Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I too recently visited the Imperial War Museum with my two sons, not only to see the exhibition on the Holocaust but to visit Lord Ashcroft’s Victoria Cross gallery, which is, sadly, closing shortly.

The Government, their predecessors and the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation have been crystal clear that the learning centre will focus on the Holocaust. The exhibition will set out the facts of the Holocaust from a British perspective. There is no intention of relativising the Holocaust, still less of turning the learning centre into a forum for generic discussion on genocides.

I say to noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that I agree with a lot of what she said in her speech. She attended the recent presentation by the project historian Martin Winstone. He gave an open and very thorough account of the planned exhibition at an all-party event last week, on Tuesday 3 June. He explained to us all, in plain language, how the exhibition is being developed. The curator, Yehudit Shendar, is deeply experienced in Holocaust exhibitions, having played a leading role at Yad Vashem. The academic advisory board includes leading Holocaust experts, such as the UK’s only professor of Holocaust history, Professor Zoe Waxman. It will benefit from new research that deepens our understanding of British connections to the Holocaust. It falls under the guidance of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, which has always been determined that the learning centre will provide a clear account of the Holocaust, seeking to tackle distortion.

The amendment seeks to respond to misleading messages about the purpose of the learning centre. In reality, it is certain that the learning centre will focus sharply and unambiguously on the Holocaust. I welcome the amendment.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief, because this is in fact Report, although sometimes it has not quite seemed that way.

The point in this amendment appears to me to be short, focused and unanswerable. What is the question that we are trying to answer? Why are we building this memorial and learning centre? That is the fundamental question. The obvious answer is that we are building it to memorialise the Holocaust and to teach people about what happened and the dangers of antisemitism. If that is the case, I cannot see any reason why that purpose is not included in the Bill. I see no possible answer to that at all. Of course, none of this is to dismiss other atrocities or to downplay or minimise other genocides, but that is not what this memorial and learning centre is about.