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Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorist legislation for a decade, has called for the location of the new National Holocaust Memorial to be moved from next to Parliament because it represents “a very real terrorist risk”.
In a petition to the House of Lords which debated the Holocaust Memorial Bill this week, he warned: “Recent events in Israel/Palestine cannot be ignored. They have heightened the danger of action against Jewish interests in London, and may have diluted public support for placing the proposed centre so close to the Palace of Westminster.”
He added that siting of the new memorial centre for “security reasons, including vulnerability to attack from the River Thames, may require the whole of Victoria Tower Gardens to be treated as a high-level security risk” and that “this is both inimical to the purposes and ambience of such a memorial and also to all the other uses and purposes of VTG as a public park”.
The memorial centre is planned to be built on part of the gardens – which led to a court case supported by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, because it broke a 1900 law that prevented any building on the public park in perpetuity.
The objectors won the case, resulting in Rishi Sunak‘s Government deciding to legislate to overturn the 1900 law. Legislation passed through the House of Commons before July’s General Election but had not been debated in the Lords.
Sunak and Keir Starmer decided to fast track the bill by agreeing to carry it over to the next Parliament, unlike other legislation such as the renters reform bill and the smoking ban, which have to start from scratch in the new Parliament.
Lord Carlile wants the security services to provide evidence to peers when the bill reaches the committee stage. He backed up his views in a debate this week warning peers: “Terrorists are often not stupid people—they know how to cause terror.
“Everybody who goes near that centre or enters the garden would see police officers holding machine guns, as we have outside Peers’ Entrance. There would have to be detailed searches. It would take hours to get in and out of the premises. It would be open only by appointment to people who had booked on the internet the previous day; it would not be open to the general public simply to walk around the grounds and see memorials to the Holocaust which had been erected there.”
A large number of peers – including a number like him who were children of people who survived the Holocaust – objected to the size of the memorial in the park and damage to the roots of 100-year-old plane trees because of the underground construction. They also said it was too small to fulfil its purpose as a memorial and a learning centre, but too big dominating the park.
Lord Strathclyde sent in a petition signed by 43 peers of all parties including former Cabinet secretary Lord Turnbull; Lord King, a former Conservative Defence Secretary; and Baroness Bakewell.
A minority of peers in the debate strongly supported the scheme going ahead as fast as possible, including former Prime Minister David Cameron, who originally proposed the building of the Holocaust Memorial in 2015.
Since he proposed it, peers were told the cost of centre had gone up from £50 million to £138 million and could go higher.
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The National Audit Office, in a report two years ago, covered by Byline Times, predicted costs would rise because of the controversial decision to place it in the Victoria Tower Gardens and not at an alternative site.
A number of peers wanted it sited near the Imperial War Museum which already has a gallery featuring the Holocaust.
The memorial designed by an award winning Ghanaian-British architect, Sir David Adjaye, was selected in a competition, which included a sculpture of 23 bronze fins leading visitors to an underground learning centre.
But in a further problem hitting the project, the architect has had to recuse himself from supervising it after the Financial Times revealed he was facing allegations of sexual misconduct from three women employed by him in his practice. David Adjaye has denied the allegations published in the Financial Times.