Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Russell of Liverpool]

2: Clause 2, page 1, line 17, leave out “over, under or otherwise in relation to” and insert “or over”
Member’s explanatory statement
No Learning Centre should be constructed underground in order that a Learning Centre be constructed of adequate size in line with the recommendation of the 2015 Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission Report and in order to avoid detriment to Victoria Tower Gardens.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I should start by explaining why I am speaking at all on this subject. The reason is a personal one. My grandfather, the previous Lord Russell of Liverpool, fought in and survived the First World War. He was obviously a very brave man: he won the Military Cross not once, not twice, but three times. He had a Military Cross with two bars, which made him a fairly formidable individual. He subsequently became a lawyer, and he joined the Judge Advocate-General’s office of the Army. Between 1946 and 1951, he and his team were responsible for preparing and overseeing the war crimes trials throughout that period in the British occupied zone of Germany.

As noble Lords may imagine, what he and his team saw, read and experienced was pretty searing. They visited the camps, talked to the survivors and interviewed the perpetrators. That must have been a pretty unpleasant experience. The experience was strong enough that, in 1952, only seven years after the cessation of hostilities, my grandfather, who was still in the Judge Advocate-General’s department—he was the deputy by then—became increasingly disturbed to hear that a generation of young Germans going through schools was starting to emerge who were already beginning Holocaust denial. The rumour was that this was propaganda put out by the Americans, that they had exaggerated the situation and were trying to keep Germany under control.

My grandfather was sufficiently worried about this that he decided, because he had all the material which his team had collected, that somebody needed to go on the record and write a factual account of what happened—the beginnings of proper Holocaust education, if you like. He wrote the book and, as he was still an employee of the Army, he sent it to the authorities, because he needed to get permission to publish it. He was not given permission. The reason given at that time—the early 1950s—was that, with the Marshall plan’s money coming in and the early stirrings of the European Coal and Steel Community, which ultimately became the European Union, there was a feeling that one should not rake over the painful coals of the recent past too much and that it was important to try to move on.

My grandfather disagreed with that, so he resigned. I hope he thanked the Army for that, because it resulted in such a huge amount of publicity that his book immediately became a bestseller. It is called The Scourge of the Swastika, and I am ashamed to say it is still in print. It is a factual, educational account of part of what happened during the Holocaust. That is a personal reason for why I am speaking on this amendment, which is to do with the educational part of the national Holocaust memorial.

We are on Report. I am conscious that, like me, my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, as a fellow Deputy Speaker, finds one of the less enjoyable parts of the privilege of being a Deputy Speaker to be sitting on the Woolsack listening to Second Reading speeches—so I do not intend to indulge in that. Indeed, I hope this group will not take very long, because the point I will try to make to your Lordships is about the difference between what was originally hoped and envisaged for what the learning centre would be and would be capable of delivering, and the increasingly likely reality if we proceed in the way that it is currently put together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

This is Report stage, so the noble Lord can intervene if it is on a point of fact.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

What I said was that it was the opinion of the American museum and of Auschwitz and Yad Vashem that this would be the most visited.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord; I will still use that as evidence. Many of your Lordships may have seen the model that was in the Royal Gallery last week. If noble Lords can envisage more than 1.5 million people being able to go through the memorial and learning centre on an annualised basis, they are much better at logistics than I am because I find that hard to envisage.

I want to point out briefly what the Levine institute, the education centre at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, is doing and has done brilliantly, and think about comparing that with what one might be able to do with the learning centre as currently designed. The Levine institute has educated more than 272,000 professionals during the intervening years. I am not talking about children going through: I am talking about education where it matters. It has educated almost 70,000 military professionals, nearly 7,000 civil servants and 27,500 federal and state legal professionals. It has also conducted programmes on this in 45 states, and in Canada and Puerto Rico. It has delivered educational programmes to almost 170 federal, state and local law-enforcement officials across the United States. As far as I am concerned, that is that is real education. That is not simply trying to get to young people, but going to a whole variety of areas in society where people often have to make judgments about antisemitic or racial behaviour. For me, that is what education is, and really should be, about.

