The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)

My Lords, it is with great respect and solemn reflection that I move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. As I rise today, I do so with a heavy heart and a deep sense of responsibility. As noble Lords will be aware, gradually, as time moves on, we lose many of the first-hand survivors of the Holocaust who were so engaged in the education of our young people and the rest of us. With the permission of the House, I would like to read the names of some of those whom we have lost during this year. Eva Schloss, MBE, who died on 3 January 2026, was a co-founder and honorary president of the Anne Frank Trust UK and stepsister of Anne Frank. Manfred Goldberg, MBE, who died aged 95 on 6 November 2025, was a Holocaust survivor and educator. Manfred’s story is part of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s virtual reality Testimony 360 education programme. Harry Olmer, who died on 15 January 2026, was a Holocaust survivor and Holocaust educator. Vera Schaufeld died in January 2026, aged 95. Vera came to the UK on the Kindertransport and shared her story up and down the country, including with our staff at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Eve Kugler, BEM, was a Holocaust survivor who witnessed Kristallnacht and shared her story, again including with the staff in my department. Suzanne Rappaport Ripton died in June 2025. She was the founder member of the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association, now Holocaust Centre North. Ruth Posner died in September 2025. She was an extraordinary woman who survived the Radom ghetto, slave labour and life in hiding under a false identity. By the end of the war, Ruth and her aunt were the only surviving members of their family. After a dazzling career in theatre and dance, Ruth decided to begin sharing her testimony as a response to rising levels of antisemitism in the UK. I thank all of those who share their testimony and help us remember, and who will continue to make their mark on our remembrance of the Holocaust and its victims. Tomorrow���s Holocaust Memorial Day is not only a date in the diary for me; it is a moment I return to each year with humility and resolve: a day that makes me pause and reflect on the stories I grew up hearing, and the lessons my parents impressed on me about the horrors of hatred. Tomorrow, we remember the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust, and the Roma and Sinti, disabled people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men and political opponents who were also persecuted and killed. Each one had a name, each had a story and each was loved. Behind every number was a human being whose life was cut short by hatred and a machinery of persecution that sought to erase entire communities. We also remember those who, against all the odds, survived. Many rebuilt their lives in the UK and dedicated themselves to sharing their testimony, ensuring that future generations understood both the horrors they endured and the hope they managed to hold on to. Many of us in this room have been privileged to hear these survivors speak with honesty, courage and an often extraordinary generosity of spirit. My own family roots are in the East End of London, once home to a vibrant and close-knit Jewish community. Even those of us whose families were not directly targeted felt the shock waves as news of the camps emerged. In homes such as my parents’ and grandparents’, the stories of what had happened were spoken about with a kind of hushed reverence: an understanding that something beyond comprehension had taken place. They taught us that, while we could never fully feel that depth of pain, we had an absolute duty to learn about it, remember it and pass the lessons on. This year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme, Bridging Generations, feels especially poignant as we move into a time when survivors’ voices are fading. Many have now fallen silent. Yet it is our responsibility to ensure that their legacy does not fade with them. Bridging generations is not an abstract concept: it is the quiet question from a child trying to understand why people were hated for who they were. It is the moment in a school assembly when a survivor’s words change the entire mood of the room. It is the recognition that truth, when spoken plainly, has the power to transform hearts. The Holocaust did not begin with camps and crematoria. It began with words: with prejudice that became normalised, then embedded in policy and then allowed to flourish unchecked. It moved from insult to exclusion, from exclusion to persecution, and from persecution to genocide. Memory is our safeguard. Forgetting is the first step towards repeating history. I feel a profound personal responsibility to ensure that these stories are never lost. That is why I am proud that, in 2024, the Prime Minister pledged that every student in the country should have the opportunity to hear recorded survivor testimony. By enabling every young person to access first-person accounts, we build resilience against distortion and denial. The Holocaust Educational Trust’s Testimony360 programme will allow students to virtually meet survivors and explore historical sites using virtual reality. Long after survivors can no longer be with us, young people will still be able to hear their voices, ask questions and engage with history in a way that feels deeply personal and immediate. The Holocaust Testimony portal, created by the Association of Jewish Refugees and supported by the Government, is another vital initiative. The portal brings together thousands of interviews with survivors, refugees, rescuers and liberators, providing user-friendly access to decades of testimony. Generations to come will be able to learn from those accounts. Initiatives such as Generation 2 Generation ensure that descendants of survivors continue sharing family histories, preserving the human threads that connect past and present. When I was a council leader, I set up a Holocaust memorial event in Stevenage—it was over 15 years ago—and I have been privileged to listen to family and first-hand testimony at that event each year. A couple of years ago, I listened to Anita Peleg speak about her mother, the sculptor Naomi Blake. I remember the hush in the room as Anita played a recording of her mother’s own words. It was the kind of silence that falls when truth settles on the heart: heavy yet somehow illuminating. Naomi Blake, who survived Auschwitz and went on to create art filled with hope and renewal, embodied the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. Hearing her voice reminded me that testimony is not merely information: it is a gift—of courage, of memory and of humanity. Lord Lieutenant Robert Voss, whose parents escaped Nazi Germany, came to our meeting and gave an account of his paternal grandparents, who were murdered in the gas chambers of Sobibor in June 1942. That moment touched me deeply, and strengthened my resolve to ensure that these stories are never allowed to fade. Other projects, such as Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Journeys, a collaboration between the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, and the Jewish Museum of Greece, show how even everyday belongings can bear witness. A pair of glasses, a letter, a suitcase: these objects speak when words fall short. They provide a tangible link to lives interrupted and remind us of the profound human cost of antisemitism and hatred. Restoring names to victims is another sacred responsibility. Yad Vashem’s project to identify the 6 million murdered Jews is a monumental effort grounded in the belief that every person deserves to be remembered. A name is the most personal thing we have: chosen with love and often carried through generations. For the Nazis, names became tools of persecution. For us, restoring them is an act of dignity, remembrance and defiance of those who sought to erase an entire people. Yet today, all too sadly, Holocaust denial and distortion persist. We still see antisemitic slogans and graffiti on our streets and the trivialisation of the Holocaust in public discourse, online spaces and even protests. Antisemitism is not new to Britain; we know that it stretches back to medieval times and, tragically, that it has never disappeared. The Community Security Trust recorded more than 1,500 antisemitic incidents in just the first half of 2025. This rise demands a clear and courageous response. I pay tribute to the CST for all the work it does in supporting our Jewish community. Education remains our strongest defence. Young people are bombarded daily with information, some unreliable and some deliberately misleading. We must ensure they have the tools to distinguish truth from manipulation and history from distortion. Teaching about the Holocaust is not simply about understanding the past; it is about shaping a future where hatred cannot take root so easily. That is why I believe that having the national Holocaust memorial and learning centre at the heart of our capital, beside Parliament, matters so deeply. It will stand as a daily reminder to decision-makers, visitors and future generations that this country takes its responsibility to remember seriously. There are differing views, and it is right that Parliament has debated them so fully, but I feel the duty my parents and grandparents felt to ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust are carried forward with honesty and integrity. We cannot change the history behind us but we can shape the history ahead, and so I make this commitment: I will listen, I will learn, I will speak, and I will help those who come after us to do the same. I look forward to the debate ahead of us this afternoon.