The Bishop of St Albans moved two amendments to the Holocaust Memorial Bill on11th March 2025: amendment 22, which would seek to “limit the amount of time that Victoria Tower Gardens can be closed to the public as a result of events linked to the proposed Holocaust memorial and learning centre to three days a year,” and amendment 26, which would seek to “prevent the establishment of refreshment kiosks or static outbuildings in Victoria Tower Gardens.”
The Lord Bishop of St Albans: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for opening this group. I will speak to my Amendment 22, which seeks to limit the amount of time that Victoria Tower Gardens can be closed to the public as a result of events linked to the proposed Holocaust memorial and learning centre to three days a year.
The protection conferred on Victoria Tower Gardens by the original Act of 1900 was put in place to ensure access to the park as a park in perpetuity. This is particularly important to residents in the locality, many of whom live in flats and would not otherwise have access to green spaces. We cannot discuss this Bill without giving due consideration to them and what protections will be in place for them. I note that, in responding to these concerns, the Select Committee report states that limiting the closure dates of Victoria Tower Gardens is a “reasonable request”, as it particularly affects residents who use it on a weekly basis.
There are a number of reasons why the Select Committee’s recommendation 2 and the promotor’s assurance 10 are inadequate to address this and why I suggest that protections need to be enshrined in the Bill, which is what my amendment is designed to do. First, the recommendation by the Select Committee is that this be taken forward in by-laws by the Royal
Parks, as the body responsible for maintaining the parts of Victoria Tower Gardens that fall outside the perimeter of the proposed memorial and learning centre.
Parks owned by local authorities usually rely on by-laws. However, for the Royal Parks there is a succession of Acts of Parliament substituting for these by-laws. Usually, decisions on how to apply these regulations are delegated by the Secretary of State for DCMS to TRP management. However, the Secretary of State has the power to overrule the Royal Parks, as happened in May 2024 when the gardens were closed for three days to the public over a bank holiday weekend for an event. It is worth noting, too, that the Royal Parks remain reliant for 60% of their annual income on DCMS. As a result, it is extremely unlikely that the promoter or the authority subsequently created to run the HMLC would be refused permission to close the parks by DCMS or the Royal Parks if it requested it. That is why there must be protections in the Bill.
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Secondly, assurance 10 given by the promoter, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which is intended to mitigate concerns that the interest of the Holocaust memorial and learning centre may take preference over users of the park and garden, states:
“The Promoter’s intention is for the remit of any permanent independent body that is established to operate and run the proposed Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre … to be limited to the area of Victoria Tower Gardens occupied and used by the HMLC”.
In practice, the whole of Victoria Tower Gardens will be used by the Holocaust memorial and learning centre, whether just on closure days or when considering path interventions, security and all the other concerns. As a result, the assurance effectively gives jurisdiction to the body managed by the Holocaust memorial and learning centre over the management of the whole park.
Not only does this raise a number of concerns, but it is probably unenforceable. The assurances will be under the scrutiny of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government once the Bill reaches Royal Assent, other than those that require reports to be put before Parliament. As the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is the promoter of this project, it will effectively be judge and jury over its own assurances, with no route to challenge or accountability where these assurances are not met.
I look forward to further debate during today’s sitting. The proposed plans for this centre and much-loved public park at the heart of Westminster concern many people and it is right that we preserve as much access as we can.
Extracts from the speeches that followed:
Lord Hope of Craighead (Lab): My Lords, I will speak to the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans on closure dates. I was a member of the Select Committee, which, as he told us, took the view that it should not table an amendment to the Bill. Select Committees are very reluctant to amend a Bill; if we did so, we would have the Bill amended before it reached discussion in this House. The place for consideration of amendments is in Committee or on Report. Whatever you see in paragraph 104 should not inhibit in any way the freedom of this Committee or the House to discuss whether an amendment is appropriate. We set out in appendix 7 to our report the various inhibitions and restrictions on a Select Committee in making amendments. It is well to bear in mind that, while we said that there should be no amendment, that in no way need operate against the right reverend Prelate’s amendment.
