like? That is where I would really like to focus: on the lessons learned. The Government undoubtedly embarked on creating a new, bigger regulator, because this is a tale of creating a regulator not going very well at all.

I have tried to pull out the big lessons that I would like us to learn. The first is that it was clear that culture change was, and still is, needed in this industry. However, the approach taken was to assume that that culture change can be created without the regulator engaging directly with the industry at all: “The industry can’t be trusted, so we’re not going to engage with it”. That does not create culture change. Culture change is created by grown-up, adult discussions with a regulator that retains its independence but has the courage and capability to talk to the industry; I believe that that is what the noble Lord, Lord Roe, and his team have started but, my goodness, we must not forget that. After you have seen the sort of regulatory failures that were in the construction industry, it is very easy to assume that the same mistakes will be repeated, but you need active engagement between the regulator and the industry to create change.

Secondly, the operational performance of the regulator really does matter. The moment in the inquiry that depressed me most was when we took evidence from the then leaders of the Building Safety Regulator. They told us not only that they were missing their operational KPIs by a very long way but that, even with their best endeavours, in several months’ time, they might get to missing them by only a few weeks. That is just not good enough. If we want regulators to perform, we in Parliament and the Government need to hold them to account for delivering their operational performance. This means that we need to think very carefully about what those KPIs are because, if they get so accustomed to missing them that it is okay to say in Parliament, “Never mind, we’ll get better but we won’t actually get there”, we have a real problem.

My third learning is that, if you are going to create a new regulator, you must resource it properly. The unintended consequences of great intentions that are poorly resourced are worse than not doing anything at all. If we are going to set up a single construction regulator, we have to do it properly and set targets with a line of sight to the resources so that we are capable of meeting them. I talk about a line of sight to the resources. It requires us to think about not just the money but the skills. One of the biggest problems that the BSR faced was the lack of a supply chain of people with the required skills to join its multidisciplinary teams. There is a role for the Government in thinking through the end-to-end supply chain of talent and capability to meet these standards.

Finally, there are unintended consequences of regulation. I am certain that, four or five years ago, when they were setting up the BSR, officials tried to work this through in advance, but, no matter how hard they tried, it quickly became obvious that the BSR was not fit for purpose. This means that you need a very rapid review after you have started the journey of building a new regulator. If we as a country are about to embark on setting up a single construction regulator, will the Government commit to a review within 12 months of it being set up?

I would like to think that the committee of which I am a proud member did an outstanding job in writing this report, but I do not think that it was actually that difficult: it was pretty obvious what was wrong, and most people already knew that. We could have got to grips with those changes earlier if we had had a government-led review within 12 months of the BSR beginning. Everyone would have said the same things, and we would have had a head start on trying to fix the problems. By definition, I do not know what the unintended consequences of setting up a single construction regulator will be, but I am sure that there will be some, so I urge the Government to set up that rapid review process so that they can catch things before they do too much harm.

I have nearly come to the end; I promised that I would not speak for too long. This might feel like minutiae but we are living in a world where getting the balance between enabling the market to solve some of our fundamental problems and protecting our citizens from dreadful harms, of which this is a great example, shows that the minutiae of setting up a regulator properly can make or break some big things in this country. Sadly, when the BSR was set up, we did not get that right. We must learn from those mistakes.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Baroness Harding of Winscombe Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, it is a somewhat daunting privilege to follow another passionate and erudite speech from the noble Lord, Lord Austin. I too congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on an outstanding maiden speech—the huge impact that she will make in this House is clear. I thank the Minister for leading this debate so candidly and emotionally. I declare my interest as a member of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation. I did not get a chance last week in ping-pong on the Holocaust Memorial Bill to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Pickles for the huge amount of work that he is putting into the Holocaust memorial. He and his co-chair, Ed Balls, are extraordinary to watch at work together. We are incredibly grateful for the work that my noble friend does.

