Faith Minister Lord Khan has urged peers to press ahead with plans for a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre next to Parliament.
The House of Lords sat until 1am on Thursday morning debating amendments in the report stage of the Holocaust Memorial Bill.
Lord Khan drew parallels between opposition to the proposed memorial and learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens with the obstruction faced by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
“The proposal to create a Holocaust memorial museum in Washington was announced in 1979, yet the memorial did not open until 1993,” said Khan, who told peers that he had spoken with the museum’s director Dr Paul Shapiro earlier in the day.
“The site chosen, next to the National Mall in Washington, DC, generated considerable opposition, including points such as: it would lead to antisemitism because Jews would be seen as being given privileged status; injustices in US history were more deserving of memorials; or it would be used to whitewash the US response to the Holocaust or not do enough to celebrate US responses.”
He continued: “By 1987 the final architectural design was agreed, but criticism and demands for changes to the design continued. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was opened by President Clinton in 1993. As my friend Dr Paul Shapiro mentioned to me this morning, this month it will welcome its 50 millionth visitor.”
Khan told peers that he wished that the UK’s memorial, first proposed in 2015, would not experience similar delays and urged colleagues to “not throw this opportunity away”.
Baroness Deech, a longstanding critic of the proposed memorial, questioned whether the memorial would contribute to a reduction in antisemitism.
“Every child at a state school gets Holocaust education and has the benefit of six existing memorials. Why, then, is antisemitism rampant in our universities, among young people who have had Holocaust education, and rampant in the States? What have they learned?”
Khan responded that “building Holocaust memorials does not get rid of antisemitism. That is a reminder for us all, not just the government but society, that we should all do more.”
In the course of the debate – which started at 5pm and concluded after 1am, with an hour gap in between – former Conservative leader Lord Howard, who is Jewish and whose grandmother was killed in Auschwitz, made his first intervention on the topic and urged peers to get on with the proposals.
Citing his previous experience as a planning KC, Howard told peers that “whatever alternative proposal is advanced to the proposal that is in this Bill, there will be those who come forward with that kind of objection.”
Although most amendments were withdrawn before being put to a vote. One that did was proposed by Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, which raised security concerns.
Carlile said he wanted “to see the erection of a Holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens as soon as possible” and added that he had spoken at the funeral of his sister Renata Calverley – who survived the Holocaust as a child – just nine days before the debate.
“She was born in 1937, in Poland. How she survived was a miracle. Alas, in her survival, she lost her early childhood to five years of being hunted, hungry and hidden just because she was a Jewish child. She was, to be fair, a formidable memorial of the Holocaust herself, as I told her from time to time, but, unfortunately, she was ephemeral.
“What Renata and other survivors, and of course the dead, deserve is to be remembered in perpetuity in a memorial that is devoted solely to the Holocaust, the most horrific massacre of innocent people in human history.
“The reason for this amendment is partly based on my sister; that memorial must be a safe space, as free as can be managed from the threat of terrorism and other violence, and in as peaceful and accessible a setting as is possible in this city.”
He highlighted the case of a pro-Palestine protester climbing onto Parliament and remaining there for 16 hours before being removed.
“Those who guard this place and all the cameras around it failed to detect him. Where were they? Where is this great security that I keep being told has been applied to this palace?” Carlile asked.
He later went on: “I do not wish to be the person who says ‘I told you so’ after a terrible event. I have spent much of the last 25 years paying close attention to terrorism issues and matters of security, over 10 of those as the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. In my parliamentary life and my professional life, I continue to focus on such issues.
“My firm and considered belief is that placing a learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, visited by thousands of people each week in an area that could easily be penetrated by a terrorist carrying weapons, is a risk that could be removed by creating a better learning centre and putting it on a more suitable site.
Carlile was backed by former Labour home secretary Lord Reid.
“The objection that some people have to the present plan, including me, is that it is unviable. It increases insecurity, breaches all environmental guidelines, overrules all local democracy and increases the danger, not only the physical danger of the present plans but the danger of a backlash against forcing through this plan against all local democracy and common sense,” he told peers.
Before he went on to say that his concerns were shared by many of his friends who are Jewish, as well as his wife – who, he said, raised the threat of divorce were he not to contribute to the debate.
Carlile’s amendment was defeated by 129 votes to 83.
One successful amendment that was passed by the Lords was to insert a new clause to make the purpose of the learning centre explicitly about “the provision of education about the Holocaust and antisemitism”.
Non-affiliated peer Lord Verdirame, who proposed the amendment, explained: “We have already had instances of Holocaust commemorations forgetting about the Jews or of such events being used as platforms for other messages. With this amendment, Parliament would send a clear signal that whatever the disagreements about the memorial itself might be, there would have to be none of this nonsense in this learning centre willed by Parliament and right next to Parliament.”
The amendment was also backed by Lord Pickles, the former communities and local government secretary and longstanding champion of the Westminster Holocaust Memorial.
He told peers that the prospect of a government led by Jeremy Corbyn, following the 2017 general election, meant he “could see the possibility that the Holocaust memorial would turn into some kind of genocide museum or genocide and slavery museum and be completely watered down.”
He went on: “I spent a lot of time worrying and trying to find ways round it. I have to say that if there had there been a Jeremy Corbyn government with that intent, I do not think there would be very much this House could have done to prevent it.”
Shadow attorney general Lord Wolfson also spoke in favour of the amendment: “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.”
The amendment passed with 83 votes in favour and 79 votes against it.
The legislation returns to the House of Lords for its third reading on Tuesday.
The bill was one of the few items of legislation to be carried over from the previous parliament following last year’s general election.
