Lord Blencathra (Con)

I cannot speak for my noble friends, but I deeply resent the suggestion that our suggestions for a proper memorial are somehow a tactic to delay and destroy the Bill. All of us on this side of the argument are deeply committed to a proper memorial, the memorial the Holocaust Commission recommended: one which is appropriately British and which recognises the killing of 6 million Jews, not the thing that was accepted by the last Government. I exempt the Minister from most of the blame for this; he is carrying on the vanity proposals of the Cameron Government. I want to get to the bottom of a comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Austin, and my noble friend Lord Pickles: that it is purely for the Shoah, and no other genocides will be there. But paragraph 3 of the Explanatory Notes refers to “the persecution … of other groups … subsequently”. On Second Reading, the Minister said: “The learning centre will also address subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur”.—[Official Report, 4/9/24; col. GC 1224.] Is the noble Lord saying that the Minister was lying when he told the House on Second Reading that it would commemorate other genocides? Was he telling the truth, was he misguided, or was it a lie? [Interruption.]