It is an honour to speak in this debate after such emotional, personal, erudite speeches. I always feel a fraud when I talk about the Holocaust because I am not Jewish. I did not come to Holocaust education and commemoration because of family and community links; my journey to this debate was far more prosaic. In 2015, the then Prime Minister, my noble friend Lord Cameron, asked me to serve on the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation to bring my digital experience to the project’s objective not only of being a physical memorial and learning centre but of bringing the content and the experience to everyone in the country.

On the premise that when your Prime Minister asks you to serve you should say yes, I did, without really understanding what I was committing to, and so my personal Holocaust education journey began. I did not learn about the Holocaust at school. I went to a Catholic convent where the religious education consisted of rote learning the Bible. There was no Holocaust Memorial Day when I was growing up. I began to learn the true horror of the murder of over 6 million Jewish men, women and children only through my involvement with the Holocaust Memorial Foundation.

I too had the privilege of my life in meeting Manfred Goldberg and watching and experiencing his testimony on Testimony 360. If noble Lords have not had a chance to experience it yet, I recommend it, because he is there in front of you as if he was in front of you physically. We are so lucky that Manfred and the other survivors were so brave to give their testimony.

My journey has involved visiting various museums and learning centres around the world, but it has also involved deep personal introspection. First, I needed to learn the facts; as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has pointed out, it is hugely important that we understand the overall historical context. We need to feel empathy for the heartbreak that this most atrocious of human acts has brought. However, as many have said this afternoon, I know that I cannot possibly fully comprehend what that multigenerational trauma must feel like. I know enough to know that I simply do not know.

My learning journey has taken me to looking inwards and asking myself some very uncomfortable questions that others have alluded to this afternoon. Would I have turned a blind eye to antisemitism as it set in again in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s? Would I have put up the equivalent of the greengrocer’s notice, as Václav Havel sets out? Would I have opted for a quiet life or, worse still, would I have joined in?

Sadly, that learning journey continues, because today, as we bridge the generations, as Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow asks us to think about, we cannot ask those questions in the hypothetical; I am afraid that we have to ask them in the present tense. Holocaust Memorial Day and Holocaust education in the round forced me to ask myself, “Am I turning a blind eye?”—as the noble Lord, Lord Austin, has just challenged us. Am I standing up for my Jewish friends as they question whether the UK is safe for them to live in today? Am I going with the populist flow, or am I fighting antisemitism as only a small minority of people did in the run-up to the Second World War in Germany?

Holocaust Memorial Day calls on all of us never to forget, but as many have said today, that is only the beginning of the journey of learning. To truly bridge the generations, to learn from and not repeat the Holocaust, we have to learn to act, not just learn.

I fear, as many have said, that we are living in a time when people are scared. The world order is shifting. Mark Carney encapsulated it completely brilliantly last week. He set out eloquently how the rules-based world order that I have been lucky enough to grow up in is shattering. People across the world are scared; they are angry; they are looking for easy solutions. History teaches us that that is very fertile ground for antisemitism.

My involvement in the Holocaust Memorial Foundation has taught me, as others have said, that you win and lose this battle day in and day out. It requires all of us, in whatever role we play, in public and in private, to recognise how easy it is for populist rhetoric to turn into antisemitic actions. To prevent history repeating itself yet again, we all need to stand up and be counted today, on Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow and, I am afraid, every day.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Harding of Winscombe Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly endorse some of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, about building costs. He has much more experience in the world of construction than I do, but it is a matter that is both of interest to people and very important more generally.

We all know that since Covid there has been huge cost inflation in the building industry, partly because of the difficulty in assessing specialist forms of construction. This project falls into a category where generalised prediction is really not very helpful, for all the kinds of reasons that the noble Lord mentioned about the site and the nature of the processes involved in developing it.

