Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)

My Lords, I contributed to earlier Holocaust Memorial Bill debates, and I shall speak briefly in this one. I was moved to do so mainly by the remarks of my noble friend Lord Wolfson, who made the excellent point that the amendment talks about “The main purpose of any Learning Centre”, which dilutes the original amendments and raises the possibility that there might be other purposes. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, knows, although we have disagreed on a number of things, I am an enormous admirer of all the hard work she has done to support the concept of Holocaust education, and I put on record my particular thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Khan. It has been heartwarming to listen to him and I admire him for the work he did in his position. The point I want to make to both the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the Minister is to ask for clarification. In the Bill and in the amendments, there is reference to “a Holocaust”, but the particular paragraph that bites, Clause 1(1)(a), talks about “the construction on, over or under any land of … a memorial commemorating the victims of the Holocaust”, and that is crystal clear. The centre for learning has to be relating to the memorial. I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Deech: why is there any uncertainty about this? Is it not clear in the Bill that it has to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust? As my noble friend Lord Wolfson said, now is the time to move on.