Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, like my right reverend friend the Bishop of St Albans, I speak personally in this debate. I have had the privilege of knowing a good number of Holocaust survivors, which has been life-changing and life-enriching for me. Future generations will be denied that privilege, which is why it is so important that we get this right.

I acknowledge the desire of His Majesty’s Government and so many of your Lordships to proceed with a matter that was, in many minds, settled back when the commission reported in 2015 and when the then Government came forward with proposals in 2016, as we have heard. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and the secretariat at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for its recent briefing note, which addresses, so helpfully, many of the objections to the current scheme.

My concerns are around fulfilling the commission’s original recommendations and the contemporary challenge of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, which are growing threats, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said. It has been clear from the outset that the winning design for the underground learning centre is smaller than that which was recommended. It will not be a centre for study, as was detailed by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. We are told that this is obviated by digitalisation and the strictly optional nature of physical study and in-person meetings that current technology affords us. My own experience of such joys—alongside that of the continuing world of assembling together as people of faith, or, indeed, in your Lordships’ House—suggests to me that the learning centre will lose something vital in this regard by not having such space to study and to meet in person.

Such space is available in the now-vacant government and private sector buildings in Westminster, if it should be in Westminster; or adjacent to the site of the Imperial War Museum, which has been considered; or in one of the many remnants of Jewish heritage in the East End of London, where I served throughout the 1990s, which have not yet been considered. A suitable building may then have a striking image, sculpture or other artwork affixed; we have already heard about the great merit of such a sculpture in Victoria Tower Gardens. Such options might more readily deal with the traffic problems and related safety issues for coach-loads of children visiting Victoria Tower Gardens, if the current proposals succeed.

It is important that children—and not just children—should be exposed to the reality of the Holocaust, the reasons for it and the part Britain played at various times in receiving, as well as inhibiting, Jews leaving Germany for Britain and Mandatory Palestine. Indeed, whatever happens to this project, there is an urgent need to ring-fence and deploy funds in a vigorous online campaign against Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. Both are all too prevalent and are given the means to proliferate via social media—another growing threat—at the agency of very malign influences. There is a failure to match such foul endeavours on the scale that they now exist. Combating this requires greater resources than we currently deploy.

It would be my hope, then, that a striking and prominent Holocaust memorial and a properly funded and well-sited learning centre might be championed equally, thus provisioning a resource against misinformation. But I am yet to be persuaded that the proposals for Victoria Gardens, as opposed to elsewhere, best achieve that. Indeed, I am persuaded that the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and others need to be heeded.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I support Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, as it encapsulates my concern. I intend to speak briefly. During the debate on ping-pong on the data Bill on 2 June, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred to some pre-ministerial training administered in the days before he and colleagues entered government, which included a former senior civil servant saying:

“Whatever happens, it is never too late to avoid making a bad decision”.—[Official Report, 2/6/25; col. 498.]


I believe that this Bill, heavy with good intentions, is prodigal with bad decisions, and I ask the Government to desist. When I hear the former Member of this House, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, whose sensitivity on these issues is matched by great wisdom, saying things such as:

“The hardest question for this proposal to answer, I believe, is whether we are being lured towards a grand gesture whose actual effects are so very far from clear”,


I am concerned.