When we think about this—it is a relevant consideration to us all—it is worth our while thinking about some well-known parliamentary projects. I think it was the case that the Scottish Parliament overshot 11 times its original budget. This—I am glad to be able to say—was worse than Portcullis House, which in 2000 was estimated to be £80 million over its original budget. That was only roughly half the overshot per square metre of the Scottish Parliament. We need to be very cognisant of the problems that are faced in the financial aspect of all this.

The Government assure us that they have been advised by experts, although, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, we have not seen any detail about all this, as the Government say that they cannot disclose commercially sensitive information into the public domain. Well, fair enough, but no doubt the Government were advised by similar—if not the same—experts on those other two projects, which seem to have been rather inaccurately valued at the outset.

Frankly, as far as costs go, I can see no reason to have any confidence in the amounts that we hear for this scheme, which, after all—as I think has been mentioned already—have gone up from £50 million in 2015 to £137 million now. Like the noble Lord, Lord King, the only thing that I am confident about is that if this project were to go ahead, that will turn out to be an underestimate.

The reality is that with projects of this kind, it is invariably a matter of “build now, pay up later”. It is not a fiscal rule; it is a rule of experience.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, as I have been for nearly a decade, and a resident of Westminster who walks my dog in the park.

I remind us all that this is Report, not Second Reading, and I will attempt to resist the huge temptation to remind noble Lords that the foundation considered more than 50 sites and that there is huge value in collocating the memorial with the learning centre—I could go on. Instead, I would just like to focus on this actual amendment.

We all know that putting the costs in nominal pounds in the Bill is a bad idea. It does not matter what the building is or what we are trying to do: putting costs in a Bill makes for bad legislation. Each of the speeches we have heard today has been a Second Reading speech, because this is really an amendment designed to wreck the memorial. I think we should be honest about that.

We should not put costs in the Bill. It is not surprising that the costs have escalated over the last decade—we have been living through a period of very high inflation. We have not put a spade in the ground precisely because of the planning process that has taken so long. This is not unique to the Holocaust memorial; sadly, it is a fact of life for every major building project in this country, which is a subject for a much broader debate.

It is not surprising that fundraising has not been started, because it cannot be until there is planning permission to build something. So I am afraid that the arguments being used in favour of this amendment are actually arguments against a Second Reading of the Bill, and therefore we should dismiss them.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I am also a member of the foundation. In fact, I am one of the co-chairs and trustees. I can confirm what the noble Baroness said: we cannot start fundraising until there is planning permission.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

The core of the problem is that the learning centre is too cramped, small and poky. I do not think it should be underground, but the real problem is that it is too small to tell such a huge story. What we have is a site that is too small for the Shoah but a project that is too big for the site. The learning centre is what really matters.

My credentials to speak are not nearly as good as others. My father was an Army doctor at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, but he never told us anything about it, so shocked was he by what he saw. I learned about his role there—I think he was the first Army doctor in—only after he was dead. I think that he would have said that what matters most of all is the education, and for that you really do need a lecture theatre and libraries as well as electronics and computer desks. A tourist exhibit down a hole in the gardens does not match up to what one is looking for from an education centre.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I will address directly the question that my noble friend posed on why collocation is important and why this is the right location. I would just like to dispel a couple of myths in this debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for bringing it, and I think it is a very important and measured debate that we are having. It is an honour to contribute to it at all.

As I said, I have been on the Holocaust Memorial Foundation for a decade. That is my only lived experience of this. But what I have learned in that decade from sitting alongside real experts in Holocaust education is that it is so important that we feel this, as well as learning facts. I remind noble Lords that the leaders of all Holocaust education organisations in this country believe that this is the right place, the right size and the right way to do this as a national memorial. They know a thousandfold or a millionfold more than I do. I have watched them at work over the course of the last decade and I think that we should respect them, as my noble friend Lord Howard said earlier.

It will not be a tribute to British greatness—quite the opposite. It will ask us to think very deeply about Britain’s role in the Holocaust. There are some things that we can proud of but lots that we cannot. I would argue that, tempting though it is to believe that this is like the Cenotaph and that we would walk past and feel the pain of the victims and their families, actually the most difficult part of Holocaust education is not to think, “Oh my God, it could be my family who were victims”. The most difficult part of Holocaust education is to ask yourself “Could you have been a perpetrator?” That is the lesson that could not be more important today.

