Government ‘fully committed’ to Westminster Holocaust Memorial despite legal setback

The Government remains “fully committed” to building the UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to parliament, the Board of Deputies have been told.

Speaking to Deputies at last Sunday’s July meeting, Sally Sealey, head of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, admitted backers of the £109 million project had been “disappointed” when a High Court judge upheld a legal challenge to the site of the monument in the heart of Westminster.

Sealey, who works closely with co-chairs Lord Pickles and Ed Balls at the Foundation, told Deputies that there was currently a challenge planned in court over the shock ruling, made in July.

She also confirmed that the Government did not have an alternative site for the Memorial and Learning Centre to be built at.

Attempting to stem criticism over the mounting cost of the project, including by the National Audit Office in a report published last week, Sealey, who works for the Department of Levelling Up, said:”If you can all cast your minds back to when David Cameron first announced, way back in 2014, and an announcement in 2015 that the government would give £50 million to kickstart a fund-raising effort.

“It was never suggested that the memorial would cost £50 million. It was just to kickstart it.”

Sealey said that following a design competition the government gave another £25 million, to be matched by donations from outside giving.

She also slammed suggestions put forward by critics of the project that the money would be better spent on Holocaust education.

Sealey said: “This is capital, if we don’t use it for the Holocaust Memorial it will go back to the treasury, not for Holocaust education.”

She also justified the decision to build the Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens.

Sealey stressed the site was actually owned by the government, and that only 7.5 per cent of the Royal Park would be used for the project.

She said the park itself would also be enhanced to make it more “user friendly”.

Meanwhile, she also said that unlike the Imperial War Museum’s exhibition on the Holocaust story as “a whole”, the new Learning Centre would take a critical look at Britain’s actions.

“It will focus on what we knew, when we knew, and why we didn’t do anything about it when we knew,” said Seale,who recalled how the Kindertransport had to be funded by the Jewish community themselves.

“If we want to criticise other nations,” she added, “we need to be honest ourselves.”