I just ask your Lordships to reflect on the contrast between what could be possible with a world-class learning centre, and what is going to be practical to deliver in the learning centre as envisaged. I beg to move.

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said on this amendment. He made many important points in moving it. I particularly identify with the points he made about lifelong learning and education being not just for children, but for all of us. Whatever our age, we should go on learning more about and understanding better what has happened in our world, including the horrors of the Holocaust.

In supporting the noble Lord, I am asking for a compromise. It should be agreed to go ahead with a memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens, but to move away from building a learning centre there and to find a more appropriate location for it. I raised this in Committee, and I was extremely disappointed by the Minister’s reply as he rejected this suggestion. I am now asking him to think again. Governments do need to think again when confronted with sincere and well thought-out opposition that does not totally dismiss a project. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, that there is nothing wrecking about this. I do not think there was about the previous amendment, and there certainly is not about this one. It is about trying to do something better, but going ahead with many of the objectives of the project.

This amendment tries to find a way through what most of the proponents of this scheme want, removing only that aspect of the scheme that is so controversial. In a spirit of compromise, also called for by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, it accepts that the proponents of the project want the Holocaust to be remembered in a space close to Parliament. Personally, I am a bit unconvinced of the necessity of placing it bang outside the Palace of Westminster, and I am not quite sure what it is meant to convey. However, I accept that people feel passionately that this is the right location for the memorial, and I believe that it should go ahead.

It should be a small, beautifully designed monument, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said, above the ground and at a reasonable cost—probably a lot less than the cost of a learning centre. It could be built in Victoria Tower Gardens quite quickly. That would remove the controversy that surrounds the present plan, including the security problems; the swamping of a small heritage park; the restrictions on current users of the park, including small children; the risk of flooding and fire; and inadequate space for an exhibition from which visitors can both learn and be inspired—inspiration is very important here. I agree with the Minister that it should not be done on the cheap. In fact, the learning centre will cost quite a lot. But the proposal for including a learning centre as part of the memorial, in four small rooms below ground with no natural light and no exhibits, just a digital display, is wholly misconceived.

As a former chair of the Royal Institute of British Architects Trust, I am, I am afraid, very puzzled as to why a distinguished group of judges selected this design. As others have said, the building is too big for this small park and too small to accommodate a learning centre of any quality. The exhibition should fully explore the historical background to antisemitism in Europe and the persecution of Jewish populations in a number of countries, followed by this persecution becoming far more extreme in Nazi Germany and in the countries the Nazis conquered. There needs to be full coverage of the ghettos and the restrictions they entailed, then of the establishment of concentration camps, the transportation of Jews to them in the most cruel conditions, the forced labour and the torture of those imprisoned, and the final solution, as the Nazis described it, in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and elsewhere. It would need to cover what was known about the existence of the camps in Germany and elsewhere, as well as the eventual liberation of those camps and what happened to the survivors, including a wide range of touching and important individual stories. There needs to be enough space to reflect on how to prevent the horrors of the Holocaust ever happening in Europe again.

Racism in all its forms is abhorrent. Antisemitism is based on extreme intolerance, vicious stereotyping and ignorance. What is proposed for the learning centre is a huge lost opportunity and, as Sir Richard Evans, Britain’s most distinguished historian of the Third Reich, said, it is “an embarrassment”. It is certainly an embarrassment compared with Washington and many other Holocaust learning centres elsewhere.

I had ministerial responsibility for museums, as well as having some background in education, so it disappoints me that we have come up with such a weak proposal. As the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, said, it would be a better solution to find an alternative location for a Holocaust learning centre that could do justice to the wide range of issues I have just described, which ought to be covered. That would make for a more meaningful and memorable experience for those visiting it, especially young people but also older people.