The sad thing is that, with every week that I have been on the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, it has felt more important that, as a country, we ask people to think about that. Collocating the memorial and the learning centre in the shadow of the Mother of Parliaments, where so many people have fought for liberty and freedom, is why it is the right place at the right time.

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

My Lords, I was not going to rise in response to this amendment, but I was struck by contributions on all sides of the House from noble Lords that have drawn reference to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. In the course of this debate, I did some investigation to understand why that memorial is underground, and I reflected on the experience of the architect who created Yad Vashem. It is primarily underground, and that was done to create a powerful symbolic and emotional experience for visitors. I have had the opportunity to visit, and have done so on more than two dozen occasions. The architect, Moshe Safdie, designed the museum representing the rupture in Jewish history caused by the Holocaust. Visitors descend into the earth, moving through dark galleries that evoke the descent into one of history’s darkest chapters.

I share that reflection only because there is a good reason why Yad Vashem is underground. Noble Lords can read more about it, if they wish to understand more, but for me, having been there and visited, it is part of the experience and why I shall vote against this amendment if it goes to a vote.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Harding of Winscombe Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I am at a disadvantage because I have not seen the manuscript amendment, Amendment 4A, but I will make just a few comments. The noble Lord, Lord Herbert, has already suggested that the centre should include other aspects of the concentration camps in Germany—for example, the treatment of homosexuals. I would like this centre not to be restricted. The Jewish community has a very long history in our country and of making positive contributions to our society. It also has a history of persecutions over many years in our country. I would like this centre to have a wider base so that people can see and recognise the contributions that have been made by the Jewish community in this country over 2,000 years and learn about the occasions when it has been badly persecuted by the non-Jews.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Pickles, I have considerable sympathy with this amendment, which was so well set out by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame. I am pleased to find common ground with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that it is really important that we are honest about the responsibility that Britain bears, not just for good but, as she has set out, where we, as a country, made big mistakes. I also agree with her that it is hugely important that this is about a continuing story. However, I am worried about this amendment, because I fear that it could be a wedge for more legal action. What worries me even more is when my noble friend Lady Fleet gives a speech about rejecting the learning centre in totality in this specific amendment—which, as I say I have some sympathy with.

I therefore have a question for the Minister, who I know has been thinking deeply about this: what risk is there in this amendment? Those of us who have worked on this for a long time know that every legal avenue has been taken up to prevent this memorial being built. I may be seeing shadows, and the danger with the Bill is that we all see shadows from different sides, so could the Minister reassure us that, for all the good intentions behind the amendment, it would not create that wedge, which would create real challenges for a future curator of this learning centre, who may find themselves subject to lawfare which, unfortunately, appears to be more and more common in this land?

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry that we are getting a bit diverted from the main purpose of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, because I very strongly support it. What he and my noble friend Lord Goodman of Wycombe had to say got to the essence of this, and I think we are straying a bit. I would like us to get back to what is really important here.

At the heart of this is not shadows but what we have heard and read from the Minister in successive debates in this House and in Committee, and what we have heard from the Government’s advisers outside the Chamber to help inform us. It shows that there is no clear definition of what this learning centre is to be about. It is clear that other genocides have been referred to in the Government’s material, so let us not talk about shadows but about what is hard fact: unless we put this amendment into the Bill, it leaves things very wide open for different interpretations over time from those who are running the learning centre. That is the central point, and I strongly support the amendment.

I have stood where the Minister stands and had to answer many times on legislation, with points along the lines of, “Well, it is called the memorial learning centre and therefore that is what it is going to be. We do not need to put anything in the Bill”. But this is a case where there is so much confusion and it is such a critical issue that we need to be clear about it.

