Lord Pickles (Con)

My Lord, I am most grateful to noble Lords. Again, I would appreciate a degree of latitude. First, coming to the point that was made with regard to the advisory nature, it was always an advisory committee. When Bazalgette resigned to go on to other artistic projects, I was appointed, along with Ed Balls, as a co-chair to demonstrate the political unity of putting this together. I was disturbed by what my noble friend Lord Blencathra —my dear friend—said. He seemed to be almost on the defensive to suggest that if you are opposed to this, somehow you are opposed to Jewish people or opposed to Israel. Nobody thinks that and no one has a greater, more distinguished record in their support of Jewish people than my noble friend Lord Blencathra. I want to make that absolutely clear. I admire my noble friend Lord Blencathra. He was an amazing Chief Whip when we were in opposition, as indeed my noble friend opposite was an amazing Whip. He taught me many things, one of which was the kind of amendment to put down to embarrass the Government, to hold them down and to get them to say various things. He did it with great style. But there is something that we need to be clear about. We saw a newspaper article yesterday. I do not blame the reporter—they are as good as the information they are given. I should be grateful if, when the Minister comes to reply, he can confirm that in all the briefings that he received, none suggested that this memorial would be about the glorification of the British Empire or the trivialisation of the Holocaust, or that the Holocaust would be diluted by references to other genocides. A lot of the amendments before us might best be described as about planning. There is always a balance in planning. There is no absolute, and that is why we have such an elaborate system of planning to test the damages and balances. We are almost trying to set ourselves up as a planning authority to second-guess. This Committee, distinguished as it is, is not in a good position to do that because supporters and objectors do not have the same rights as they would have in a planning application, committee or appeal. There is also an element in this of marking our own homework. If this went through a planning committee now—there is no criticism of anybody here—the fact that people who are expressing views live close by would be taken into account. If they were on a planning committee, they would have to recuse themselves. They would not be able to speak or vote. We cannot have a situation in this country where it is one rule for their Lordships and another rule for the rest of the country.