Holocaust Memorial Bill

Commons Reason

Motion A

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 1, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 1A.

1A: Because the Commons consider that it is appropriate for the details of the work of the learning centre to be dealt with otherwise than in this legislation.

My Lords, in moving Motion A I will also speak to Motion A1. It is a pleasure to bring back this important Bill to your Lordships’ House. The ambition to create a new national memorial to the Holocaust has been pursued by successive Governments, with support across all parties, for a number of years. The need for such a memorial and for a learning centre, which will remind people of the terrible facts of the Holocaust, seems only to have increased during this time.

Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to noble Lords who participated in the early stages of this Bill, in particular my noble friend Lord Khan of Burnley, who worked so diligently to promote the Bill through its earlier stages in the House. I also acknowledge and thank my noble friend Lord Dubs for his commitment over many decades, commemorating and learning from the Holocaust. I was delighted to hear today that he has been invited to attend a special session of the Council of Europe on Monday to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

I recognise that there are many different opinions and strong views about the proposed Holocaust memorial and learning centre, especially regarding the proposed location. Earlier debates on the Bill addressed those matters in depth. Today’s debate will focus on a much narrower question, though a question of considerable importance. On Report, the House supported the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, which aimed to ensure that the sole purpose of the learning centre should be education about the Holocaust and antisemitism. I recognise that the intent and the sentiment behind the amendment is to ensure that there is no mission creep and that, in the focus of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, there should be no attempt to divert attention from the unique nature of the Holocaust.

I appreciate that Motion A1 has the same sincere objective of ensuring that the learning centre remains focused on education about the Holocaust and anti- semitism. That is what the Government want to ensure and intend to do. I am personally committed to that. I was very pleased to meet the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, and other noble Lords who supported the amendment on Report. We had a very fruitful and frank exchange, and I think we were at one. I am grateful to them for engaging in constructive discussions about the amendment, including the Government’s view of why the Bill is not the appropriate instrument for creating the safeguards that noble Lords intend to put in place.

As with the well-intentioned amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, we do not consider that the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, is appropriate for the Bill. I remind noble Lords that the purpose of the Bill is to do two things. First, it authorises expenditure on the construction, operation, maintenance or improvement of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre. Secondly, it seeks to remove a statutory obstacle to its being built next door, in Victoria Tower Gardens, should it receive planning consent.

Let me be absolutely clear. The Government’s aim in establishing a national Holocaust memorial and learning centre, in line with the cross-party consensus since 2015, is to increase understanding of the Holocaust and antisemitism. There must be no question of the learning centre deviating from this purpose.

We value the work of the United Kingdom Holocaust Memorial Foundation, which has been steadfast in its determination to build the memorial and to create a learning centre in which the story of the Holocaust is told powerfully, unflinchingly and honestly. We aim to make sure that the body responsible for the Holocaust memorial and learning centre has the independence and permanence which the commission sought. We will provide the operating body with governing documents that are clear and specific, leaving absolutely no doubt that the learning centre has been established to provide education about the Holocaust and about antisemitism.

I have spoken to the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, and I have told him that I am extremely happy to put it on record now that when the time comes, we will seek the views from the opposition parties and key stakeholders in the sector on the proposed long-term governance arrangements for the learning centre. We will have that proper consultation.

We will also ensure appropriate processes for the appointment of the governing body members and provide support so that they have an absolutely clear understanding of their role. The governing body will be permitted to hold fundraising and commemorative events and public lectures as long as they are appropriate to the HMLC. It will be for the trustees to determine what activities are consistent with the aims of the memorial and learning centre.

I particularly appreciate the discussions I had with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, this morning, because it is really important that we are seen to be at one in our determination to ensure that we acknowledge the horrors of the Holocaust and the impact on the Jewish community. I am determined to do that, and I hope that the noble Baroness and other noble Lords will appreciate the Government’s determination to put in place guardrails that protect the learning centre’s focus. I beg to move.

Motion A1 (as an amendment to Motion A)

Moved by

At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 1B in lieu—

1B: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause— “Learning Centre purpose The main purpose of any Learning Centre must be the provision of education about the Holocaust and antisemitism.””

My Lords, my purpose in speaking is to try to rescue the central plank of what remains of this memorial. The Lords amendment stated that the sole purpose of the learning centre must be the Holocaust and antisemitism. I have retained pretty much the same wording. No alternative was put forward in the Commons and no reason given for the rejection other than that it is inappropriate. But having listened to Ministers, I can see that a vision of the purpose of the learning centre is emerging that is much more valuable than what has been suggested in the past.