I must say that I am very sympathetic to what my noble friend Lord Herbert of South Downs had to say. I was at the Imperial War Museum this morning, because I thought it would be an important prelude to this debate to go back there. I know that its galleries very sensitively use an inclusive definition of the Holocaust, so I shall be very interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that topic, as well as what the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, has to say. I think it is right that the Holocaust can be and should be defined that way. Questions about further legal action or whether education really covers other events should not divert us this evening from the main purpose of this amendment, which is very necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My noble friend is entirely wrong. It is not on the UNESCO site; it is outside the UNESCO site. The inspector looked at this and came to the conclusion that this would enhance the site, and that any change to the site would be an improvement. I think the heritage people have also said that there would be no significant damage. I am grateful to my noble friend, because he has just emphasised what a good thing this is going to be.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I suppose it is a bit of a clue that if we have more groups of amendments than there are clauses in the Bill, we are going to feel a bit like we are going round in circles—and this group does feel a bit like we are going round in circles.

It may be the worst nightmare of the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, to have three Conservatives in a row say that they wholeheartedly agree with what she has said and how incredibly courageous she has been, but I would also like to associate myself with all her remarks. I also respect the integrity with which the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Deech, introduced this group by being very clear that she disapproves and disagrees with the concept of the learning centre.

We should have no illusions: this is a wrecking amendment. Having been on the Holocaust Memorial Foundation for 10 years, I know that we have looked at more than 50 locations and that if we go back to square one and look for new locations, we are kicking this can down the road for at least another decade. That would be a crying shame when the world really needs this now.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, we have listened carefully to all the debates focused on planning issues during the progress of the Bill, and we are clear that the planning process is the appropriate place for these issues to be addressed. Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, would take progress on the delivery of the landmark Holocaust memorial and learning centre backwards considerably. I have said already today that we are now 11 years on from the original commitment to deliver this. We are not rushing, and there have been ample opportunities to raise planning concerns. Indeed, a planning process will follow the passage of the Bill, and those concerns can also be addressed as part of that process.

It has been the policy of successive Conservative Governments that this project is well suited to the current planned site of Victoria Tower Gardens. A legislative requirement such as this would certainly prevent its timely delivery and risk the future of the project. We therefore cannot support the noble Baroness’s amendment.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Harding of Winscombe Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and as a resident of Westminster. I walk my dog in Victoria Tower Gardens and I played with my children in the playground. That is just as relevant an interest as my membership of the foundation.

I wholeheartedly support the Bill and the need for a national Holocaust memorial. It is shocking that, in 2024, we do not have one. I wholeheartedly support this memorial and learning centre in this location.

I fear I have quite a reputation for taking on impossible jobs but, 10 years ago, when my noble friend Lord Cameron asked me to join the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, I did not expect that, 10 years later, I would be speaking in favour of the Bill on the opposite side of so many dear friends who have spoken today. But I will set out a couple of reasons why.

A number of noble Lords said that location does not matter. Location does matter. Any woman who has ever entered an Oxbridge college and looked at all the portraits of men knows that who we memorialise and where we memorialise them matters. So the location we choose for a national Holocaust memorial really is important. The criteria that we used to discuss its location were: prominence and having a truly prominent place in our national fabric; footfall, where millions of people would genuinely come; good transport links; space for contemplation; and the ability to have a learning centre. The proposed location meets those criteria better than any of the 50 other locations that we assessed.

Much has been said with great passion, and no doubt real integrity, about the Imperial War Museum and its outstanding work on the history of the Holocaust. I just point my noble friends and colleagues to the fact that the chairman of the Imperial War Museum is one of my fellow members of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation. This is not being done against the Imperial War Museum; it is being done with it, complementary to it.

Contrary to others’ views, there is not near-unanimous objection to this memorial; it has been supported by every living Prime Minister and the leader of every faith. We have to be careful not to use hyperbole in this debate and recognise that we are at quite a different place from many other leaders in our society about this. Collocation is very important—collocating with the memorial and collocating with other symbols of the fight for freedom and against tyranny and intolerance.

