Holocaust Memorial Bill

Committee (3rd Day)

Good afternoon, my Lords. Welcome to the third day of the Grand Committee on the Holocaust Memorial Bill. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, which we are not expecting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.

Clause 2: Removal of restrictions in relation to certain land

Amendment 8

8: Clause 2, page 1, line 18, at end insert “, subject to the total area used for such activities not exceeding either 1429 square metres or the area shown in the plan in appendix 4 of the letter sent by the Promoter to the House of Commons Holocaust Memorial Bill Select Committee on 5 February 2024, including in that total area any— (a) entrance pavilion,(b) courtyard,(c) ramp,(d) associated hard standing,(e) service access,(f) ticketing and security facilities,(g) access paths,(h) areas enclosed to ensure the security of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, and(i) areas not accessible to the public.”

My Lords, my Amendment 8 simply seeks to ensure that the area taken up by the Holocaust memorial and learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens will not occupy an area any greater than is required, should it go ahead as currently proposed. One thousand four hundred and twenty-nine square metres has been accepted as the area required. I note that the Government have further provided assurances that this will be the case.

In January 2024, the Government gave the Select Committee in the House of Commons the following assurance:

“the Promoter will only site the permanent buildings and other … structures comprising a Holocaust memorial and learning centre and its ancillary facilities … on, under and over … land”

according to a plan submitted to that committee on 5 February 2024, citing once again the 1,429 square metre figure.

The proportion of the park to be taken up by the Holocaust memorial has long been disputed. The planning inspector’s report stated that “the area directly affected by the proposals would in my view be likely to be greater than the 7.5% calculation”. The proposed design of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre is so dominant and disproportionate that, as the inspector’s report also stated, “its role as the setting for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre inevitably becomes the more substantial element of its identity as a public space.” Thankfully, he did not go on to repeat the architect’s desire that it should also disrupt the peace of the park, although one could draw that conclusion from the planning inspector’s remarks.

Confusion concerning the precise square metreage in question has arisen because of a Written Answer given by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, to this House in March and April 2023, in response to a Written Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, about the total area needed. The noble Baroness’s answer said that the area was intended to cover

My Lords, my Amendment 14 says that the proposed monument must not be extended or altered in any “replacement scheme”. On this occasion, I shall be relatively brief.

It was my experience as a constituency MP that developers would get planning permission for, say, 20 houses, and then a few months later bung in a revised application for 30 or 40 houses, or one to convert bungalows into two-storey houses. It is a well-known planning racket, and it works because local councils conclude that they would have to spend a fortune on planning appeals which they might not win, on the grounds that they had already given permission for some sort of development, so how could they resist additional development? This is what we must prevent happening here.

We know that the department is considering tweaks to the plans, and many of us have been hypercritical of the inadequacy of the so-called learning centre in the bunker. We have amendments down later on the need for new planning permission, but what is to stop the department saying that the planning rejection was called in already and that the inspector ruled in favour, so no new planning permission is needed—and then use its own powers to alter the plans on the ground that they are just minor tweaks?

The original planning application is six years old and a new application to Westminster City Council is essential, in the view of most of us on this side of the argument. We know that the department wants to avoid that public scrutiny and refused to submit the new application, saying that nothing has changed, but it cannot be trusted. After the Commons Select Committee reported, I met its chairman, who has since lost his seat in the election last year. He said that he and most of the committee were appalled at the lies and disinformation about the project. Nothing that the department or its lawyers produced could be trusted, but their hands were tied by the resolution passed by the Government in the Commons: that they were forbidden to look at any of the flaws, inadequacies, misinformation or downright lies that they had been told.

My Lords, I wish to say a word or two in support of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the amendments on size. I will then move on to my Clause 2 stand part notice.

On size, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has said pretty much all that can be said. The precise measurements do not allow for what I call “milling around”—that is, all the ancillaries, with people moving around and queuing for this and that. Clause 1(1)(b) is also a slippery slope because it allows for “work ancillary to” the construction of the memorial. There will be no holding back because Clause 1(3) allows for “extension, alteration and re-erection”. In other words, unless we limit this, there will be no holding back; the whole of the park will be taken over.

I want to say a word about the kiosk, which will take up some space. I am amazed that anyone would support a little wooden hut selling Coke and crisps. It will not even have tables, I believe—just benches and maybe chairs, which will simply generate litter. One can hardly imagine being in the middle of Whitehall during a remembrance ceremony, or at Westminster Abbey when there is a memorial service, and there being allowed a wooden kiosk with people queuing up, distributing litter and so on. It just shows the insensitivity that pervades this whole project.

