THE planned location of a £138-million memorial and education centre “to help ensure the victims of the Holocaust will never be forgotten” was the subject of a five-hour debate at the Second Reading of the Holocaust Memorial Bill.
Lord Khan of Burnley, who was confirmed in August as the Government’s new Faith Minister, restated in his introductory speech the intention to have “a new national memorial to the Holocaust, with an integrated learning centre . . . a focal point for remembering the six million Jewish men, women, and children, and all other victims of Nazi persecution, including Roma, gay, and disabled people”.
He also paid tribute to Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, who, when Prime Minister, had launched the Holocaust Commission, which had delivered the recommendation for a “striking and prominent” new memorial and educational resource in its 2015 report. That work had been taken up by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, which had found a site at the Grade II registered Victoria Tower Gardens, adjacent to the Houses of Parliament.
The Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, said that having “visited a significant number of Holocaust memorials in other parts of the world and other capital cities, I am well aware of their importance and how moving they can be”, and that “the strategic importance of learning about the Holocaust — especially now, given the ongoing scourge of anti-Semitism”.
The Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, took up the theme: “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.”
He hoped 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”, although both bishops, along with many members of the Lords, were unconvinced by the intended placement of the education centre in Victoria Gardens, and its planning application.
Concerns had been expressed that it would, many peers felt, deprive the local community of green space in the gardens and present new challenges in relation to funding, security, public safety, and the risks of floods. There were also doubts that it could provide an adequate building for the project’s stated aims and needs.
Lord Cameron described the initiative as “thoroughly cross-party”, and referred to the “real power in bringing together the monument and the education, and having it at the heart of our democracy. . . I think this is the right idea, in the right place and at the right time.”
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, a former President of the Methodist Conference, said that he was “fully committed to delivering a national Holocaust memorial and learning centre”, but that “we should not automatically think that the two have to be next to or part of each other.”
Lord Lisvane observed how “the whole proposal has been opposed from the beginning by Westminster City Council, Historic England, the Royal Parks, a number of amenity organisations, and UNESCO — remembering that Parliament Square and its associated buildings form a UNESCO world heritage site.”
Earlier in the debate, the Earl of Effingham quoted the Archbishop of Canterbury as having said how the project in this location “provides a symbolic opportunity to present the full story to new generations”.
Baroness Deech’s proposed amendment that “the planning application will start from scratch . . . back to Westminster and through a proper inquiry, because so much has changed in the last few years”, was defeated. The Bill now returns to a Select Committee for further work.