L

Lord Pickles (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 4 March 2025

Debate

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Contribution

Can I just finish this point? I am not criticising. It is within the rules. Nobody is doing anything wrong. But it does not look terribly good from the outside. We do not like the design. We have become almost like Queen Anne. We kick over a stool and say, “Build it like that”. This design won an international competition among top international architects. Frankly, saying it looked like something that somebody in Canada objected to is wrong. That is the style of the architect, Ron Arad. It would be a bit like saying to Picasso, when he was going through his blue period, “That’s enough, Pablo. Too much blue.” That is the nature of Ron Arad’s work. The trust that had been put together to raise the sums of money cannot start until we have proper planning permission. We cannot gather lots of money, although Sir Gerald Ronson is confident that we can do it. The state of the park is a disgrace. We have allowed it to get into such a situation.

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