MPs back plans for national Holocaust memorial centre next to Parliament
MPs have backed plans for a national Holocaust memorial centre next to Parliament despite several Conservatives raising concerns over its proposed location.
The Holocaust Memorial Bill, to enable the development to go ahead in Westminster, was given an unopposed second reading in the Commons.
Costs have increased by almost 35 per cent due to delays and inflation, the government has said. Communities minister Felicity Buchan said the current forecast is £138.8m, up from £102.9m in 2022, for the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens.
During the debate, Conservative former ministers Dominic Raab and Priti Patel voiced support for the memorial centre.
Former justice secretary Raab spoke about his family’s experience of fleeing to the UK to escape the Holocaust.
He said: “My grandmother, who was the living testimony in our family, passed away in 2005… the longer we talk about the technicalities, important as they are, the more we risk losing more and more of that living testimony without something powerful to replace it with.”
Former home secretary Patel told MPs: “I personally think that there can be no better place in our country to have a memorial located, obviously at the heart of democracy.”
But Conservative former minister Sir Edward Leigh, who said he has a residence close to the proposed site, said: “The problem with this site is that it’s so constrained that frankly it doesn’t do justice to this cause and this issue.
“The trouble with the Ottowa monument which we are importing is it is simply huge. It is a vast mound. It is frankly hideous. It’s a mound with great sort of metal spikes sitting out of it.”
Outlining the proposed legislation, communities secretary Michael Gove said: “It ensures the undertaking that this government has given – supported by the opposition and all parties in this House – is honoured and a fitting, government-led national memorial and learning centre to honour the six million who died from the Holocaust is established in a suitable, prominent centre in the heart of our capital city.”
Shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy said Labour “strongly supports” the Bill, adding: “We agree very much with the sentiment expressed by MPs opposite that the sooner and more swiftly we’re able to make progress with this the better.”
The government pledged to introduce the new law after campaigners won a legal battle to quash planning permission for the memorial and learning centre.
The plan to build the centre in Victoria Tower Gardens ran into difficulties over a 1900 law requiring the land to be used as a public park.
The Holocaust Memorial Bill would update the legislation, removing the legal obstacle that has prevented the project going ahead.
It would also give the government powers to use public funding to build and operate the centre.
By Richard Wheeler, Elizabeth Arnold and David Lynch, PA