One possibility would be to combine it with a new Jewish museum to celebrate the enormous contribution made by the Jewish community to culture, science, the economy and the political life of this nation. A previous Jewish museum has had to close, I believe because of funding issues associated with the lease of its building. Another alternative is for the learning centre to be located at the Imperial War Museum alongside its Second World War galleries. The museum has extensive visitor facilities and ample parking space.

In Committee the Minister said the vision of the sponsors was to have the memorial and learning centre together in one place. Other speakers have questioned this. Surely this is not essential. We can do something better if we separate them. It involves awful compromises, both on what kind of learning centre is created and on the damage it will do to this small park if we put them together. Any memorial monument could signal the presence of a learning centre not too far away. The learning centre should be built above ground, not below. Others will comment on the risks of flooding and fire and the difficulty of escape for those cooped up in these underground galleries. I want to mention the extra cost of excavation, which was not covered in the first amendment we discussed today. The plan is to excavate more than eight metres down to achieve the proposed dimensions. As I have already made clear, these dimensions are too small. The total volume of soil to be removed amounts to 24,800 cubic metres. The design requires a basement box with concrete heavy construction consisting of many piles around the box. In Committee I asked the Minister whether he could say what the extra cost of building underground is. He was not able to do so in his reply. Without notice that is understandable, but given that he has now had notice, perhaps he can tell the House today.

On a later amendment I will say why the qualities of this small park on a world heritage site should not be in any way jeopardised. We must not risk damaging what is a welcome open space for those who live and work in this neighbourhood. I beg the Government to reconsider and to seek another location that allows a far better experience for visitors without the continued controversy that the current proposal involves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a strong point. Let me be clear: unfortunately, building Holocaust memorials does not get rid of antisemitism. That is a reminder for us all, not just the Government but society, that we should all do more. That means education, which is why the Prime Minister has promised to make sure that the Holocaust is taught right across every school, whether a state school or not. There is more work to be done.

I take this personally in the respect that I am the Minister responsible for dealing with religious hate crime. The noble Lord, Lord Mann—he is not in his place—and I have regular conversations with stakeholders in this area, but we have to do much more as this is unfortunately on the rise. I speak to colleagues from the Community Security Trust, Mark Gardner in particular, and this is something on which we need to work more collaboratively together. It is unfortunately a challenge. As colleagues have said, there is a lot of distortion, misinformation, disinformation, online religious hatred and all kinds of discrimination. We are doing more, and we will continue to do more.

On the Holocaust memorial, I will share my personal experience. In my school education I was taught a bit about it, but it was not until I visited that memorial in Washington that I was personally moved and touched and realised the grave challenges and difficulties—the horrific situation that the 6 million men, women and children faced, as well as those in other communities. That is why I say that the Holocaust memorial is an important opportunity for young people—including schoolchildren when they visit Parliament—to visit and learn from what I see as a huge, life-changing, moving experience. This is in the national conscience and this is a national memorial. That is why we are supporting it and taking this Bill through the House of Lords.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, when responding to the Minister, it is typical to begin by thanking all noble Lords who have taken part. I am not sure that I can entirely do that because, as I said at the beginning, we are on Report and this group has taken rather longer than I hoped or expected, and some noble Lords have strayed slightly wide of the amendment.

I will say that I am particularly glad to hear that Dr Paul Shapiro is still in his role, unlike the heads of many museums in the United States of America—the mortality rate appears to be slightly alarming. The second thought I had was in reacting to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for the Opposition. I thought it was suitably ironic—indeed, I think many Jewish comedians would particularly enjoy the irony—to describe what we are trying to do in this amendment as “undermining” the project, since it is about stopping actual burrowing underground.

We are in a situation where there is a lot of emotion around. When there is a lot of emotion around, it is quite hard to focus on individual bits, to try to disaggregate them and to try to improve a project that has clearly run into a degree of difficulty.

This debate has made it clear that there is a fissure here. The aspiration of the memorial foundation to co-locate and create, in the words of the various institutions that spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, an “important global institution” is entirely laudable. This debate has demonstrated, on the basis of what is currently proposed, that it is highly unlikely and somewhat impractical that that will be delivered, much as I wish it was possible to deliver it.

