Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)

My Lords, I have been listening carefully to this debate and asking myself the question: for whose benefit is this memorial to be created? For whose benefit did the noble Lord, Lord Pickles—and I praise much of the work he has done on this—and does the Minister believe that this memorial and learning centre ought to be created? Who are the intended direct beneficiaries and who are the intended indirect beneficiaries—for there are those two categories? One thing that this proposal is not intended to provide is justification for entrenched views held by former and current Ministers or other politicians. The two groups for whom this proposal provides benefit and should be the intended beneficiaries, I suggest, are as follows. I start with the first group by referring to the Haggadah. The Haggadah, as many in this Room will know, is the liturgy that is read at seder dinners at the beginning of Passover, and it tells the story of the Exodus. That is a very important concept in what we are discussing here. The whole concept of the wandering Jew is linked with the Exodus, and the Exodus has now gone on for thousands of years. Jews have left various countries for safety, come to other countries where they have found a good life and then, from time to time, it has been disrupted by yet another bout of terrible antisemitism, with huge quantities of murder.