B

Baroness Deech (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 11 June 2025

Debate

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I now come to the elephant in the room. I wish to bring up the question of the impact of building a Holocaust memorial and underground learning centre in Victoria Tower Gardens. It will either render impossible restoration and renewal or make it more difficult and expensive. I hope that the memorial is not built at all, but if it is built before R&R, it will get in the way. It is impossible to imagine a memorial to 6 million deaths taking shape and being visited when it will be surrounded, right up to its boundaries, by all the paraphernalia that will accompany R&R. Instead of reverence and contemplation, there will be masonry, concrete mixers, builders, scaffolding, material and a jetty, and trucks roaring by and unloading.

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