Holocaust Memorial Bill

Debate between Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Pickles

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.