I now turn to Clause 2 stand part. If the clause were removed, we would have a good Bill. The removal of restrictions in relation to certain land, as set out in Section 8 of the London County Council (Improvements) Act, does not prevent

“the carrying out of any of the activities described in paragraphs (a) to (c) of section 1(1) on, over, under or otherwise in relation to the land”.

We would be left with Clause 1, which permits expenditure

“on, over or under any land”

for a memorial and learning centre. This would enable the Government to go out and talk to experts in the field and to ask whether there is a need for another memorial and learning centre; what they would add to the existing six memorials and 21 learning centres that people seem so unaware of; what impact another might have; how to promote learning in a digital age; and what one is supposed to learn, and from what events.

Clause 2 is vandalising clause. It removes the protection afforded to the green space of VTG for more than a century, and wrecks the aspirations of the Prime Minister's Holocaust Commission report in 2015, which recommended a large campus with room for a lecture hall, classrooms, an online hub, the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust exhibition, offices for all the Holocaust education bodies and a professorship dedicated to transforming Holocaust education. This has virtually all been abandoned because the site chosen is too small and too difficult to encompass any of that. The use of technology has rendered the need for space smaller but, indeed, so great is the advance of technology that, frankly, from what we have seen of the underground learning centre it does not need a building at all. The whole thing could be contained in a set of slides and made available on every computer in every school and home in the land.

The survivors’ remembrances have already been achieved by the recordings of their experiences in the British Library and the new Holocaust portal, created in no small measure due to the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, to whom we are grateful, and the many excellent films on the Holocaust. An uninformed visitor would learn more from watching two good movies on the Holocaust than from a 45-minute walk through the underground learning centre. One has to ask what remains to be achieved. The only thing that we need to achieve these days is the destruction of antisemitism, a topic not addressed in this project.

The green space is going, leaving the residents in blocks of flats around here, many of which are social housing Peabody buildings, high and dry. They have nowhere else to go. They do not have their own gardens. They have nowhere else to take their children. It is contrary to the Government’s policy. The Government’s environmental improvement plan contains a commitment for every household to be within a 15-minute walk of green space, and that is going. In addition, it will soon all be cluttered up with restoration and renewal building materials for 20 or 30 years to come. That same green space was used extensively when the late Queen had her lying-in-state and then for the coronation, and those are not one-off events. The World Heritage status is threatened, and we will come to that later. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority regards the building there as undeliverable and not, I emphasise, for planning permission reasons. The expense is eye-watering and unknown, and so far not even a spade has entered the soil. No contractors have been found and the designers, Adjaye Associates, are now suffering a loss.

Why was Victoria Tower Gardens chosen? Because it was free. It is not free. It is a taxpayers’ burden. The only case for it, made by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, at the planning inquiry, was that visitors would emerge to a view of the Palace of Westminster and think that it could not happen here. The exhibition, however, as far as we know, is not about the death camps, but more about refugees and Britain, and their sad stories, such as the parents of the kinder in the Kindertransport being refused entry and the barring of what might have been a refuge in Palestine. Those decisions took place right here in Whitehall, and every week now the anti-Jewish marches proceed unhindered close to Westminster. Our students are persecuted on campus without redress from Parliament. The siting argument based on democracy is false, to put it mildly. It is virtue signalling at others’ expense. It was not in the published Labour manifesto of 2024, on which the population voted, but in the King’s Speech. I have gone through the online manifesto repeatedly and not found it.

Clause 2 is a betrayal of the trust placed in the Government by the original donors of VPG, and a betrayal of those who have relied on the statute for more than a century. The destruction of greenery is contrary to Jewish values. It is a provocation to protesters. They are, of course, not a reason not to build, but one has to be prepared for the vandalism, the security, the armed guards and the bag checking. It will be an obstacle to the best way forward for R&R. It is unduly expensive because of the need to build down two storeys, leaving a mound which will further obscure a large chunk of the garden.

There is plenty of room elsewhere in central London for another memorial, says the 2015 commission, which drew a map of a large area. Vast sums could be saved by placing a memorial in VCG, with the learning centre elsewhere—for example, Richmond House, which has an ideal forecourt, or the former Museum of London site.

There is no hurry. It is the Government’s own fault if this is delayed because of the choice of VCG. They can swiftly put a better memorial in VCG and search for a proper learning centre elsewhere. In saying this, I am supported by several Holocaust survivors, including the formidable Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who survived Auschwitz because she could play the cello, which was needed, ironically, for the camp orchestra—the Germans being such a cultured people. She called these plans “rubbish” in her evidence to the Commons Select Committee. If she has called them rubbish and has asked what could possibly be learned, we should respect her judgment. No one other than her could be more informed, and no one more upset by this ill-judged Bill.

I just remind the Committee of the normal time limits for speaking.

They are advisory only.