In the past, the promoters have been asked repeatedly what their intent is for the planned learning centre, and they have prevaricated, sometimes suggesting that it will be all about Nazi genocides and at other times that it would include many genocides and wars, including in Rwanda, Serbia, Cambodia, Darfur and Bosnia. Of course, originally, the learning centre was planned to be about the British perspective on the Holocaust, which is a rather niche subject and would not be very educational for those who know nothing about it.

“Holocaust” and “genocide” have become general words of disapproval without definition. Throwing them around robs the Holocaust of its specificity, relativises it and diminishes its lessons for the future. It was quite different in origin and execution. The Nazis systematically set about eliminating 6 million children, men and women. That history is a warning to future generations, as we see increasing antisemitism orchestrated today. If a purpose of the memorial and learning centre is not defined as we suggest, there is a risk that it could be put to other, less effective ends.

It seems the Government agree. The point of difference between us is this: if the Government are happy to give assurances about the learning centre, why not enshrine them in the Bill? Ten or 20 years down the line, any assurances given today will be forgotten and the interested parties today will no longer be in their positions or even alive. Without this amendment, reference to the learning centre’s key purpose, the Holocaust and antisemitism, is excluded from the Holocaust Memorial Bill.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, for his patient and constructive engagement on this matter, and the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, who before him was dealing with this Bill and tried to work things through with equal dedication. As the Minister knows, my preference would have been to have the purpose set in law, for the reasons that my noble friend Lady Deech so eloquently set out just now, but it became clear that I was not going to persuade the Government of that case, and it was also clear that there was a strong desire, which I shared, to move forward with cross-party consensus.

I welcome the Minister’s assurances and, in particular, the fact that the Government are committed to ensuring that the learning centre will be focused exclusively on the Holocaust and antisemitism, and that there will be no deviation from this purpose. Having gone through this exercise, at least now, as my noble friend Lady Deech said, we have some clarity about what the purpose of this learning centre should be. No deviation is a key commitment. The reason for insisting on it is not because some of us do not understand that people will and should draw broader lessons from the Holocaust and antisemitism, but what we have seen in recent years is that too often the broader lessons take centre stage, while the distinctively unsettling features of the Holocaust and antisemitism end up being diluted or lost behind feel-good bromides. Avoiding this was the main driving concern for this amendment.

The other concern is that the memorial and the learning centre might become the focal point for political gesturing about the Middle East and anti-Israel protest. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Collins, agrees with us on these concerns and is very keen to address them. I think the commitment to have the purpose clearly and specifically enshrined in the governing documents, while not as good as having it in law, is important, and we need to follow that through. I also welcome his commitment just now to consult on those governing documents. It might perhaps help if he can tell us a bit more about the process that might be envisaged about the contents of the documents and about how Parliament will be kept informed. In particular, it would be useful to have drafts published in advance so that people who have an interest in these matters, and perhaps the House, will have an opportunity for debate and scrutiny. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope that it will provide further reassurance to those who, like my noble friend Lady Deech, continue to have reservations.

My Lords, in supporting my noble friend Lady Deech’s amendment, I of course recognise the very considerable and determined efforts of my noble friend Lord Verdirame, who sought to persuade the Government to accept the amendment made by your Lordships’ House when the Bill was before us previously.

I have some questions for the Minister, but before I ask them, I want to thank him for his very heartfelt and obviously extremely genuine and clear statement of what he sees as the purpose of the learning centre. I totally accept what he said as being his view. My questions relate to the use of the word “inappropriate”. I take it that the use of that word reveals that the words that my noble friend Lady Deech seeks to insert in the Bill—or, indeed, the words originally inserted by your Lordships’ House—are not in any way out of scope of the Bill. It is a matter of choice, of taste even; it is not a matter of law or legislative practice.

Secondly, I invite the Minister to answer the question: does what he has said in any way bind a future Government or even bind the trustees? I suspect that it might be possible to bind the trustees, but not a future Government, but only by expensive litigation, which would be extremely distasteful on this subject, if in the future they chose to change the approach of which the Minister has spoken.

Of course the Bill is about changing planning arrangements for Victoria Tower Gardens—that is necessarily part of it—but it is slightly absurd to suggest that the Bill is just about property, given the basic purpose of having a memorial learning centre in the gardens. The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that there is a memorial and a learning centre, which has the one aim that people will go there—in my view, it is too small and in the wrong place, but I cannot debate that now—to learn about the Holocaust, the Shoah, what happened to Jews in the Second World War, what built up to that Holocaust and to learn the lesson. That is the only purpose of spending many millions on this project.