Contribution
My Lords, I was half way through explaining my position on the proposals of the Bill. I believe that there should be a memorial to the Holocaust and that it should be in Victoria Tower Gardens. I would work with almost anybody regarding the design. I do not think that the present design is particularly attractive. I also support the proposal for a learning centre but have difficulty with putting that into Victoria Tower Gardens, for the reasons that have been given by my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. That site is not suitable for the scale and importance of the task that it would be undertaking. That is the background to Amendments 29 and 30—the need for a campus and all the other things that have been mentioned.
Amendment 31 has a slight additional edge to it, because the Jewish Museum in Camden has closed due to a lack of funding. All its exhibits are now in storage. It might be worth while considering that this could be included in an overall context of a British-Jewish experience and a national, or London, Jewish museum. That is simply the background and purpose of Amendment 31: that this is included in any consideration of alternative sites.
My noble friend Lady Scott—I know she is “of Bybrook”—explained that we had to consider some of the tangential impacts. I will do that briefly now—again in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone—because quite a lot of what is talked about on the tangential experience is based on poor evidence and soggy experience. Those of us who have offices in Millbank, as I do, see how very crowded the pavements and the areas outside are all the time—particularly in the summer, obviously, but nearly all the time. Obviously, there is a bus shelter for Transport for London. There are coach points where people come to hop on and hop off tourist buses, and where students are dropped for tours of Parliament, all of which are very worthy things. If you walk along there on an ordinary day, you will find that not only is the pavement crowded but, because of the black crash barrier, you have a choke point that makes it even more crowded before you can get to where you can turn right into the Victoria Tower Gardens or go straight on to Black Rod’s Garden entrance.
I raised this issue with the committee and I was ruled out of order. The committee said, in paragraph 56 of its report:
“These concerns do not confer an entitlement to be heard and … the Standing Orders do not confer on us any discretion to consider his petition”.
Of course, I accept the Standing Orders of your Lordships’ House, but we are now moving from the rather dry area of Standing Orders to the real world. What is going to happen in this area over the many years ahead? If an activity or something inside the periphery of the area—that is, inside the gardens—causes trouble, difficulties, problems or inconvenience in the immediate environment outside, that at least demands to be considered and weighed in the scale. I would therefore like to tackle that briefly now.
In his reply in the Second Reading debate, the Minister said:
“We estimate that there will be 11 coaches per day, using a proposed coach bay on a quieter section of Millbank”.—[Official Report, 4/9/24; col. 1225.]
I have done a bit of research, because I have been popping into coaches for the last few days to ask, “How many passengers do you carry?” The truth is that I have not found one that carries fewer than 55 or more than 70, so we have an average of probably around 60 or 65. Eleven coaches a day is 660 people. Are we going to do all this for 660 people? Surely not. The idea is that this should be much bigger than that. If we then ask what estimates are being given for the number of people, it comes out usually as between 3,000 and 4,000. That number means that you are going to need about 58 coaches a day. If you are open between 9 am and 4 pm with a line for a 45-minute tour of the building—that is, for seven hours—that will be eight coaches per hour: one every seven minutes. Those are the numbers that we are likely to have to face.
I am sure the Minister does not know anything about the 11 coaches per hour; he was given a speaking note by his official. I am not suggesting he made this up at all. However, we need to think more carefully about this, because at present, the footfall and the impact on the area is absolutely clearly underestimated. If I may just quote from his speaking note one more time, he suggested using a proposed coach bay on a “quieter section of Millbank”. I invite him to get his officials to take him to a quieter section of Millbank. There is no quieter section of Millbank—it is a main thoroughfare where traffic passes all the time. I hope we can get more clarity on what the tangential impact is likely to be in the areas around what is proposed.
I share the view that the learning centre is not in a good place. In my view, it is going to be born in the spirit of rancour, whereas it surely should be born in the spirit of remembrance and healing. I hope that the Minister will be able to demonstrate that the Government are listening to all the points being made, and we do not just have a situation of “Put the pedal to the metal and get this thing done as quickly as possible”.