How much will it cost?
MPs raise doubts over whether planned Holocaust memorial is value for money
A Commons committee has asked the government to consider whether the long delayed Holocaust memorial and learning centre that it wants to build in a public park adjoining parliament would be an appropriate use of public money.
In 2015, when the site was chosen, the cost of constructing the memorial was said to be £50 million. MPs were told it would now be more than three times that figure, plus running costs starting at £6 million a year.
In a report published on Friday, the select committee appointed by MPs to examine the Holocaust Memorial Bill said :
We are particularly concerned about the costs around security of a memorial and learning centre, which would need to be taken into account. Security is likely to be required around the clock and this is, as yet, an unknown cost…
It seems to us that the true cost of this project has not been established. We note that it is not unusual for the costs of major projects to increase with time due to unforeseen building issues, the ambition of the project and increases in inflation.
The longer that building works go on, the more expensive this project will become. On this basis, we urge the government to consider how ongoing costs are likely to be paid for and whether it offers appropriate use of public money.
The committee — which has a Conservative majority — also recommended that, before applying for planning permission, the government should explain what steps it would be taking to deal with the threat of terrorism.
MPs were surprised to discover that Victoria Tower Gardens was not chosen for the memorial and learning centre as the result of public consultation. The site was not on the government’s shortlist and was simply recommended by a member of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, an independent body.
“It seems odd that the views of the property consultants were not sought, and a full appraisal and consultation not carried out,” the MPs said. “A full consultation at the site-selection stage would have lent more legitimacy to the final site decision.”
In addition, the government might have discovered earlier that appropriating part of the park would require parliament to repeal legislation passed in 1900. Because some individuals would be more affected by the repeal than others, a hybrid bill would be needed.1
Lawyers for the communities secretary Michael Gove, who introduced the Holocaust Memorial Bill, had claimed that a clause which would allow the project to be built with taxpayers’ money was not hybrid and so could not be considered by members of the committee. “This characterisation,” the MPs concluded, “is not correct.” Because standing orders governing private business applied to the whole bill, it could not be hybrid in part.
Gove’s lawyers had also argued that the committee should ignore anything he had said when the bill was debated in the Commons. Again the committee disagreed. “The notion that we should disregard anything that a minister says in debate when trying to persuade the house to agree to something is wrong,” their report says.
And there were other criticisms of the community secretary’s lawyers:
The promoters took a very restrictive approach to our remit, tabling a very narrow instruction. Yet, they took a very permissive approach to petitioners’ right to be heard, by choosing to forego challenges…
We are of the opinion that the promoter’s decision not to challenge the right to be heard of petitioners should not be used as a precedent for future hybrid or private bills…
In the end, though, the committee decided not to amend the bill. That was because the suggested amendments would either
engage planning considerations, in contravention of the instruction agreed by MPs; or
focus on the principle of the bill, which would be outside the committee’s remit.
Comment
This is the latest in almost a decade of setbacks for government attempts to build a new Holocaust memorial. I reported earlier ones here:
Holocaust memorial back in court 22 February 2022
Memorialists against the memorial 17 April 2023
Holocaust memorial setback 22 May 2023
New setback for Holocaust memorial 27 May 2023
MPs to assess Holocaust memorial bill 10 January 2024
Memorial may be terror risk 23 January 2024
Listening to history 25 January 2024
In the last of these you can watch a devastating attack on the government’s plans by a 98-year-old Holocaust survivor. This is presumably what the committee had in mind when it suggested that some comments by petitioners were not relevant to the legal issues they were meant to be considering.
Like others whose lives have been shaped by the Holocaust, I have long argued that Victoria Tower Gardens is the wrong place for this project. My view has been strengthened by the actions of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in central London since 7 October.
It is becoming increasingly unlikely that the Holocaust Memorial Bill — which has not yet been considered by the House of Lords — will complete its parliamentary passage before the general election. The next government should consider whether the true purpose of the bill could be better met by creating a simple, dignified memorial in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum and spending the rest of the projected cost on much-needed education about the causes — and effects — of antisemitism.
Note to readers: I have failed to meet my promise a week ago that posts would be more sparse than usual during the Passover holiday. I will try harder over the next couple of days.
A hybrid bill is a public bill with private elements: one that affects a particular private or local interest in a manner different from the private or local interests of others in the same category or class.
Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Pondering whether an expendive grandiose memorial is too expensive (whatever that means in the context of the £38 billion wasted on the absurd track and trace app and the £690 million profit grabbed by Michele Mone(ybags) for faulty PPE), is stopping any memorial from being created. I love the idea of spending a more modest amount and sequestering to the remainder to educate today's youth about the realities of what can happen when one race decides that they and only they deserve to be alive.
Quite apart from the objections Joshua has been assiduously reporting here, I had already been reading equally convincing ones from the pens of others. I am sceptical at best about the continuing and perplexing drive by, as it would seem, a mere handful of supporters with little or anything to offer by way of ripostes to those objections. A proposal which seems - shall we say?- less than altogether sound scarcely attracts more as a result of heedless attempted bulldozing through.