Lord Inglewood (CB): My Lords, I want briefly to endorse, in general terms, what has been said already, but I invite your Lordships to look at this slightly differently: from the perspective of land use, in which I have had a considerable amount of experience, in various ways, during my career. The point was well made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, who said that the learning centre will become the focus of Victoria Tower Gardens. When that happens, de facto, if not de jure, Victoria Tower Gardens will become the curtilage of the learning centre and will not be a distinct and important entity.
We have heard about the proposals for the management of the various elements coming to the Victoria Tower Gardens, and some of them seem to be prolix, too complicated, muddled and so on. I do not wish to go down that road. The fundamental point is that, if and when this occurs and is a great success, people will no doubt ask, “Where is the Holocaust memorial learning centre?” and the answer will be, “It is in Victoria Tower Gardens”. When land use changes, the whole character of an area changes. Perhaps the most obvious current example in London is the redevelopment, over the last decade or so, around King’s Cross. It was, frankly, a squalid, low area, but is now up and coming, and entirely different. That has happened organically. These changes happen once something gets under way in an organic way over which Governments have remarkably little control.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con): I am inclined to support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans in his Amendment 22 on closures of the gardens. It is important that the gardens are not closed to local people too often. That can be discussed with local people on an ongoing basis. That happens all over this country where parks are sometimes used for community use, whereby the community talks to the people responsible for the park. I am sure it happens with the Royal Parks as well. Many people enjoy Victoria Tower Gardens regularly; we must consider their interests as we work to deliver the memorial.
I see an argument for the gardens being closed to the public on only a small number of days, and Holocaust Memorial Day would be one example. But the underlying theme here is that we must balance the rights of the different groups who use the gardens, and the right reverend Prelate’s amendment may help achieve that balance. However, it is inappropriate for that to be in the Bill. That is not what the Bill is about. As with many of the amendments that we shall debate today, these are planning considerations. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the amendments in this group.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab, MHCLG): Closures were discussed in some depth by the Lords Select Committee. The result was that the committee’s special report directed a recommendation to the Royal Parks—which manages the gardens on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—to consider this matter going forward. A number of noble Lords, in particular the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, mentioned the closure of Victoria Tower Gardens for the Yom HaShoah event on Sunday 5 May. This was requested by the then Culture Secretary because the gardens’ location made them more accessible for frail Holocaust survivors than the usual venue in Hyde Park. Contrary to claims by petitioners at the hearing on 20 November, our understanding is that the partial closure was for one day only, with the playground remaining open until midday—not the three days that have been mentioned. No decisions have been taken on future closures of the entirety of Victoria Tower Gardens to facilitate Holocaust-related commemoration events once the Holocaust memorial and learning centre is built.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans: My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 26. First, I add that, living in Hertfordshire, I am in touch with the distinguished Buxton family of today, one of whom is about to become our high sheriff sometime soon. They have expressed to me in correspondence something of their great concern.
Amendment 26 seeks to prevent the establishment of refreshment kiosks or static outbuildings in Victoria Tower Gardens. The first thing I want to mention relates to the preservation of the atmosphere of the park, which provides a valuable place of rest and relaxation to so many. Hot dog stands, souvenir stalls, litter and crowding would significantly change the character and experience of the park. If this project is as successful as it is planned to be, it will attract large numbers of people and potentially long queues. I believe that it would be proportionate and necessary to protect the park from this in the Bill. It has already been questioned whether it would be appropriate to have snacks, crisps and drinks for sale at the site of a memorial that is reflecting on the extraordinary suffering of so many people.
Further, the plans proposed for the centre show a new kiosk at the southern end of the garden, near the children’s playground. The Select Committee reported significant concerns regarding large crowds of visitors to the proposed centre at a kiosk immediately adjacent to the playground, raising child safety issues. Its recommendation 1 is that the kiosk be removed from present plans. Significantly, in response to this recommendation, the promoter stated only that they would look carefully at the design and location of the kiosk, not that they would remove it. The promoter has given the Select Committee an assurance that a review will be carried out with the design team of the arrangements proposed for the southern end of the gardens, with a view to ensuring an appropriate separation of the playground from other visitors to the gardens, including visitors to the proposed centre.
My concerns around the enforceability or account-ability of the assurances given by the promoter, which I mentioned earlier with reference to Amendment 22, also apply here, and give rationale for my seeking to enshrine these restrictions in the Bill.
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