I am certainly not going to divide the House on this—frankly, it is too important an issue to divide on. However, I beseech the promoters of this project to be honest and transparent with us about what it is and what it is not. What it is now is materially different from the aspiration described in moving terms in the report from January 2015. Being realistic about what we hoped for then and where we are now would help the situation—frankly, it would be more respectful—and help some of us to manage our emotions around this issue. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Russell of Liverpool]

9: Clause 2, page 1, line 18, at end insert “, provided that any such activities—
(a) would not cause the existing Spicer Memorial to be moved or the area of the playground on that site to be reduced, and(b) are carried out in such a way that access to any children’s playground on that site is maintained at level from the nearest entrance without requiring the use of steps.”

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to this group of amendments, in particular the four that have my name attached to them: Amendments 9, 18, 19 and 20. I hope that this group may prove slightly less contentious than the one we have just debated; indeed, given that it is about a playground, I hope we might be able to debate it in a slightly more adult manner.

It strikes me that the whole process we are going through is a rather uncomely poster child for the joys of the British planning system, which is, as we all know, not in a particularly good state. The discussions that we are having, and the decade-long process that we have gone through, seem to prove that it is not exactly fit for purpose.

I declare my interests as, first, a parent; secondly, a grandparent; and, thirdly, a governor of Coram, the oldest children’s charity in the United Kingdom. Where the Foundling Hospital used to stand—unfortunately, it was demolished in the 1930s—there is a wonderful playground called Coram’s Fields. At the entrance gate, there is a sign that says, “No adult may enter unless accompanied by a child”. It occurs to me that, as I, along with other noble Lords, struggle to get in through the new Peers’ Entrance, having a similar sort of sign—whether you are going in or going out—might be quite helpful to many of us because, usually, at least one of them ain’t working.

What I will try to demonstrate in talking about the playground is, first, why it is there; and, secondly, why it has real value and use. In 2019, the London Historic Parks & Gardens Trust produced a report about the significance of Victoria Tower Gardens. I will not go through it in detail, but it highlighted a particular point when it was talking about some of the risks that the gardens may face. It said that

“the park is affected by a range of external pressures and stresses. For example, the likely impacts of future piecemeal interventions such as buildings or structures imposed from outside sources”.

It occurs to some of us in this debate, I think, that that was a perfect description of what we are discussing.

Amendment 9 is a probing amendment, since it appears that the Spicer Memorial will need to be moved to the north from where it currently is to create approximately 193 square metres of new paved space around the proposed entrance pavilion. The amendment simply asks whether it will be possible to redesign the proposed route of entry to the entrance pavilion to avoid this, because the current design will reduce the size of the playground by about 370 square metres, or 31%—nearly one-third.

Alternatively—we dealt with this question previously in our debate on Amendment 26 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans—do we really need a kiosk? If we did not have the kiosk, that would enable the playground to regain quite a lot of the space that would otherwise be lost. I would be most grateful if the Minister could answer that question.

Amendment 9 also asks for continued ease of access to the playground. This is important to the many parents using prams and buggies. As noble Lords will see from some of the Underground stations that have staircases instead of escalators or whose escalators are not working, a lot of parents—particularly mothers—if they are by themselves, rely on the generosity of others around to help them up or down. I hope that will not need to be the case when it comes to using the playground.

Why does the playground matter and why is it there? It may not be obvious but it is quite a significant playground in that it is one of the earliest playgrounds developed in London. There was a growing need in the first half of the 20th century for children in particular to have open space, fresh air and exercise—particularly in areas of the city where those things were not easy to access.