I have gone on a learning journey in the last 10 years on Holocaust education. Although it is obviously important to empathise and try to understand what it might feel like to be a victim or the relatives of victims, the deeper and more important learning is to look into your soul and wonder how you would avoid being a perpetrator yourself. A learning centre that asks us to understand that Britain did not get this completely right at all, and that it would be very easy to walk down the path of intolerance—as we sadly see across the whole world today—is the learning that we need to prompt.

I know that I am a digital fanatic in this House, but much has been said in the debate about 45 minutes not being long enough. Actually, 45 minutes is a long time in which children can form a deep impression that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. We should not think that education is through only history; it is also through experience.

In the short time left to me, I will ask the Minister one question. I was brought on the Holocaust Memorial Foundation because of my digital expertise, in the expectation that there would be planning permission and a building going up fairly swiftly. We needed to think about how to make sure that this was not in just one location but that the learning experience was accessible to people wherever they lived in the four nations of the country. I just ask the Minister to confirm that this Government are similarly committed to making sure that, as we digitise the experience and ask people to look deep in their souls into how they will avoid falling into the trap of intolerance, we do that digitally as well and make sure that schools, particularly, are able to access those materials.

Unlike my noble friend who fears that the park will be destroyed, I look forward to a future when I will still be walking my dog there. Maybe, if I am really lucky, I will be playing with my grandchildren in the playground and telling them a tale about why it is important that we link the horrors of the Holocaust to the horrors of slavery and the fight for female emancipation, about how precious it is to hold on to our democracy and why, therefore, these are all collocated.

International Holocaust Memorial Day

Baroness Harding of Winscombe Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest as a member of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, on which it is a true privilege to serve. Like many others, I thank my noble friend Lord Pickles for securing this debate, and for his tireless leadership on Holocaust commemoration, memorial and education.

I make no apology for repeating—even though we each have so little time to speak today—that the theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is ordinary people. It is so important that we remember that it was ordinary people—as many noble Lords have brought to life so emotionally today—who were victims of the Holocaust, but that we also acknowledge that it was ordinary people who let the Holocaust happen and who themselves became perpetrators. We need to learn that we too could be those ordinary people: those victims, but also those bystanders and, God forbid, those perpetrators. Germany in the 1920s was arguably the most vibrant and open society in the world—the place artists, philosophers and scientists flocked to. Yet, 10 years later, that same society had turned on its own people and others in the most atrocious way. So, for me, Holocaust Memorial Day is about remembering and learning that it could be us, so that we ensure that we do not repeat the sins of the past.

I fear that there has never been a more important time to do this. I worry that historians and therefore also politicians underestimate the impact the Spanish flu had on society in the 1920s and 1930s. History tells us clearly that pandemics cause inflation and war. We see that today. But I fear that pandemics also scar society in a deep, visceral way that war on its own does not. A pandemic touches literally everyone in society for a prolonged period of time. It requires everyone to do something profoundly inhumane—to separate from family and friends and cut ourselves off from each other—while at the same time exacerbating existing inequalities and unfairness. As a result, societies emerge from pandemics angry and off-kilter, and this, combined with inflation, leads not just to conflicts with enemies but to huge societal unease: a breeding ground for the worst parts of human nature.

Unfortunately, we are living through one of those times. As the world comes out of Covid, we are seeing inflation; we are seeing war; we are seeing anger, frustration and fear. So I argue that it has never been more important that we remember and learn from the horrors of the Holocaust. We must remember that we cannot be passive bystanders and cannot turn a blind eye to evil, because even the most seemingly progressive societies can turn very sour very quickly. I do not believe that history must repeat itself. Humanity has shown time and again that we can and do learn from our mistakes, but that is not pre-ordained. History will only not repeat itself if we make sure we remember and learn, which is why Holocaust Memorial Day and Holocaust education are so important.