Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon (Con)]

My Lords, I was not going to speak to this amendment, but I believe that my noble friends Lady Harding of Winscombe, Lord Pickles and Lord Harper have misunderstood—I would not say misrepresented—what the amendment is all about. I declare my interests in coming from a family in which my mother’s German Jewish family lost members in the Holocaust, and in which my great uncle, who came to this country, founded the Jewish Refugees Committee, which organised the Kindertransport. I also speak as a former Treasury Minister; that is how I look at the numbers and what the amendment seeks to do.

As I understand it and read it, my noble friend Lords Eccles is as concerned as I am and many others are that we have had no up-to-date or credible figures from the Minister, throughout the various stages of the Bill, as to what the current costs are. The latest costs, I think, go back at least two years, and we have heard what has happened to the costs since then. As a House, we need to understand what the more recent estimates are.

As I read it, this amendment puts a cap on the public contribution to this, but does not, as my noble friends have just said, or implied, cap the total cost of the project—if my noble friend tells me I have got it wrong, I will sit down. Speaking as a former Treasury official and Minister, I say that we need a bit of discipline on this project. It is not going to cap the total cost of the project and, unless the Minister is able to give us more credible figures to explain the latest thinking about the split between the private and public sector contributions, I would be fully supportive of my noble friend Lord Eccles’s amendment, because it puts some necessary financial discipline on the project but will in no way—as my noble friends have said, and they can come back at me if they want to—cap the total expenditure that could be incurred on the project.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to be debating this important Bill once again. I will take a moment to just restate the position of the Official Opposition on this legislation: It has been a policy of successive Conservative Governments that we need a national Holocaust memorial and learning centre to ensure we never forget the unique suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. This project was first conceived by my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton in 2013, when he established a commission to consider measures to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.

That commission, led ably by Sir Mick Davis, recommended the creation of a

“striking and prominent new National Memorial”,

which should be

“co-located with a world-class Learning Centre”.

The Conservative Government accepted the commission’s recommendations, taking forward the plans that are continued with this Bill. As part of that process, the then Conservative Government introduced the Holocaust Memorial Bill in 2023. This Bill is a continuation of that work, and we continue to support it.

My noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton summed up the Official Opposition’s view very well at the Second Reading of this Bill in September last year, when he said that

“this is the right idea, in the right place and at the right time”.—[Official Report, 4/9/24; col. 1169.]

I also pay tribute to the many organisations that have written to Peers to endorse the plans for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, including Holocaust Centre North, the National Holocaust Museum, University College London, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim.

We have considered the project in the round and at length: after 11 years we cannot be said to be rushing. Now is the time to press ahead with this bold national statement of our opposition to hatred and antisemitism. Now is the time to stand up for our British values and deliver a permanent memorial and learning centre as we recommit ourselves to our promise to never forget the unique horrors of the Holocaust.

Amendment 1, in the name of my noble friend Lord Eccles, would limit the level of taxpayers’ funding for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre to £75 million, requiring any spending above that level to be provided by grants from the Holocaust Memorial Charitable Trust. The updated Explanatory Notes, which were published on 18 July last year, stated that the updated costs of the project were now at £138.8 million. That is due to the fact that it is 10 or 11 years down the line, due to, as we have heard, the many planning issues that have come forward.

I have great respect for my noble friend but, on this occasion, I must respectfully disagree with his amendment, because it is the view of the Official Opposition that this amendment would place inappropriate constraints on the value and manner of funding for this project, potentially risking its viability.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for his amendment. It has allowed us to reflect not simply on the need for careful control of public expenditure but on the core reason why this Bill is needed. I will deal first with matters directly relevant to costs and to the overall management of the programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I promise not to detain the House for long. I want to come back on the exchange between my noble friends Lord Pickles and Lord Robathan, because the insinuation was made that there is antisemitism in the governing party of Poland. We have been talking in this debate about the way in which the Holocaust is memorialised in Warsaw. There is a memorial on the site of the ghetto, which has been there since the late 1940s—the one that Willy Brandt famously dropped to his knees before. Then there is the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, opened in 2013, the ground-breaking having been commenced by President Lech Kaczynski of the Law and Justice Party. He was the first president to celebrate Hanukkah in the presidential palace and the first Polish president to attend a synagogue. Poland is an important ally. It was the only other country that was in the Second World War from the beginning to the end. It is still an important ally today, and it is important that we do not leave unchallenged that implication.

On the wider issue of this amendment, it is very difficult for any open-minded person not to have been convinced by the forensic speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham. I can only say that, if I am honest and put my motives under the microscope, I would have been in favour of the memorial simply because I imagine that the kind of people I do not like would have been on the other side. However, the more I have listened to the arguments, the harder it is to avoid the conclusion that if this were not a whipped vote, there is no way that it would get through this Chamber. As an unelected Chamber, able to be a check on the radicalism of the other House, we surely exist precisely because we can look beyond headlines and do the right thing, regardless of how it is summarised or misrepresented.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, as this is Report I will be brief in responding to Amendment 2, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. We are concerned that the amendment would undermine the current plan for the construction of the memorial and learning centre, prevent its timely delivery and risk the whole future of the project. The Official Opposition have been unequivocal in our support for this project. While specific concerns about the design of the project can and should be put forward during the planning process—which will follow the passage of the Bill—we do not feel it would be appropriate to place undue constraints on the project through statutory legislation. What we have been discussing today are planning issues, and they should be dealt with in the planning process. We therefore cannot support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Deech and Lady Blackstone, for their amendment. This has been a lengthy but powerful debate, with much strength of feeling. Given that there were so many lengthy speeches, I am not sure if noble Lords got the memo from the noble Lord, Lord Russell, when he pontificated on having Report stage speeches.

I remind the House of the scope of the Bill: Clause 1 gives the Secretary of State the power to pay for the costs of the project and Clause 2 disapplies the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900 so that the project can be built in the designated area. I know that lots of points have been made in this debate; I am not going to address them now because I am sure they will come up in later amendments.