In 2018, Westminster City Council did a detailed profile of the inhabitants of its various wards. The two most relevant to what we are talking about are the two closest to Victoria Tower Gardens. One is St James’s Ward and the other is Vincent Square Ward. These wards have a very high percentage of social housing estates. In the 2010 census data, 28% of Vincent Square Ward children and 30% of St James’s Ward children were classified as obese. Also from that data, 28% and 30% of year 6 children were children of lone parents with dependent children, which is quite a high number. In addition, almost one-quarter of the children in each of those wards were receiving free school meals in 2017. That demonstrates that however affluent we may assume this part of London is, for many people who live here, it is not. In addition to parents who visit from those estates, there are parents who come from across the river, where there is also a paucity of playgrounds other than the one in the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury’s garden.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 10 withdrawn.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I was about to say that I was slightly alarmed that this group of amendments is in danger of setting a precedent, in the sense that there seems to be a high degree of agreement and consensus—something this Committee does not seem to experience very often, until, of course, the trees spoke, as indeed they do in many children’s stories. That is another matter.

I thank the Minister for his response and everybody who took part. I should have given apologies on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who is unable to be here today and who has very kindly put her name to some of my amendments. I take on board what the Minister said. I again thank the Select Committee of this House for managing to get the undertakings from the promoter to safeguard the playground and the people who use it, for which I am most grateful. I accept that it should not be in the Bill. Committee is about probing amendments. Some probing amendments are forensic and some are slightly more blunt, but, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 9 withdrawn.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I have three reasons for speaking at Second Reading today. The first is that one of my great grandfathers, in December 1938, after Kristallnacht, put his name to something called the “Lord Baldwin Fund for Refugees”. In the next eight months it managed to raise the modern-day equivalent of nearly £43 million, which was used directly to bring Kindertransport children to this country.

Secondly, the previous holder of the rather long name that I bear, my grandfather, was the Deputy Judge Advocate-General and responsible for the management of all war crimes trials in British-occupied Germany between 1946 and 1951. He and his team had to gather the evidence of the horrors which the Holocaust memorial and any educational centre will try to tell the world about. In 1954, only eight years after the end of the war, horrified by growing evidence of Holocaust denial, including in Germany, he published a book, The Scourge of the Swastika, which I am ashamed to say is still in print. Over the years, many of your Lordships have told me that they read it at a relatively young age and have never forgotten it.

Thirdly, I am a petitioner, among others, on this Bill. In principle, how can one be against the idea of a national Holocaust memorial? But what a muddle we have got ourselves into in a wonderfully and typically British way. The report of the Holocaust Memorial Bill Select Committee in another place from 17 April of this year makes uncomfortable reading. I suggest that all noble Lords, whatever their views, would benefit from reading what it says. In some ways the most important thing is what it does not say, because there is clearly a high degree of scepticism, a feeling that the committee has not been told as much as it would wish to know and that it has been quite constrained during its deliberations to actually get to the heart of the matter—an echo, I am afraid, of other instances where decisions to go forward with a project are often taken in the political rush of the moment without necessarily having thought through in detail what needs to be done to do it effectively.

There is clearly quite a high level of discomfort about this Bill. On the basis of past experience, things are likely to get worse before they get better. At the moment, with the rise in anti-Semitism, the last thing that we should inadvertently do is agree to an already flawed process which runs the risk of continuing as it has done to date.

There is a saying which is suitable since the construction would involve a degree of excavation. It is that if you are in a hole, it is usually quite good advice to stop digging. I speak as someone who, in his late teens, used to help our gardener, who was the local gravedigger, so I know exactly what is involved. On the assumption that this Bill proceeds—and I am sure it will—I would hope that lessons have been learned from the fact that we are where we are today and from the degree of dissent and concern around the Chamber that there clearly is.

A combination of the noble Lords, Lord Mann and Lord Carlile, really put their finger on the essence of this. This is not just a sculpture, a symbol; it is above all a tool and a way of trying to educate all of us, but particularly the generations after us, to try to inoculate us against the toxicity of anti-Semitism, which is all around us. We cannot be inoculated unless we really understand what that disease is. Once we understand it, we have a chance of being inoculated successfully. I am sure this will proceed, but for goodness’ sake, let us learn the lessons to date and do it better than we have heretofore.