Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Wolfson of Tredegar Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, can the speakers in this debate concentrate on the issue? The issue is whether this amendment should remain in the Bill. We have had two long speeches that have not addressed that.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly, and I will try to address that. I will speak briefly not because the subject is not important—it is such an important subject that there could be no end of words said about it—but because we are focusing on the Commons reason and our response to it. For reasons that I gave at the time, I supported the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame. As the Minister pointed out, the purpose of that amendment was to ensure no mission creep—if I can pick up his phrase.

I am one of the Members of this House who have had sustained, constructive and helpful engagement from the Minister, his staff and his team of civil servants. I was pleased to hear the clear and constructive statements that he made, and those made from the Dispatch Box in another place. When we are talking about governance provisions in a trust document, those are legally binding and effective. The nice legal and constitutional question of whether a Government can bind their successor is one thing, but a board of trustees is bound by its constitutional documents.

The important thing to me tonight is that we simply have to get on with this project. I am concerned that there is a risk that further delay will lead not just to further cost but to question marks over the project. We have had a good debate about it, and I think we all share the concern behind the amendment. Indeed, as I say, I supported it. But now we have to get on and not so much complete the job but complete the legislative job and begin the real action on the ground.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, knows the high regard I have for her. She explained her opposition to parts of this project very clearly. We agree on some points and we do not agree on others. Disagreement is part of what this place is all about. I respectfully say, on the proposed amendment to say that the “main purpose” must be the provision of education—as opposed to the original amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, which had the “sole purpose”—that saying “main purpose” is worse than saying nothing. If you say that the main purpose is X, you are almost admitting, accepting and implying that you can also do Y and Z. It is not just nearly like “sole”. In law, there is a clear distinction between “main purpose” and “sole purpose”. In any event, that is not the real focus of my remarks, which is that we need to get on with it, for the reasons I have given.

I put on record my personal thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, who started the work on the Bill in this House. Both in the Chamber and out of it, he and I had many conversations about it, all of which were constructive and conducted in the best traditions of this House. We all owe the noble Lord a huge debt of gratitude. Perhaps he might think about this: his name will always be linked to this Bill because he made the rather prosaic statement, noble Lords might think, set out in Section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act, to the effect that the provisions of the Bill are compatible with convention rights. We can have arguments about Strasbourg jurisprudence—that is not for now—but it struck me, reading those words in the Bill, that it is not just that the provisions of the Holocaust Memorial Bill are compatible with convention rights but that the Holocaust is a reminder of what may happen if fundamental rights are not protected.

[Baroness Debbonaire (Lab)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate but, for the avoidance of doubt, I was in the Chamber when it started—I rushed in—because I wish to hear every word. That is partly because I was first alerted to the provisions of the memorial by Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, my cello teacher Raphael’s mother, and subsequently by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, many years ago. This was before 7 October.

The reason I mention this is that, when I was a Member in the other place, I represented a constituency that had extreme views and, as a non-Jew, I felt it was bad enough that I had to hear some of them. It was unbearable. I represented two synagogues, one Orthodox and one progressive, with a very diverse Jewish constituency with a range of political views. Before 7 October the feeling was—I consulted my constituents, and I wanted to put this on record, particularly for the noble Baroness, Lady Deech—that they wanted a memorial, as they all said. There were some variations but, overall, people said they wanted the memorial as proposed.

I put to them the arguments that the noble Baroness and I share. Yes, that is partly because I am so aware of Anita’s experience, longevity and wonderful personality, and the fact that, whenever she sees me, she checks my fingers before she says hello to make sure I am still practising the cello—despite everything. I really wanted to hear from my constituents that they also held some of those ambiguities, and they did not. But they were utterly clear about the issue of the purpose of the memorial and the learning centre.

This has been my concern since 7 October, since when, frankly, I have heard many things that reinforce the need for the purpose of the learning centre to be utterly clear, without doubt and without any diminution or dilution. People have been capable of saying the most dreadful things, which implied to me that they had little or no knowledge of the Shoah and why it matters, and why a focus on the Shoah and on antisemitism matters. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, is quite right to say that it is about not just the dead but the living. The risk of further such atrocities right now, specifically to Jews, is so great. I feel that, as a non-Jew, it is even more my duty to say that and to put on record that which many people have been frightened to say—they have been frightened to say the truth. That is why it mattered to me to see this amendment. However, I am afraid I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, that seeking to put something in has made it weaker than the original thing that the other place has now rejected. I regret that, but this is the place we are at now.

I share other noble Lords’ determination that we should get this right, and I share the admiration for my noble friends Lord Collins and Lord Khan, who have worked so hard to get us to where we are. It feels like a tremendously long time since we began. However, the need for clarity of purpose has not diminished. It has only grown in the intervening years. I wish to put on record, in my name—as a non-Jew, but with former Jewish constituents who I did my best to represent—the doubling, tripling, quadrupling need that there seems to be, not just over the last four years since the atrocities of 7 October but even in the last four weeks, in Australia and in Manchester, given the sort of antisemitism that we hear about every day. We all know, having read the history of the Shoah, that this is how it starts. I share noble Lords’ determination that we should not hold back.

I share the disagreement of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, about where the memorial should be, but we are now past that. I encourage other noble Lords, if they have not already, to go to the Imperial War Museum and hear the beautiful cello playing of my cello teacher, Raphael, and see some of the things that Anita wore and was able to keep with her, which in themselves tell their story. I hope that this memorial and learning centre will tell the story as we need them to, now possibly more than ever.